Collective Efficacy (Essay Sample)

COLLECTIVE EFFICACY
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Collective efficacy is a significant aspect when it comes to preventing and controlling anti-social behavior including criminal activities in a neighborhood (Cagney & Browning, 2002). It values the feeling of responsibility and the willingness of members of the society to help in monitoring children collectively to help improve social ties and educe chances of crime occurring in the neighborhood. One of the major strengths of collective efficacy is the fact that it acts as a protective factor by making the neighbors feel the sense of agency and a profound enthusiasm to mediate in support of the common good (Cagney & Browning, 2002). This is such that neighbors act as agents of maintaining social ties and monitoring all activities carried out by members of the society especially the children and youths who are more vulnerable to indulging in crime and anti-social behavior. For instance, collective efficacy enables an individual to question a child on his/her behavior or (dreadful) action taken. Moreover, they may still have the capacity to correct such behavior in absence of a close relative to the offender. With this, the neighborhood comes out clean in terms of crime or the crime rates decrease for the criminals are under watch and are aware that they are being monitored (Cagney & Browning, 2002).
On the other hand, collective efficacy also comes in with some limitations. As much as it may help reduce crime rates or lead to an improvement in social ties, there are particular aspects about it that are quite detrimental. In collective efficacy theory, the aspect of mutual trust is given significance (Cagney & Browning, 2002). However, the theory fails to acknowledge the fact that distrust has been shown to be a mechanism for collective action as well. For collective action to be effective, mutual trust is a guarantee in such a manner that all members of the society trust the actions of one another in monitoring behavior of their children. However, mistrust is one catalyst of collective efficacy. For instance, if an individual doubts or fails to trust his neighbor, they may be forced to monitor or watch carefully the actions and behavior o...