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Crime As a Function of Anomie Elwin H Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 57 | Issue 2 Article 6 1966 Crime As a Function of Anomie Elwin H. Powell Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation Elwin H. Powell, Crime As a Function of Anomie, 57 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 161 (1966) This Criminology is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. THE Joi NAu- oF CnmanL LAW, CRTIINOLOGY AND POLICE SCIENCE Vol 57, No. 2 Copyright @ 1966 by Northwestern University School of Law Printed in U.S.A. CRIME AS A FUNCTION OF ANOMIE ELWIN H. POWELL* Crime is by definition a social phenomenon and outlaws have flourished throughout recorded its extent and character varies with the "metabo- history, in both the rural and the urban setting. lism" of the larger society. Individualistic theories In the pre-industrial city, criminals were even of criminal behavior-whether moralistic, bio- organized into guilds.5 An underworld existed in logical or psychological-can not explain the Elizabethan England, the Mafia in Southern known variations of the crime rate. Clinically and Italy dates back at least two centuies, if not to juridically it may be desirable to treat each felon antiquity, and in the industrial city of the 19th as a special case, but "the scientific method", as century organized criminal activity' thrived as 6 Sellin observes, "is not applicable to the study of rarely before or since. unique phenomena. It can only deal with classes, Theories which locate the cause of crime in the kinds, types".' If crime is attributed to inherited criminal subculture are accurate enough but in- deficiencies, early childhood experience, or family adequate to explain the variation of the crime rate. tension, it is still necessary to ask why these "cau- The crime configuration is a product of the insti- sal" factors fluctuate from time to time and place tutional matrix within which the criminal subcul- to place. Inevitably a sociological interpretation is ture is imbedded. required. "The cause of crime", writes Clarence It appears that all types of ciiie--against Jeffery, "is in the legal and social institutions, not person, property and public order-.-increase in 7 the individual offender". 2 times of institutional dislocation, or anomie. As What then are the institutional determinants of Walter Lunden observes "the real explanation for 8 crime? According to Clinard, most American crime... lies in Durkheim's [concept of] anomie". sociologists "view participation in deviant norms, If anomie is understood to mean normlessness it particularly through the tutelage of others.., as is easy to see why property crimes would be asso- 3 the basic situation out of which crime arises". ciated with societal breakdown. Property, after While this formulation pushes the locus of crimi- all, is the creation of a culture, of a belief system. nality back from the individual to the immediate When individuals lose respect for the normative group, it does not explain the origins of the crim- order which protects private property an increase inal sub-culture. Similarly, Sutherland's theory of in burglary and larceny is to be expected. But differential association assumes but does not what of crimes of violence against 'persons? Under systematically show the sources of the crime-pro- anomic conditions men feel they can no longer rely ducing sub-group.4 on established authority for protection and "take Organized criminal activity seems to exist in the law into their own hands". The high incidence virtually all societies. Bands of robbers, gangs of of violence on the frontier seems to derive from the necessity for "self-defense". The slum area of * Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Buffalo. the city is often a frontier, a kind of no-man's Professor Powell received his B.A. and M.A. from land where violence is a common occurrence. the University of Texas, and his Ph.D. from Tulane Thomas and Znanieckie analyze murder in the University. He joined the Buffalo faculty in 1958. This article is a revision of a paper presented at the immigrant community in these words: Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Associa- tion in Chicago, 1965. 5SJOBERG, THE PRE-INnusaxAL CirY: PAST AND The author wishes to express his appreciation for PREsENT6 246-52 (1960). the statistical assistance rendered by Mr. Walter JUDGEs, TE ELiZABETHAN UNDERWORLD (1930); Hobbs of the Department of Sociology of the State MAYHEW, LONDON'S UNDERWORLD (1950); LYNCH, University of New York at Buffalo. 'Boss TWEED': THE STORY OF A GRIm GENERATION I SEriu, CULTURE CoNErUcT AN Cnnm 27 (1938). (1927). 