Crime And Deviance: Suicide

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What does Durkheim argue about suicide as a whole?

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He also argues that psychological theories ofsuicide are also inadequate. He accepts the reason that some may be morepredisposed to suicide such as those suffering from depression but rejects theview that psychological factors can explain the difference the suicide rates ofwhole groups or societies. For example, he shows that Jews had higher rates ofmental illness than Protestants, yet they had lower suicide rates. l

Front 2

Using quantitative data, what did Durkheim find?

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§ Suicide rates for any given society remainedconstant over time

§ When the rates did change, this coincided withother changes – rates fell during war time, rose during economic depression andat times a rise during prosperity.

§ Different societies have different rates

§ Within society, the rates varied considerablybetween different social groups. Catholics had lower rates than protestants,married people with children had lower rates than single, widowed or childlessand rural dwellers had lower rates than city dwellers.

Durkheim explains the suicide rates as theeffect if social facts or forces acting upon individuals and in differentsocieties, these forces act with different degrees of intensity, thus differentsuicide rates.

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What are Durkheims 4 types of Suicide?

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Egoistic Suicide - Little social integration

Altruistic Suicide - Too much social integration

Anomic Suicide - Little moralregulation

Fatalistic Suicide - Too much moral regulation

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Suicide and Type of society

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Modern Industrial societies havelower levels of integration. Individual rights and freedom becomes moreimportant than the obligations towards the groups. This weakensocial bonds and gives rise to egoistic suicides. Modern societies are lesseffective in regulating individuals because they undergo rapid change, thusproducing anomic suicide.

Traditional Preindustrialsocieties have higher levels of integration. The groups is more important thanthe individual and this gives a rise to altruistic suicides. It also strictly regulates theirmember’s lives and impose rigidly ascribed status that limit individual’sopportunities – Fatalistic suicides.

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What did MauriceHalbwachs find?

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He had access to more up to dateand reliable statistics with more sophisticated statistical techniques.

He confirmed Durkheim’s findingsbut argued the differences between urban and rural residence were the mainreason for the variations in suicide rates. Higher rates among Protestants,people living alone and so on was more of a function for urban locations.

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What does Gibs and Martin argue?

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They define integration as asituation where there are stable and lasting relationships.

They argue thatthese tend to occur when an individual has status integration – compatiblestatus that does not conflict with one another. (When their educational andoccupational statuses are similar).

They predict that in societieswhere there is little status integration (many educated people, taking lowstatus jobs), the suicide rates will be higher.

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Evaluation of Durkheim

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However, they argue that Durkheimdoes not operationalise his concepts of integration. (Define it in such a waythat it can be measured).

Durkheim is criticised:statistics he used were unreliable and incomplete – in the 19thcentury, medical knowledge of causes of death were limited and autopsies rarelyperformed.

Many countries lacked theadministrative ability to collect reliable statistics on a national basis.

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Douglas Criticise Durkheim on two grounds:

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1. The use of suicide statistics

The decision to classify death assuicide is take by a coroner and is influenced by social factors and this mayproduce bias in the verdict.

Douglas argues this may explainDurkheim’s findings: high level of integrationleads to low suicide rates - well integratedindividuals may have friends and relatives who might deny the death was asuicide and even cover it up.

By contrast, socially isolatedpeople have no such people to oppose the suicide –

Suicide verdicts and statisticsbased on them are the product of interactions and negotiations between thoseinvolved.

2. Actors meanings and qualitative data.

ignoring the meanings of the actsfor those who kill themselves and for assuming that suicide has a fixed orconstant meaning. Douglas notes the meaning of suicide are vried betweencultures and so these meanings and motives must be understood within their owncultural context, thus Durkheim’s attempt to compare rates across culture isfaced with problems.

Using qualitative methods are better.

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Criticisms of Douglas

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Douglas produces a classificationof suicide based on supposed meanings of the actors but there is no reason tobelieve that sociologists are any better than coroners at interpreting a deadperson’s meaning.

Douglas is inconsistent-sometimes suggesting that official statistics are merely the product of thecoroner’s opinion, at other times he claims we can discover the true meaningbut how can we, if we never know whether a death was a suicide and all we haveis the coroner’s opinion.

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What does Atkinson: Ethnomethodology and Suicide argue

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Ethnomethodology argues thatsocial reality is simply a construct of its members. Accepts Douglas’s first point butrejects his second one. We can never know the true rateof the suicide since we would need to know the meanings the dead gave to theirdeaths which is impossible and so it is pointless trying to discover the realrate.

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What does Atkinson Focus on

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Focuses on how coronerscategorise deaths.

To do so he uses a range of qualitative methods andconcludes they have a common sense theory about the typical suicide. Thisincludes what type of person commits suicide, a suicide note, mode of death,location and circumstances and life history.

Coroners regard information suchas this as clues to whether the deceased intended to take their own life. Forexample, in the case of drowning, he looks atwhether the clothes have been left neatly folded on the beach, if so it usuallypoints to suicide.

Atkinson concludes that coronersare engaged in analysing cases using taken for granted assumptions about whatconstitutes a typical suicide.

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How does Atkinson evaluate Durkheim

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Treating statistics as facts spell out the coroners theories about suicide.For example, if coroners believe the typical person for suicide are socialisolated people, this would be reflected in the statistics. The sociologistswho then takes this as face value is merely echoing the coroners common sensetheory – not discovering the cause of suicide

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How does Bary Hindess criticise ethnomethodology?

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Barry Hindess (1973) criticisesEthnomethodology by saying it is self defeating as if all we have isinterpretations of the social world, then ethnomethodologist’s own account areinterpretations and so there is no good reason to why we should accept them.

However, most ethnomethodologistsaccept that their accounts are interpretations, they do not claim likepositivists that their interpretations are superior than those of the people.

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Taylors types of suicide

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Submissive Suicide: Certain about dying

Thanatation Sucides, Uncertain about themselves- don't know what others think about themselves

Sacrifice Suicide - certain about themselves where an individual may have done something to them, making it impossible for them to continue living. Affair.

Appeal Suicide - Uncertain where they doubt there importance to others - attemptsuicide to resolve the uncertainity where they seek to change someone's behaviour.

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Evaluation of Taylor

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Taylor’s theory is based on hisinterpretations of the actors meanings and there is no way of knowing if theseare correct, especially when the attempt was successful.

Also the individuals cases mayinvolve a combination of motives and be difficult to categorise.

Taylor’s small sample is notrepresentative.

Unlike Durkheim, Taylor has notconnected the four types to wider social structures.

Deals with both successful and unsuccessful attempts.

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Taylor's definition of suicide?

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Many theories of suicide focus onacts where the individual was intent on dying and that resulted in death.However, Taylor notes that in many cases, those who attempt suicide are notcertain that their actions would kill them, nor are all who attempt suicidesimply aiming to die, some are communicating with others. Therefore we shouldlook at both successful and unsuccessful attempts and adopt a broaderdefinition.