URBAN DECAY AND EXISTENTIAL CHOICE: SARTRE’S PHILOSOPHICAL EXPANSION OF SOCIAL DISORGANISATION THEORY

Abstract

Studies are never left with one final conclusion as to why an individual commits a crime. For criminology theories are bound to explore all the circumstances of how one decides to do an unlawful act. Very much so, that the most prominent factor is the external factor. This would include the conditions and routines of its neighbourhood. Consequently, it is to be argued that dysfunctions in society such as poverty and discrimination would result in a high crime rate. This is due to the fact that the existence of inconsistency and instability on the condition of the neighbourhood had put strain which caused a collapse of social control. As Shaw and Mckay (1942) emphasised that delinquency is a normal response by normal people to abnormal social conditions in disorganised neighbourhoods. While so, some philosophers would argue that this criminology theory may be resolved or even debunked. Numbers of philosophical theory, one of which is existentialist, argued that individuals are prevented from following society's behaviour by acknowledging that they are a free man. But what is a free man? How does it explain social disorganisation theory? How could existentialists develop the social disorganisation theory? This paper will explore arguments as well as rendezvous towards Shaw and Mckay’s social disorganisation theory with Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism philosophical view.