Although this chapter’s primary emphasis was on social
structure, the approaches provide a basis from which process theories may be considered. For example, an environmental explanation of criminal behavior might include
not only the ecology of the area in which the criminal
behavior occurs but also the impact that the environment
has on a person’s decision to engage in criminal behavior.
The process of becoming a criminal might be intertwined
with the structure in which the behavior takes place. Thus,
these social-structural explanations are important not only
for their own merit in explaining criminal behavior but
also for the framework they establish for process theories.
In developing an understanding of how to reduce
crime, we need to assess sociological theories that are concerned with the process of becoming a criminal. The contributions of sociologists in this area are significant. The
next chapter is devoted to those developments.