2 Jeffery, Crimne, Law and Socil Strwture, 47 J. For a macrocosmic view with exhaustive references C=. L., C. & P. S.423 (1956). see SoRoxn, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DYNAmcs 3 Clinard, Sociologists and American Criminology, 498 (1937); CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGicAL THEoIuEs S. 41 4 J. Cnms. L- C. & P. 549 (1951). 559-78 (1928). SUTHERLAND, PRINCrpLES OF CRIMNoLoGY 74-96 8Lunden, Pioneers in Criminology-Emile Durk- (1955). heim, 49 J. Cman. L. 2 (1958). RESEARCH REPORTS (Vol. 57 The murderer does not feel himself backed up standard criminological works give only cursory 4 in his dealings with the outside world by any notice to the pre-20th century context of crime. strong group of his own ... [he takes recourse] Durkheim read the great (four and five-fold) in- in the idea of self-redress ... In short, the im- crease in suicide during the 19th century as a sign migrant ... feels as if he is in a human wilder- of cultural disintegration, of anomie. However, ness, with nobody and nothing but his physical since 1913 the general drift of the suicide rate has strength to rely upon.' been downward." The crime rate seems to follow Viewing the contemporary scene, Jackson Toby a similar pattern in both Europe and America: a comes to a similar conclusion: "predatory crime substantial increase throughout the 19th century occurs when social vigilance is reduced". 10 In a followed by an apparent decline since World War similar vein John Dollard explains the relationship 1.16 between violence and social disorganization among If a rising incidence of social pathology indicates the Negro population of the South: anomie, does a declining rate point to a new inte- The personal security of the Negro [Dollard gration, a process of consolidation of the social writes] is by no means so well guaranteed by system? Goldhamer and Marshall contend that the law as is that of the white person. [Negro the incidence of psychoses was as high in the men and women] are frequently armed ... 1870s as in the 1940s. And A. H. Hobbs notes Apparently we have here a kind of frontier that the volume of crime in Philadelphia in 1937 where the law is weak and each person is ex- was only slightly higher than in 1790.' Hobbs pected to attend to his own interests by means concludes that his data "lend no support to the of direct personal aggresion and defense." hypothesis that the total amount of crime has Moreover, Dollard continues, there is a differ- increased with the complexity of modern living". ential application of the law: the dominant white But had Hobbs chosen the year 1877 or 1918 he caste "condones Negro violence" because it weak- might have found the arrest rate much higher ens the solidarity of the Negro group and makes than in 1790 or 1937. Moreover, life in the past it less resistant to white domination. This "toler- century, if not more complex, was certainly more ance of violence", Dollard says, "is not a conscious brutal than in 1937-the depression notwith- policy.., but pragmatic, unformalized and in- standing. Has life grown simpler, less violent, tuitive". However, it is "functional" for the main- more secure as conflict gives way to consensus as tenance of the caste system. A similar situation the dominant motif of contemporary society? could be found in the 19th century industrial slum These questions seem of sufficient weight to justify where working class violence was permitted, if not a closer scrutiny of the "behavior" of the crime encouraged, as a means of atomizing labor solidar- rate. Furthermore, a historical analysis might ity. Violence is both a cause and an effect of ano- illuminate hidden aspects of the persisting mystery mie. From the pioneer work of Thomas and Znan- of deviant behavior for, as Mabel Elliot observes, "the mainsprings of anti-social conduct are as ieckie to the recent study of Lewis Yablonsky, anomie can be seen as the substrate out of which 14 A notable exception is the discussion of socio-his- the act of violence emerges." torical factors in crime in TANNENBAUM, CRIME AND THE COMMUNITY 25-51 (1951). While numerous studies have explored, the 15On the decline of suicide in America see the Metro- relationship between anomie and social pathology, politan Life data cited in WEINBERG, SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN OUR TinE: A SocioooIcA ANALYSIS 418 (1960). the historical dimension of the problem has been For European data see FUELLKRUG, DER SELBSTMORD largely ignored since Durkheim." Moreover, trd KRIOSZEIT (1927). 16MacDonald, Criminal Statistics in Germany, 9 THOxAS & ZNANmECKI, THE POLISH PEASANT IN France and England, 1 J. CRmI. L., & C. 59-70 (1910) EUROPE AND AMERICA 1773-74 (1958). indicates that the British crime rate began to fall by 0 Toby, Social Disorganization and Stake in Con- the 1860s, while the German rate was rising and the formity: Complementary Factors in the Predatory Be- French rate remained stationary.
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