CRIM 2650 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Anti-Imperialism, Classical Liberalism, Child Pornography
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Thursday, October 5, 2017
CRIM 2650
Lecture #5!
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)!
-Born in a Jewish family in Epinal, a small town in France on the German border!
-Experienced war in 1871!
•The ideal of a peaceful, harmonious and orderly society!
•Critical of conflicts, upheavals and revolutions!
•Not a radical socialist, bur shared socialist ideals (ie: re-distribution of wealth)!
-Attended rabbinical school!
-Agnostic at the age of 14!
-Retained strong ties with the Jewish community!
-Despite being a secularist, ED viewed religion as a unifying source!
-Broad understanding of religion as a belief source!
•Includes belief in collective ideas, i.e.: God, country, flag, the ideal of a just society!
-Received the first doctor’s degree in Sociology in 1892!
•Considered as the founder of sociology!
-In 1894/95 he was involved in the Dreyfus affair!
•Individual rights in a collective context!
-Dominated sociology until his death in 1917!
-Three of his major publications influenced criminological theory: The Division of
Labour in Society (1893), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Suicide (1897).!
•His work on religion (1912), remains to be explored by criminologists (ie: Pearce
2001, Smith 2008)!
Introduction: Historical Setting!
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Thursday, October 5, 2017
-ED was critical of both classical theory’s ‘autonomous individual’ (e.g. rational actor)
and biological positivism’s ’biologically determined individual’ (e.g. born criminal)
theses. !
-External social forces determine human conduct. In order to understand human
conduct we should look at:!
•The ways in which societies are organized (ie: types of division of labour, social
solidarity, legal codes, social institutions) !
•Collective consciousness: beliefs and sentiments common to entire society!
-ED shifted the focus from individual to society!
Concepts!
-Social Facts!
-Mechanical Solidarity/ Organic Solidarity!
-Collective Consciousness!
-The Division of Labour!
•Anomic Division of Labour, Forced Division of Labour!
-The normal and the pathological!
-Anomie!
Durkheim in Criminology!
-Social Solidarity and Collective Consciousness (This Week)!
•Definition of Crime!
•Responses to Crime: Law , Punishment!
•Anomie (Next Week)!
•Causes of Crime!
Social Facts!
-Social facts (consist of ways of thinking, acting and feeling that are external to the
individual and are endowed with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise
control over him” (Durkheim 1895/2004: 58-9).!
1) Independent of and external to individuals !
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Thursday, October 5, 2017
2) Constraining/coercive: shape individuals’ actions !
•Structure ways of thinking, acting and feeling!
-Social facts can be embodied in cultural norms/ values and social institutions, such
as religions, division of labour, political forms, or legal codes.!
-Examples of Social Facts: Cultural Norms!
The Division of Labour in Society (1893)!
-ED classified societies in relation to different types of social structures and
sociologically significant elements!
•Social morphology vs. Lombroso’s biological morphology!
-Comparative-historical method to study complex social phenomena!
Main Arguments!
-“The connection between the individual personality and social solidarity” (ED
1893/1994: 7)!
-There are two different kinds of society both solidaristic!
•Solidaristic: there are produced feelings of identification with other members of the
society and with society as a whole!
-One is grounded in mechanical solidarity while the other one is grounded in organic
solidarity!
-The division of labour shapes the form of social solidarity!
-While law is present in each society, the dominant rationales differ significantly. In
each case the dominant rationale informing the legal system is both an index of, and
a source of, the form of solidarity!
-Durkheim uses two societies as analytical categories. In reality, societies include
elements from both mechanical and organic solidarity, and some societies lack
solidarity for variety of reasons (ie: anomic division of labour)!
Mechanical Solidarity!
-“Mechanical” does not refer to “industrial machines”!
-Relationships among individuals are based on uniformity and likeliness similar to
molecules that make up a solid!
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