Sociology of Law and Order Theory of Anomie

Question :

What is the theory of anomie in sociology?

Answer :

The theory of anomie keeps dealing with this question regarding occurrences of norm breaks further clear in historical epochs or societies in certain compared to others. This focus is found linking society's social structure and crime. Based on this anomie theory, crime occurs particularly due to pressures provided by socio-economic resources through unequal distributions in society (DiCristina, 2016). Therefore, anomie might get described as the stability distributed in society because of the social structure's inequality. It also involves the lacks in collective or individual strategies for adaption into social circumstances of the change (Kaufman, 2017).  

Emile Durkheim, the French sociologist has introduced this anomie concept in sociology as the very first. This was understood as one form in the society’s rule absences, regarded as the pioneer in the theory of anomie. He brought out this anomie term for describing the pathological effects of the labour and social distribution which rapidly developed in early industrialization (Bernburg, 2019). This associated rule and norm weakening for the goods getting allocated resulted in competitions for the increase in prosperity gains intensively. 

Durkheim keeps indicating where every human being have few needs intrinsically where such needs don’t get bound through any limitation due to humans having the reflection ability. Reflection takes place where when human's current desires get satisfied, they get pushed further into having other desire levels (Hövermann, Groß & Messner, 2016). He mentions upon the things from outside which restricts the person's appetites and desires and controlling such. Such is due to nothing within the individual can set their limitation for intrinsic desires craved ever. He believes upon the society creating these restrictions externally. Thus, it can be said where society's function most fundamentally involves controlling and regulating individuals. Also, such functionality gets performed through the social structure normatively.    

According to him, all members need to go through a few norms where these guide the person's actions having the best interests in the society entirely. Those norms bind the individuals, connecting them causing solidarity of one kind consequently. He further believes upon solidarity's nature evolving with time, distinguishing 2 kinds of solidarity ideally which is organic and mechanical (Messner, Rosenfeld & Hövermann, 2019). This society keeps evolving from mechanical until organic in solidarity. The real cause involving this evolution is the labour division's complex form.

Durkheim had argued upon the mechanical solidarity being the base for religious life at earliest. He demonstrates the way religion keeps functioning as the way of forming elevated man and conscience collective beyond mere existence individually. According to him, the solidarity base in modernized society also involves high levels of labour divisions and diversity.   

On the other hand, Robert Merton had extended this anomie theory elaborately as strain theory. His explanations regarding anomie had emergence under the influences for the Chicago school theoreticians. This caused Merton in exploring the social integration topic along with the needs in controlling human desires (Hasegawa, 2016). Having contrast from Durkheim, Merton kept focussing his reflections regarding the discrepancies among the limited social resources available and the pre-defined goals.  At present, his thesis works are considered the most remarkable in criminal sociology and criminology. His strain theory has integrations with other theories of crime often. Some examples are Greenberg’s age theory, Ohlin and Cloward’s differential opportunity theory and Cohen’s subculture theory.   

Merton has reformulated this anomie concept in new directions. Where Durkheim’s preoccupation was society cohesion and solidarity, Merton’s intention involved explaining the higher crime rates. In his article, he utilizes the anomie term casually. He mentions two theories distinctively, the anomie theory and the strain theory of the behaviour of deviance. Since he did not distinguish them clearly, these get confused at some point.

According to him, the social system involves components of two- a cultural structure and a social structure. The cultural structure further gets divided into elements of 2, institutional norms and cultural values. This strain towards behaviour deviance leads to conflicts among cultural and social structure. In this, anomie becomes the consequence of this imbalance between cultural norms and cultural goals or values. In strain theory, he intends upon explaining the reason for crime rates between the societies' certain groups where this is higher in low social classes. He relates this to the system's social structures of economic and social stratification. In this, the access towards legitimate ways for attaining goals defined culturally gets distribution from such (Lutter, Roex & Tisch, 2020). The society keeps socializing the members in goals culturally where each member is expected to aspiring them. In idealized states, access in legitimate ways for attaining goals become equal for every member in society.

In the society stratified by class, few classes and groups get better access towards legitimized ways, easily reaching the goals desired while for others it becomes difficult. This occurs due to accessing to inequality. The strain regarding behaviour deviance begins when this latter group cannot utilize legitimized ways of having any choice.      

Concerning the decriminalization of suicide in Singapore, it supports the idea of anomie well which is the lacks in social or ethical standards. The theory by Durkheim has a basis upon the idea where the lack in clarity and rules leads to the psychological status of despair, lack of purpose, frustration and worthlessness (Messner, Rosenfeld & Hövermann, 2019). Threatening the victim of suicide through making suicide illegal involving punishments doesn't help, instead, counselling or therapy would help. When relating Singapore suicides, the strain theory goes too where the individual’s suicide affect other people’s health along with the society. That person’s friends and family might experience depression, guilt, anger and shock. Also, its economic toll within society becomes immense.      

References

Rebair, A. C. (2019). Meeting spaces: crafting conversations about suicide in nurse education (Doctoral dissertation, University of Northumbria at Newcastle (United Kingdom)).