Kobrin, Solomon: Neighborhoods and Crime

John R. Hipp & Aaron Roussell

Solomon Kobrin was a neighborhoods and crime scholar who worked in the tradition of the Chicago social ecology school. His work with Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay was important for furthering social disorganization theory, a key theory in the community crime literature during the 20th century. His theoretical developments expanded the cultural side of social disorganization theory while providing cogent critiques for the theory; his empirical work demonstrated a rare longitudinal perspective; and his applied work with the Chicago Area Project involved him deeply in his community. Social disorganization theory originally rested on two causal mechanisms: differential social organization (informal social control) and differential systems of values (cultural transmission). Although much contemporary social disorganization research focuses on the former mechanism, Kobrin's theoretical contributions fall largely within the latter. Kobrin (1951) viewed delinquency in socially disorganized communities as normative behavior within an alternative criminal value system. However, most juveniles in Kobrin ...

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