Suicide/anomie/strain
•Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every
year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Suicide
is a global phenomenon and occurs throughout the
lifespan. Effective and evidence-based interventions
can be implemented at population, sub-population
and individual levels to prevent suicide and suicide
attempts. There are indications that for each adult
who died by suicide there may have been more than
20 others attempting suicide. (WHO)
•Is it always an act of free will?
•Conscious decision?
•Suicide of elderly people
•Suicide of young people
Source: https://www.who.int/mental_health/suicide-prevention/Global_AS_suicide_rates_bothsexes_2016.png?ua=1
https://www.who.int/mental_health/suicide-prevention/globally_in_young_people_2016.JPG?ua=1
Link between criminology and suicide
• problems in early childhood
• parents' inefficiency
• no emotional bond with relatives
• mental disorders
• alcohol addiction
• threat of criminal liability
• being a victim of a crime
• loss of a loved one as a result of a crime
• unjust conviction
• According to the stream analogy of lethal violence, homicide and suicide is the same with different directions.
• From a historical viewpoint, treating suicide and homicide as separate research subjects is a rather recent phenomenon.
• Sigmund Freud all proposed to explain suicide and homicide as two sides of the same phenomenon.
Their arguments focus on individuals’ inner thought processes in committing either suicide or homicide.
• Freud, for instance, argued that the suicidal impulse results from an individual’s homicidal drive, induced by either an individual’s sexual frustration or death instinct that turns toward oneself.
Emilie Durkheim – the anomie
theory of crime and suicide
The anomie theory
• What is anomie?
• The term, commonly understood to mean normlessness, is believed to have been popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). However, Durkheim first introduced the concept of anomie in his 1893 work The Division of Labour in Society.
• Emile Durkheim
• ’mechanical societies’ vs ’organic societies’; every society exhibits elements from each of his categories
• The important role of society (in mechanical societies its main function is to enforce the uniformity and status quo; in organic societies – to integrate the diverse parts)
• Crime is normal
• Functionalism – healthy levels of crime, it contributes to the maintenance, clarification and modification of social rules
• Slow, progressive shift vs violent economic disasters
• in the Durkheim’s concept, man is by its very nature evil, antisocial and only external forces stop him from behaving contrary to norms.
• when social control weakens, selfish, uninhibited inclinations of man reveal themselves with full force.
• Durkheim saw some facets of crime as functional to social order collective conscience
• Crime is associated with breakdown of social norms and rules
• Absence of social control, breakdown of regulations, rules and informal limits, undermining confidence in the social structure
• It all leads to psychological feelings of isolation
• Reasons (sources): recession, economic boom, sexual revolution
’Suicide’ (1897) – book written by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim
• It is ostensibly a case study of suicide, a publication unique for its time that provided an example of what the sociological monograph should look like.
• Impact on the whole criminology
• Focusing on the external (social factors) ignoring other factors,
external or internal
Types of suicide according to Durkheim
• high levels of anomie = high levels of suicide
• In his view, suicide comes in four kinds, which are based on the degrees of imbalance of two social forces: social integration and moral regulation.
• Disturbed regulation of the individual by society
• Two basic types of regulation:
EGOISTIC SUICIDE – reflects a prolonged sense of not belonging, of not being integrated in a community.
ALTRUISTIC SUICIDE – reflects a sense of being overwhelmed by a group's goals and beliefs.
FATALISTIC SUICIDE – reflects a sense of no freedom; when a person is excessively regulated, when their futures are pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive discipline.
ANOMIC SUICIDE –reflects an individual's moral confusion and lack of social direction,
which is related to dramatic social and economic upheaval.
Robert K. Merton’s theory of anomie -> strain theory
• strain theory states that social structures within society may pressure citizens to commit crime
• It is the relationship between desires and the means of achieving those desires which is fundamental
• The desires of individuals are largely defined by society
• ’means-end theory’ – the healthy society lays down accepted means of achieving the ends or goals
• everyone is pressured to succeed, but those who are unable or least
likely to succeed by legitimate means are under most strain to use
illegitimate or illegal oppurtunities
• Criminality arose, not necessarily because of discrepancies between the goals and the approved means of achieving those goals, but because all the members of that society were led to believe that there was equality of opportunity.
• The consequent feelings of unfairness could lead to criminality
• Since the lower classes suffered most from educational
and occupational discrimination, they were least likely to
attain the ’American Dream’
• Durkheim: the individuals set their goals, which are natural and fixed
• Merton: the society sets goals
• Durkheim – the whole society might be anomic
• Merton: anomie can affect certain parts of the society
(ei, those parts which appear in the offical crime
statistics)
S.F. Messner and Richard Rosenfeld – institutional anomie
• Everything is secondary to financial success
• Crime (in America) results from the culture of prioritising wealth, which is heavily supported by State institutions which give power to the economy
• Education is not appreciated itself, for learning or personal development, but merely as beaing a mean to reach better paid employment
• They argue that if other aspirations were to come to the fore society would exhibit less crime and be healthier
• They suggest that the family should be more valued
• The implication of their theory is to alter the goals: goals other than wealth
should be encouraged: education, parenting, caring, teaching and serving the
community
General strain theory – Robert Agnew (1992)
• Not only economic issues – Agnew believed that Merton's theory did not account for criminal activity which did not involve financial gain
• people who experience strain or stress become distressed or upset which may lead them to commit crime in order to cope.
• emotion is the motivator for crime.
• Examples of General Strain Theory are people who use illegal drugs to make themselves feel better, or a student assaulting his peers to end the harassment they caused.
• The general strain theory introduces three distinct types of strain:
strain resulting from failure to achieve positively valued goals or good;
strain resulting from the removal of positively valued stimuli (death of family, friend, losing job);
strain resulting from negative stimuli (child abuse, family break-up, threats, physical pan, attack, embarrassment, criminal proseciution).
• Agnew in his general strain theory recognises that there are many non-criminal ways of dealing with strain
• Agnew suggests that strain is more likely to lead to criminality:
-if it arises from the deliberate actions of others;
-if the individual is disposed to crime;
-if they have low levels of social control acting on them;
-if they have experience of criminality or have been taught to participate in crime.
