3.1.1: Durkheim and Anomie

Durkheim was critical of the atavistic explanation proposed by the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso and was suspicious of the idea that crime was the result of a stunted evolutionary condition (Durkheim, 1893/2014). This proved to be a prescient critique, as eugenicists would soon attempt to eliminate crime by attacking its biological foundation, an approach that led to widespread sterilization programs in the United States and Canada, with many Indigenous women being subjected to such procedures (Stote, 2015).

Durkheim understood that crime was a normal part of society and not something that could ever be eliminated completely. He asked us to:

Imagine a community of saints in an exemplary and perfect monastery. In its crime as such will be unknown, but faults that appear venial to the ordinary person will arouse the same scandal as does normal crime in ordinary consciences. If therefore that community has the power to judge and punish, it will term such acts criminal and deal with them as such. (Durkheim, 1895/1982, p. 100)

For Durkheim, it is society that determines what is criminal, not our biology or some universal moral standard. While crime is normal, it is not desirable; it is normal because it establishes the moral boundaries of a community. Morals might differ from society to society, but this relativism does not mean that morality is not important. People need these rules; they need to internalize the norms of the community to live a good life together.

Durkheim’s approach represents a consensus view of crime. The norms emerge out of a communal consensus and, in more complex societies, are codified into law. These norms act upon people as social facts in that they are external and constraining upon the individual, but they are also internalized, giving us a collective conscience of how we ought to behave.

Durkheim’s sociology is much broader than the study of crime, but his work set the foundation for the future of criminological theory (Boyd, 2015). His book Suicide, Durkheim (1897/2002) demonstrated that suicide rates differed across social groups and that this pattern was relatively stable over time. Suicide rates were higher among industrial and commercial professions than agricultural ones, higher among urban city dwellers than people who lived in small towns, and higher among divorcees than married people. His macro-level explanation for differences in suicide rates was the relative degree of social integration and social regulation. People who had weaker social bonds were more likely to take their own lives. He called this state of deregulation and disorientation anomie (Durkheim, 1897/2002).

Durkheim’s (1893/2014) work also points to a way of thinking about criminal justice that is less focused on retribution and more focused on restitution. He argued that complex societies – those comprise of diverse people with different values and goals –

produce legal structures that aim to foster social integration and cohesion. While banishment or public hangings may have been characteristic of smaller, more homogenous societies in the past, to live in a diverse world the law must work more towards restitution or restoring society to its normal state.

According to Durkheim, the final function of deviance is that it can help lead to positive social change. Although some of the greatest figures in history—Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. to name just a few—were considered the worst kind of deviants in their time, we now honor them for their commitment and sacrifice.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Émile Durkheim wrote that deviance can lead to positive social change. Many Southerners had strong negative feelings about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, but history now honors him for his commitment and sacrifice. U.S. Library of Congress – public domain.

Sociologist Herbert Gans (1996) pointed to an additional function of deviance: deviance creates jobs for the segments of society—police, prison guards, criminology professors, and so forth—whose main focus is to deal with deviants in some manner. If deviance and crime did not exist, hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people in the United States would be out of work!

Although deviance can have all these functions, many forms of it can certainly be quite harmful, as the story of the mugged voter that began this chapter reminds us. Violent crime and property crime in the United States victimize millions of people and households each year, while crime by corporations has effects that are even more harmful, as we discuss later. Drug use, prostitution, and other “victimless” crimes may involve willing participants, but these participants often cause themselves and others much harm. Although deviance according to Durkheim is inevitable and normal and serves important functions, that certainly does not mean the United States and other nations should be happy to have high rates of serious deviance. The sociological theories we discuss point to certain aspects of the social environment, broadly defined, that contribute to deviance and crime and that should be the focus of efforts to reduce these behaviors.