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Summary Of Durkheim's View Of Punishment

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Durkheim mentions that punishment reinforces social solidarity and strengthens common values, in order words punishment in Durkheim’s eyes is viewed as a social institution or a social action. Durkheim views crime as any act that offends the collective consciousness. He also mentions that society as a whole, reacts more strongly to serious crimes over those of less seriousness. Durkheim views punishment as good for the health of society, that punishment of a crime restores a society’s view of right and wrong. That is how punishment is functional for society in Durkheim’s views. This relates to the punitive and passionate response of society towards crime. Because people get angry when a crime is committed and that leads to the people wanting a punitive …show more content…
Instead he believed that punishment is a tool for reaffirming a society by the witnessing of the suffering an offender receives via punishment. It reinforces the social solidarity that Durkheim is so adamant about. Durkheim believes that punishment sets the boundaries in a society, for example: if your older brother steals a candy bar and then he gets in trouble for it, you learn from his mistake because you saw him get punished so you avoid steaking candy bars. That’s Durkheim’s view of punishment. If offenders are punished, then it re-establishes the morals of a society. Punishment’s function is not to remove crime or deter it, it is simply to reaffirm the collective consciousness of the society. When it comes to thing like imprisonment, physical harm, monetary fine, ect; Durkheim believes that quality of punishment is more important than the quantity of punishment. He disagrees with the movement of societies away from executions, mutilations, and tortures and towards more lenient punishments such as the prison. These insufficient punishments do not have the reaffirming effects that the older punishments had which in turn made Durkheim disagree with

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