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48 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 12 (1957-1958)
Social Disorganization and Stake in Conformity: Complementary Factors in the Predatory Behavior of Hoodlums

handle is hein.journals/jclc48 and id is 22 raw text is: SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION AND STAKE IN CONFORMITY: COMPLEMENTARY FACTORS IN THE PREDATORY BEHAVIOR OF HOODLUMS' JACKSON TOBY The author is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University and the holder of a Faculty Fellowship of the Social Science Research Council. He was during 1955, Co-Director of the Conference on Juvenile Delinquency in New Jersey con- ducted by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Prince- ton University. His Ph.D. Dissertation, Educational Maladjustment as a Predis- posing Factor in Criminal Careers: A Comparative Study of Ethnic Groups, Harvard, 1950, contains a more extensive discussion of some of the points raised in this article.- EDITOR. The American standard of living is one of the highest of any nation, yet burglary, robbery, car theft, and other forms of larceny are frequent. These predatory crimes are, as a matter of fact, much more numerous than crimes against the person such as murder, rape, and aggravated assault. Furthermore, and this accentuates the para- dox, in the United States a thief who steals because he is hungry or cold is a rarity. Tam ROLE OF SOCIAL VIGILANCE Why should so much stealing occur in a rich country? The age and socio-economic status of arrested offenders provide some clues. American thieves are usually young hoodlums from slum neighborhoods. An explanation of their youth and neighbor- hood of residence is that people are more prone to act upon'their anti-social impulses when external controls over them are weak. Thus, one reason why adolescents are ar- rested more often than older or younger people is that adolescents are less likely to be under the influence of a family unit; they are becoming emancipated from the family into which they were born but have not yet married and got involved in a new family unit. Similarly, slum dwellers commit more thefts than suburbanites because stealing is not universally frowned on in deteriorated neighborhoods as it is in wealth- ier communities.' In short, predatory crime occurs when social vigilance is reduced. Case histories of hoodlum type thieves generally support the social disorganiza- tion explanation of stealing. Commonly, the street-corner rowdy grew up in a chaotic household. His parents exercised ineffectual control over him, not necessarily be- cause of indifference, but because they were overwhelmed by their own difficulties: chronic warfare in the household; death, desertion, or serious illness of the bread- winner; mental deficiency or disease; alcoholism; gambling; promiscuity; too many children for an unskilled father to support or a harried mother to supervise. Such problems not only reduce the effectiveness of parental control. By curtailing income I It is of course possible to question these statements about the real incidence of stealing be- havior. Data exist for arrested persons but not for offenders who eluded the police. WALTER RECK- LESS, for example, speaks only of categoric risks in crime, and thereby avoids the danger of unwarranted inferences. See his text. TI CRIsM PROBLEM, 2nd ed., New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1955, pp. 26-42.

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