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Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie

The work presented here is an original contll"ibution to an established theoll"y of crime and deviant behaviour - the theory of anomie. It begins by discussing some fundamental problems in the study of crime and pmceeds to argue that the sociological interpretation is one of the most comprehensive a...

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Main Author: Midgley, James
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Sociology 2024
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access_status_str Open Access
author Midgley, James
author_browse Midgley, James
author_facet Midgley, James
author_sort Midgley, James
collection Thesis
description The work presented here is an original contll"ibution to an established theoll"y of crime and deviant behaviour - the theory of anomie. It begins by discussing some fundamental problems in the study of crime and pmceeds to argue that the sociological interpretation is one of the most comprehensive and useflll approaches in modem criminology. · While the theory of anomie has considerable status among sociological theories of crime, it is suggested that one of its most serious drawbacks is the way in which terms and meaning have been confused and inadequately operationalized for· the pull'poses of researdi • . The work presented here makes a contribution to the theory of anomie and research into it, by attempting to analyse and clarify theoretical meanings and operational definitions; by· formulating a theoretical conception and suitable operational measure of anomie; by applying this measure in an empirical setting and demonstrating that conditions of anomie may be isolated; by subiecting the main propositions of Robert Merton1 s_theory to empirical test. It is, therefore, a contribution to both the9ry and reseorch into anomie. / It is possible that the use of the Coloured population of Cape Town as research subjects may mislead the reader. The research reported here is not an attempt to explain high rates of crime and deviance in the Coloured population. It is not even attempting to suggest that the theory of anomie is a suitable model for explaining crime and deviance in '.South African society. From another perspective the research attempted todemonstratedthat the concept of anomie might be empirically operationalized, that conditions of anomie might be isolated in the real world and that the theory of anomie might be subiected to empirical test. In this way it constituted an original contribution to knowledge.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:31:30.019Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2024
publishDateRange 2024
publishDateSort 2024
publisher Department of Sociology
publisherStr Department of Sociology
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/40438 Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie Midgley, James Sociology The work presented here is an original contll"ibution to an established theoll"y of crime and deviant behaviour - the theory of anomie. It begins by discussing some fundamental problems in the study of crime and pmceeds to argue that the sociological interpretation is one of the most comprehensive and useflll approaches in modem criminology. · While the theory of anomie has considerable status among sociological theories of crime, it is suggested that one of its most serious drawbacks is the way in which terms and meaning have been confused and inadequately operationalized for· the pull'poses of researdi • . The work presented here makes a contribution to the theory of anomie and research into it, by attempting to analyse and clarify theoretical meanings and operational definitions; by· formulating a theoretical conception and suitable operational measure of anomie; by applying this measure in an empirical setting and demonstrating that conditions of anomie may be isolated; by subiecting the main propositions of Robert Merton1 s_theory to empirical test. It is, therefore, a contribution to both the9ry and reseorch into anomie. / It is possible that the use of the Coloured population of Cape Town as research subjects may mislead the reader. The research reported here is not an attempt to explain high rates of crime and deviance in the Coloured population. It is not even attempting to suggest that the theory of anomie is a suitable model for explaining crime and deviance in '.South African society. From another perspective the research attempted todemonstratedthat the concept of anomie might be empirically operationalized, that conditions of anomie might be isolated in the real world and that the theory of anomie might be subiected to empirical test. In this way it constituted an original contribution to knowledge. 2024-07-23T12:47:25Z 2024-07-23T12:47:25Z 1971 2024-07-23T08:20:53Z Thesis / Dissertation Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40438 eng application/pdf Department of Sociology Faculty of Humanities
spellingShingle Sociology
Midgley, James
Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie
title_full Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie
title_fullStr Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie
title_full_unstemmed Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie
title_short Crime and normlessness : an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie
title_sort crime and normlessness an attempt to isolate conditions of anomie
topic Sociology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40438
work_keys_str_mv AT midgleyjames crimeandnormlessnessanattempttoisolateconditionsofanomie