Crime : Durkheim

• Collective Consciousness

  the set of shared beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and knowledge that are common to a social group or society.
• Collective consciousness affects our sense of belonging, identity, and behaviour. It explains how unique individuals are bound together into social groups and societies; society exists because unique individuals feel a sense of solidarity with each other. This is why we work together to achieve communal and functional societies.
• Durkheim noted that in the modern, industrialized societies which functioned via a division of labour, an 'organic solidarity emerged based on the mutual reliance individuals and groups had on others in order to allow for a society to function.
• In cases such as these, religion played an important role in defining the shared values but other social institutions and structures would also work to produce the collective consciousness. These other institutions include the state, news and popular media education and the police and judiciary. Rituals that strengthen the collective consciousness range from parades and holiday celebrations to sporting events, weddings, grooming ourselves according to gender norms, and even shopping.
• Crime has four key characteristics

  • inevitable
  • universal
  • relative
  • functional
• Social order and social cohesion are based on value consensus - laws are based on the values that we share in society, such as not stealing or hurting others and honesty. The agencies of social control (e.g. police and judiciary) aim to control the threat from crime and deviance.
• Durkheim saw that some deviance was necessary in society as it is an inevitable feature of social life: it can perform some positive functions.
• 1/2 BOUNDARY MAINTENANCE : for society to function, there must be a shared set of norms a values a value consensus.

  Most people have been socialised into this and this is also reinforced through formal & informal sanctions when they're broken. People who deviate away from social norms are informally sanctioned by others in society, this can be through shared disapproval or ignoring the offender.
• 2/2 BOUNDARY MAINTENANCE

  Those who break the law are sanctioned formally through punishment - police or justice system. By sharing the collective disapproval, social solidarity is strengthened. People decide on the boundaries that can’t be crossed and they become closer through this agreed disapproval.
• BRINGS ABOUT SOCIAL CHANGE - once people in society start to break the norms and values /rules and this is tolerated, social change happens.

  The new behaviour becomes acceptable and then the norms change -devant behaviour becomes normal. This can then lead to changes in the law as people protest at the sanctions for the behaviour.
• 1/2 ACTS AS A WARNING DEVICE (Clinard) : Society should function in harmony, with each structure playing its own part in the larger society; organic analogy.

  If people aren’t following social norms or not obeying the law, this might suggest there's no longer social solidarity or that we no longer have a value consensus.
• 2/2 ACTS AS A WARNING DEVICE (Clinard)

  This is essential for society to function so a role of crime a deviance is to show those in authority that there is a problem. It suggests an aspect of society is malfunctioning - crime draws attention to the problem so that it can be fixed. Critics would argue this only works in societies where the government responds to the needs of the people.
• 1/2 ACTS AS A SAFETY DEVICE (Davies) : the modern, industrialised society has increased the isolation and disconnect that people feel. When rapid change happens it can create a time of normlessness or an absence of social control and cohesion (anomie). This can lead to frustration and a lack of social order. Committing acts of deviance or criminal acts can release these feelings.
• 2/2 ACTS AS A SAFETY DEVICE (Davies)

  Davies said prostitution can help release men's sexual tension. Its controversial and disputed by many sociologists. The rise in crime however at times of economic and social uncertainty does suggest that people are more likely to break social norms or laws when feeling frustrated with a lack of social order.