The ideas on criminal justice came to be in the late 18th century. This was during the Enlightenment period. Criminology, however, came to be in the late 19th century. Criminology has been defined differently by different study disciplines. Criminology basically explores criminal laws and how they came to be and how they function. It goes further to educate how the criminal laws are broken and what befalls those who break the criminal laws. As we go through historic time, laws keep on changing from time to time (Burke, 4).
On Crimes and Punishment by Cesare Beccaria
The author Cesare Beccaria was a renowned philosopher and politician. He is known for his wide views in the field of criminology. Cesare is said to be the founder of the modern criminology and penology. During his time, the enlightenment period, which was a period when great changes happened in the western countries in terms of behavior and the way of thinking. He came up with the text On Crimes and Punishment which played a very huge role in the way criminal justice is shaped today.
The author bases his arguments on three ideas that are related to crime and punishment. He argues that great happiness in life should also apply in the corridors of crime and punishment. Through proper policies, the people that are caught up in crimes and punishment could also be in great happiness. However, such policies only have the capabilities to control the behaviors of a person when it is subjected to a binding social contract. He argues that the actions perpetrated by men in a society that is constantly changing are related to human justice or political justice. He said that this was the sole reason why justice to the people should be based on sound scientific principles. He further categorizes different crimes to help in the determination of the proper measure that should be taken against certain crimes depending on how much harm the crime brought to society. He was so stern in his work to try and improve the policies of criminal justice. In his time, the penalty of death in some crimes was very rampant but he went on to oppose it. He argued strongly that it is very important that the state worked hard to combat and prevent crime instead of going on to punish people for committing crimes. The author brought forward very strong and viable points in the need to improve the justice system and bring in the required change. Generally, the author was very keen on his argument of giving education to errant; this would be the best way to reduce recidivism. So many years have passed since the author argued for the rights of the people imprisoned for a crime. He would have wanted them to be educated even when in prisons but this has still been so inadequate in the society today. Generally, in America and the whole world, the people should come to their senses and work for a criminal justice system that treats the prisoners in the right way (Beccaria, 54).
Currently, the reforms in the sector of criminal justice are very rampant in the political arena and also the social arena. The United States of America has the largest number of prisoners in the whole world. This has caused the rise of a movement that is geared towards changing and re-inventing the policies that have led to this pitiful state in the country. There are dire changes that need to be done to the criminal justice system for the desired reforms to be seen. To achieve these reforms the people involved should dive into Cesare’s book to get an insight on how the people entangled in crime should be treated amidst serving their punishments.
The Rules of the Sociological Method by Emile Durkheim
In the book, The Rules of Sociological Methods by Emile Durkheim, the author brings out the argument that life sciences have a lot of value; however, the difference comes in the ways that we analyze them. Social facts can be identified with means. Generally, social facts are the ways of acting, thinking and the feeling that basically exists outside one as an individual. Social facts, however, can hugely constrain the individuals who act against them. They sanction an individual socially through stigmatization or in a materialistic way by imprisonment depending on how formal the rule gone against is. In the book, the author gave two types of social facts. First, they are the constraints that come from social organizations; these are the legal and moral constraints. The second is known as the “social currents”, they are determined by the moments of enthusiasm and the behavior of a crowd. A good example is riots and mass hysteria (Durkheim, 44).
Social facts are characterized by; they are extrinsic to a person, they bring constraints to an individual and they are basically general throughout all the social units. They are external to an individual in the fact that they are immutable to any change by anyone, humans cannot also be able to select the social facts that they want to dwell in and lastly, they are slow to changes. Social facts constrain an individual through legal ways, norms in society, through culture and physically. They are general in such a way that their definition cannot be done through universality. Social facts are not actions that are done individually and lack social consequences. They also are not general behaviors that can be explained individually. Causes of social facts can never be found in the functions of a social fact. Functionalists argue that things are in existence because they are somehow needed for general survival. This is the reason why we can only find the cause of something from the results of the action and not in the things that it does. The author argues that a function is vital for giving the explanation of why a certain social fact is in survival but it does not 4give the explanation that function comes into existence.
Social facts are also not as a result of individual facts. They are much bigger than any individual and their existence is beyond any person or individual. There is nothing in the inside of individuals that act to drive social facts. The author also argues against historical determinism in that, the social factors of the past do not dictate the social facts in the future. There are social facts that could lead to the cause of other social facts.
