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Functionalist perspectives on punishment
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Functionalist Perspectives onPunishment
Emile Durkheim
Crimes are those acts which seriously violate social morality and therefore
the collective conscience. Like other institutions (education, family etc)
punishment was a social institution which was connected to the very heart
of society.
For Durkheim punishment played a key role in society – punishment (like
crime) had a moral and functional significance for the whole of society,
therefore, they required a punitive response. Durkheim viewed punishment
as representing social morality – it is functional for society.
Retributive Justice “Revenge”
Retributive justice is mainly found in traditional societies and results in
severe, even savage punishments.
Less primitive societies punish for punishments sake - ‘without seeking any
advantages for themselves form the suffering they impose. In such society’s
punishment continues, until all passion is spent – often pursuing the
criminal beyond death – this punishment can then be directed towards
innocent others, such as friends and family. The punishments consist of
stoned to death, shot full of arrows, hanged, crucified, hurled from cliffs)
Because of the intensity of less primitive societies, social morality is more
rigid and demanding – crime was often viewed as acts against a higher
being. Durkheim stated that ‘passion is the soul of punishment’.
Restitutive Justice “Reform”
Restitutive justice is mainly found in advanced societies and the
punishment is usually to reform the offender and to repay society.
Durkheim believed that retributive justice sometimes oversteps its adaptive
usefulness and becomes socially destructive, whereas restructive justice
offers a rational balance between calming moral outrage on the one hand,
and engaging empathy and sympathy on the other.
Therefore, in contrast to retributive justice, restitutive justice is driven by
simple deterrence, and is more humanistic and tolerant, although it is still
‘‘at least in part, a work of vengeance since it is still ‘‘an expiation”.
Modern Societies
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