NCJ Number
114558
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 25 Issue: 4 Dated: (November 1988) Pages: 351-374
Date Published
1988
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This article presents a theoretical analysis of the concept of community in criminology.
Abstract
It illustrates some of the pitfalls of assuming that the community concept is a unitary social phenomenon by borrowing from urban sociology a critique of the conventional concept of community. It is shown that the conventional conceptualization is untenable when addressing the question of the presumed decline of community. It is argued that traditional social science conclusions about a decline in community were subject not only to the myopia of historical locations but also to the burden of viewing community as territorially and normatively defined. By contrast, the social network approach to social phenomena frees criminology from the traditional notion of community and encourages an analysis of patterns of relationships and links between individuals, groups, and organizations. Such an approach allows greater attention to be paid to nonlocal crime as well as to vertical structural linkages between different levels of social control. By focusing attention on the community as a network of personal networks, this approach facilitates insights into the nature of deviance, criminality, and the criminal justice system that otherwise might not be obtained. At the present, the appeal of the approach is largely at the conceptual and methodological level. Support for it ultimately lies in its successful empirical application. 10 notes and approximately 125 references. (Author abstract modified)