Suicide by Emile Durkheim
The text gives the reader a look into how the rate of suicide, during the time it was written, differed in terms of religion. The main analysis was done on the differences between Catholics and the Protestants. Amongst the Catholics, there was a lower rate of suicide which was attributed to very sturdy forms, social control, and togetherness among the Catholics as compared to the Protestants. In addition, the author found that suicide was more in men as compared to the women. It was also common amongst the single people as compared to the married ones or those that were romantically involved. It was also much less amongst the people who had children. Further, he discovered that servicemen and soldiers were prone to suicide as compared to normal civilians, the suicide in soldiers always happened during times of peace rather than during warring times.
Durkheim also made a discovery that suicide is not only caused by psychological causes or pushed by emotional problems but also by so many social factors. One of the social factors identified was social integration. In his argument about social integration, he says that the more a person is socially integrated, feels a sense of belonging in the society and feel that they have a responsibility in the social context, they are much less likely to commit suicide. People who have lesser social integration are at more risk of committing suicide.
The author also came up with some theoretical typologies of suicide that he used in giving the explanation of the differing effects of social factors and how they might lead people to commit suicide.
Anomic suicide: this is a response shown by a person who is experiencing anomie, it is very extreme. Anomie is defined as the feeling or sense of disconnection from the people in the society and the society as a whole which is caused by a lack of support and weakened togetherness from society. The situation occurs at times when there is political unrest thus causing extreme changes in the society. In such times, some people may feel left out by society to a point where they go on to commit suicide.
Altruistic suicide: it is the suicide that comes as a result of extreme regulations of individuals by social forces. This may cause a person to move to kill themselves to benefit the cause. A good example is a suicide where people kill themselves for the sake of a religious or political movement. Such incidences happened during World War II with the kamikaze Japan pilots and the extremists who hijacked planes and led them to crash into the World Trade Center. In some social circumstances, some people are very moved to want to make changes into the society that they go on to commit acts of suicide to be able to achieve the collective change they desire in that society.
Egoistic suicide: this is suicide that is committed by the people who feel that they are completely detached from other people and society as a whole. In the society today, people feel the cohesion and belonging by the roles they perform in that society, family ties they have, and other bonds that they have socially. In any case that the said bonds become weakened, they can lead to the people affected to commit suicide. This kind of suicide is very common amongst the elderly people who suffer such losses in the society.
Fatalistic suicide: this kind of suicide when an individual is under so much pressure of social regulation, thus ending up in feeling oppressed and they start experiencing self-denial. In such situations, some people may have thoughts of suicide rather than continue living in conditions in which they are under oppression. This is very common in prison amongst the people who have been handed long jail terms and life sentences.
In comparing the three books which are based on sociological studies that hugely affect the society that we live in today. Cesare argues on the preservation of life even if it is for the criminals, he does this by trying to change the criminal justice sector to treat people who commit crimes in the right way. Durkheim studies suicide from a sociological perspective to enlighten the reader how suicide tendencies are driven towards social being than the individual being. Durkheim in The Rules of Sociological Methods talks about social facts as a way people act and think that is out of their control.
The authors also agree with one another in the three books that people’s behaviors are extrinsic to their being. Cesare argues that some of the people who commit crimes are just brought to do so by the way life and the society handles them, Durkheim in Suicide gives the notion that suicide is rarely an individualistic driven action but there are outside forces pushing one to commit suicide, in The Rules of Sociological Methods, he argues that social facts are external to a person and we can do nothing to change that.
To contrast, Cesare is arguing against the punishment of crime; through capital punishment, he says there is a better way by trying to control crime rather than punishing it, however, Durkheim argues otherwise in that crime in the society brings social cohesion. The punishing and publicizing of actions of criminality draw the people together. It causes the society to come together and check on the values they stand for (Durkheim & Robert, 96).
In conclusion, the topic of criminal justice is a very sensitive topic in the world. Cesare Beccaria was in the front line to try and bring reforms to it, although he achieved something; up to today our prisons globally are still mushrooming with prisoners. He advised that to achieve the reforms needed abolishing death penalty had to be done which he achieved although it still happens in some countries today. He advised that the best thing was to try and prevent crime than trying to punish the perpetrators. In Emile Durkheim’s Suicide, it was a huge step in sociology studies as it was the first text to ever study the causes of suicide. This sociological look inside suicide concluded that suicide begins socially rather than individually. Durkheim wrote The Rules of Sociological Methods to try and define the thing that helped bind the society together. He wrote the text regarding two ideologies that he had, but he was disagreeing with them. He argues against theorists such as Hobbes and Rousseau in this book.