1987 Film The Untouchables

Different sociological theories have been offered to explain social disruptions and the onset and operation of crime in our society. Crime is not a single entity, of course--there are different kinds of crime, different levels of crime, and probably different reasons for crime. Theories can be expected to explain certain types of criminal activity more effectively than others, and gang activity is one such type of crime. It involves issues of social stratification, social structure, economic forces, and so on. Organized crime can be analyzed using theories such as Routine Activity, Strain Theory, and Differential Association. These issues can also be examined in terms of dramatic presentations of such criminal activity. The film The Untouchables depicts issues of organized crime and social breakdown in the context of the early years of the Great Depression, a period when bootlegging became the primary business for certain crime groups and when warfare between crime families produced an era of great violence on the streets of major cities such as Chicago and New York. This was also the era in which the basic organizational structure of American crime was consolidated, leading directly to the organized crime of today. The plot of the film will be given, followed by an analysis of three of the sociological theories that can then be applied to the film to find how well each theory explains what is seen and the social forces that contributed to it. The film

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s are learned. Deviance thus requires, in effect, a teacher or teachers. Third, the learning of criminal behavior takes place primarily within intimate personal groups, or through close association with social companions such as family, friends, and peers. Relationships with any of these individuals can influence the interpretation of everyday events, causing young people to overcome social controls until they embrace delinquent values and behavior (Siegel & Senna, 1994, 177). Edwin H. Sutherland proposed Differential Association in 1939, with the final theory offered in 1947. The theory holds that criminal behavior is learned behavior and that it is learned by way of social interaction with others. Individuals learn values from interaction with others. It is not who the associates are but what criminal definitions they offer that is important ("Sutherland's Differential Association," 1999). Refinements have been made in differential association theory, such as differential reinforcement theory, which presents differential association in the format of behavioral theory and suggests that delinquent behavior is shaped by stimuli or reactions of others to such behavior. Social behavior is thus learned through conditioning.

Category: Film - 1