University of Nairobi s6
12th January 2010
UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
SCHOOL OF LAW
GPR 200 – CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY
HANDOUT 4
SOCIOLOGICAL POSITIVISM AND ANOMIE THEORIES
Sociologists have long sought to dissociate themselves from the pitfalls of the individualistic approach to crime in which the causes of crime were sought in the individual and little attention was paid to the social context. It did not make a clean break with positivism but provided a challenge to individualist theories of crime. Sociological positivists explained crime as a pathological deviation from the consensus of the social order. It is concerned with the various indicators of social disorganization. It sees a real and progressive threat to the continuance of the consensus of the social order. They believed in measuring these indicators (such as high crime rates, suicide rates, drunkenness etc) as away of identifying the whereabouts of existing and potential trouble spots in society which must be treated, prevented or controlled if serious social disorder is to be avoided.
DURKHEIM ANOMIE, SOCIAL DISORGANISATION THEORY AND MODERNIZATION
DEF: Anomie means a condition or malaise in individuals characterized by an absence of or reduction of standards or values. It implies a social unrest or chaos. The word comes from Greek ‘a’ without and “namos” law contemporary English understanding of the word is ‘norm’ and therefore “normlessness” to reflect a situation of anarchy. Theorists use anomie to mean a reaction against or a retreat from the regulatory social control of society. (1858 – 1917).
Emile Durkheim was the founding father of academic sociology in France. He was primarily concerned with the study of archaic societies and especially with primitive religion and social organization. Durkheim agreed with Freud that human beings were not really human until they had been socialized. He saw socialization and the development of conscience as necessary for individual well- being. The lack of socialization and conscience leads to conflict between the individual and society.
He viewed inequality as natural and inevitable human conditions that are not associated with social maladies such as crimes unless there is also a breakdown at social norms. He called breakdown anomie, which occurs as a result of rapid social changes accompanying the modernization process Durkheim focused, or society and its organization and development. His theories are complex but his influence on criminology has been great.
He has been called one of the best known and least understood major thinkers. He lived during the two revolutions: French and industrial, which had great impact on human thoughts and values. Sociology had also just been developed by Auguste Comte, as part of a more general effort to construct a rational society out of the wings of the traditional one. Sociologist, wanted to mastermind ‘social regeneration’ through re – establishment of social solidarity Durkheim studied social sciences and sociology. He presented his first major analysis of the process of social charge in his book, The division of labour in society.
He saw society as divided into mechanical and organic society. In its mechanical form, each group is relatively isolated from all other social groups and is self sufficient. In organic society, different segments of society depend on each other in highly organized division of Labour. Social solidarity is no longer based on the uniformity of the individuals but in the diversity of the functions of the parts of the society. No society was totally one or the other all being in state of progress between the organic and mechanical state.
The law plays an essential role in maintaining the social solidarity of each of these two types of societies but in different ways. In mechanical society, law functions to enforce the uniformity of the members of the social group, and thus is oriented towards repressing any deviation from the norm of the time. In the organic society law functions to regulate the interaction of the various parts of society, and provide restitution in cases of wrongful transactions.
He argues that to the extent that a society remains mechanical crime is normal in the sense that a society without crime would be pathologically over controlled. As society develops towards organic form it possible for a pathological state, (anomie) to occur, and such a state would produce a variety of social, maladies such as crime.
Crime as normal in Mechanical societies.
Mechanical societies have totality of social likeness. Durkheim called this the “collective conscience uniformity” found in all culture. But each also has a degree of diversity in the form of individual differences among its members. Societies will pressure for uniformity against this diversity in varying degree and forms. The strongest form is criminal sanction, while the weakest form covers matters considered as morally reprehensible or detestable or deviant.
Society cannot be formed without sacrifices (price of membership). But these demands are constructed so that it is inevitable that a certain number of people will not fulfill them. The number is large but not too much so that the rest of the society feels a sense of moral superiority and see the rest criminals as inferior. This superiority is the primary source of social solidarity punishment of criminals also plays a role in the maintenance of the social solidarity.
Crime is itself normal in society because there is no clearly marked dividing line between behaviour considered criminal and those considered morally reprehensible. He believed that even in a society of saints, faults can appear. Thus society without crime is impossible. New behaviour will always be placed in the crime category. Crime is thus inevitable because of there is an evitable diversity of behaviour in society.
The abnormal or pathological state of society would be one in which there was the crime. If there is no crime there will be also progressive change, as it is introduced by opposing the constraints of the collective conscience and those who do this all frequency declared to be criminals crime is the price society pays for the possibility of progress (e.g. Jesus and Gandhi were considered criminals) he explains that individuals growth cannot occur in a child unless it is possible for that child to misbehave.
The child is punished for misbehavior and no one want the child to misbehave. But a client who never did anything wrong would be pathologically over controlled. Eliminating the misbehavior would also eliminate the possibility of independent growth. In this sense the child’s misbehavior is the price that must be paid for the possibility of personal development.
