Page 17 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 5: Situational Action Theory

Wikstrom notes how social and those peers are more likely to
disadvantages are played-out in be crime prone”.
relation to criminogenic exposure:
Finally in this respect, Wikstrom
“Young people from and Treiber conclude:
disadvantaged backgrounds “The impact of social
spend more time on average in disadvantage on young people’s
leisure activities, including crime may be primarily through
socialising, than young people disadvantage-induced selection
from more advantaged processes which place
backgrounds, and more of this disadvantaged young people
time is unstructured.
more often than others in
Disadvantaged young people also developmental contexts that are
spend more time on average conducive to the development of
unsupervised, and in particular a higher crime propensity.”
unsupervised with their peers,

Conclusions

We can sum-up these ideas in a very simple way by
CONCLUSION
noting:

� Crime propensity and criminogenic exposure are causes of criminality.

� Social disadvantage influences crime propensity through its impact on things like the
ability to self-control and attitudes towards crime and the law.

� Social disadvantage impacts on an individual’s criminogenic exposure through the
greater likelihood of being exposed to crime – both physically, in the sense of being in
places conducive to criminality and mentally in terms of higher levels of association
with criminally-minded peers.

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