The discussion and study of the nature of crime has been going on for decades, within it has been the popular study of society’s criminogenic constitution. Robert Merton, Messner and Rosenfeld, and Sampson and Groves are only a few of the popular names within the criminology world, each making a great contribution to the study of crime in America. Messner and Rosenfeld bring the analysis of societies’ institutions in their Institutional-Anomie Theory, further expanding on Merton’s anomie theory at a macro-level. Sampson and Grove elaborate on Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory, which instates that weak community links, lack of trust and lack of youth supervision can lead to destruction of social control and further lead to higher