He concludes that from this viewpoint, the fundamental facts of criminality present themselves in an entirely new light. Contrary to current ideas, the criminal no longer seems a totally unsociable being, a sort of parasitic element a strange body introduced into the midst of society, on the contrary he plays a definite role in social life. Crime for its part must no longer be conceived as an evil that cannot be too much suppressed.
There is no occasion for self congratulation when the crime rate drops noticeably below the average level, for we may be certain that this apparent progress is associated with some social disorder.
Anomie as a pathological state in organic societies
To the extent that a society is mechanical, it derives its solidarity from pressure for conformity against the diversity of some of its members. The criminal behaviour is a normal and necessary part of this pressure. But to the extent that a society is organic the function of law is to regulate the interactions of the various parts of the whole. If this regulation is inadequate there can result a variety of social maladies including crime. Durkheim called this state of inadequate regulation, anomie.
Durkheim made three arguments about crime during the process of transition from mechanical of organic societies.
1. A greater variety of behaviours would be tolerated.
2. Punishment could become less violent as their purpose changed from repression to restitution.
3. There would be a fast expansion of functional law to regulate the interaction s of the emerging organic society.
Regarding point one, Wolfgang (1977) stated that the American culture and western society, generally, was experiencing an expansion of acceptability of deviance and a corresponding contraction of what they define as crime. Western societies are losing their morals. (Anomie theories attempt to explain the occurrence not merely of crime but also deviance and disorder. Deviance different in moral or social standards from what is considered normal) Studies by Neumann and Berger (1988) found no support for the argument that increases in property crimes were caused by the change from traditional to modern values, and therefore question the continued dominance of Durkheim theory in explaining the link between modernization and crime. They suggest that much more attention be paid to the role of economic inequality in this process as opposed to Durkheims emphasis on the breakdown of traditional values Durkheims influence has been extremely broad in criminology and sociology.
The concept of anomie was developed in Durkheim’s classic study Suicide. He analysed suicide rates and tried to explain why these increased during times of economic growth as well as during depressions. He made a point that we cannot understand why suicide is a recurrent feature of modern life by means of a study of individual cases. Only a sociological analysis of rates can illuminate the social elements in suicide. Durkheim’s emphasis was on considering social integration and the person’s ties to society.
Its primary impact was that he focused attention on the role that social forces play in determining human conduct at a time when the dominant thin king held either that people freely choose their courses of action or that behavior was determined by inner forces of biology and psychology.
This was a radical view at the time. There is now considerable evidence that the basic patterns of crime found in the modern world can only be explained by a theory that focuses on modernization as a fundamental factor.
THE ECOLOGY OF CRIME
The Chicago school of Human Ecology (Department of sociology) at the University of Chicago 1920) attempted to pinpoint the environmental factors associated with crime, and to determine the relationship among those factors. They focused on rapid changes in the neighbourhood unlike Durkheim who focuses on rapid changes in entire societies) Their procedure involved correlating the characteristics of each neighbourhood with the crime rates of that neighbourhood.
The Theory of Human Ecology.
Ecology in original meaning is a branch of biology in which plants and animals are studied in their relationships to each other and to the natural habitat. Plant life and animal life are seen to as an intricately complicated whole, a way of life in which each part depends on almost every other part for some aspect of its existence. Organisms in their natural habitat exist in an ongoing balance of nature, a dynamic equilibrium in which each individual must struggle to survive. Ecologists study this way of interrelationship and interdependence in an attempt to discover the forces that define the activities of each part.
Human communities particularly organized around a free marked economy could be seen to resemble this biotic state in nature each individual struggles for his or her survival in an interrelated, mutually depend community. The law of survival for the fittest applies here as well.
Robert Park (1968)
He proposed a parallel between the distributions of plant life in nature in societies. He viewed a city not merely as a geographic phenomenon, but as a kind of super organism that had organic unity derived from the symbiotic interrelationships of the people who lived within it. Within this super organism there were many natural areas where different people lived e.g. “china town” “little Italy” or “the black belt”.
Other natural areas included individuals in certain income or occupation of groups or industrial or business areas. Others areas were cut out of from the rest of the city by rivers, highways or unused space. A symbiotic relationship existed among people within a natural area but also among the areas outside the city. Each area played a part in the life of the city as a whole.
Through certain processes the balance of nature in a given areas might change through invasion dominance and succession such as American invasion of territory of native America, or cultural or ethnic groups taking even entire neighbourhoods by shifting into it, one after the other. These cities expand radically from their center in patterns of concentric circles each moving gradually outwards.
Burgess (1928) describes these as Concentric circles as zones. Zone 1 is the central business district; zone 2 is the area immediately around it and is the oldest section of the city. It is continuously invaded by business and industry expanding from zone 1. The houses in zone 2 are deteriorating and continue to do so. It is usually the most undesirable part of the city and therefore habituated by the poorest and recent immigrants. Zone 3 is relatively modest homes and apartment of families escaping deteriorating zone 2. Next is zone 4 which consists of residential single-family houses and expensive apartment. Beyond these limits are, the suburban areas, zone 5 which constitutes the commuter zone. Each of these zones growing and thus gradually moving outwards into the territory occupied by the next zone in a process of invasion dominance and succession.