This article elaborates and extends Sutherland’s [
Principles of criminology (4th ed.), Lippincott, Philadelphia, Sutherland (1947)] concept of differential social organization, the sociological counterpart
to his social psychological theory of differential association. Differential social organization contains a static structural
component, which explains crime rates across groups, as well as a dynamic collective action component, which explains changes
in crime rates over time. I argue that by drawing on George Herbert Mead’s [
Mind, self, and society. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Mead (1934)] theories of symbolic interaction and social control, we can conceptualize
organization in favor of, and against, crime as collective behavior. We can then integrate theoretical mechanisms of models
of collective behavior, including social network ties, collective action frames, and threshold models of collective action.
I illustrate the integrated theory using examples of social movements against crime, neighborhood collective efficacy, and
the code of the street.
A portion of this chapter was presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology, Toronto, Canada, November
16–19. The research upon which this paper was based was supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (SES-0004323)
and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA18148). The funding agencies bear no responsibility for the analyses and interpretations
drawn here. James F. Short, Jr. and Joachim Savelsberg generously provided comments on an earlier draft.