Explorations into the Sociology of Criminal Justice and Punishment. Leaving the Modernist Project Behind

Law has been a close partner to sociology from its very beginning, and the partnership often has proven to be extremely prolific for sociology. Grand theories as well as vital conceptual tools can be counted among its offspring. Both disciplines share the common ground of socio-legal studies, which has developed into a nearly independent interdisciplinary enterprise where legal scholars and sociologists happily meander between the normative and the analytical. From the vast array of topics in the field of socio-legal studies I select the sociology of criminal justice and punishment in order to demonstrate the characteristics of this relationship. The partnership between sociology and law emerged as part of the modernization project in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the sociology of punishment was part of this endeavour. Rooted in a strong tradition of old (Durkheim) and new (Elias, Foucault) classics, recent developments in this field are leaving the idea of an `unproblematically modern punishment' (Whitman, 2005a) behind, and new fields of inquiry for comparative lawyers and sociologists are opening up.

A review of "The Peace In Between : Post-war violence and peacebuilding", edited by Astri Suhrke and Mats Berdal, Routledge, 2012

The term post-war violence has been with us for much of the twentieth century but the issue itself has existed for centuries. The study of violence in post-war societies has been explored by philosophers (Erasmus), statesmen (Sir Thomas More) and sociologists (Emile Durkheim). In many cases the cessation of war and the signing of peace accords do not always mean an end to the violence. This book examines in considerable detail the causes and purposes of post-conflict violence and argues that features which constrain or encourage violence accumulate in such a manner as to create distinct and different types of post-war environments...

Secular and religious moral grounds resonating across state schools in Indonesia

This paper describes moral education in Indonesia, more particularly, how teachers have implemented the Character Education policy issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) in 2010. This policy required teachers to instil certain values in every lesson, including EFL lessons, to contribute towards building a shared national moral character. Drawing on Durkheim's distinction between secular and religious morality, this paper considers how state schools accommodated and promoted this ‘rational moral education' or secular morality (Durkheim, 1925) in government schools, and how it interacted with religious moral education. This paper uses Bernstein's concepts of pedagogic discourse, instructional and regulative discourses to analyse how teachers have recontextualised this policy in the micro pedagogic settings of their EFL classes. Three types of data were collected for this study: interviews, class observations and teachers' lesson plans. In this way, four EFL teachers working in state schools were interviewed on two occasions and three of their classes were observed. The first interview identified teachers' beliefs and perceptions regarding the Character Education policy. Their classroom and lesson plans were observed to augment this information. Then the final interview asked about the teacher's thinking behind their actions in the observed classes. Since character education was issued within the broader frame of school based curriculum that offered schools and teachers more choices to develop the local curriculum and its intent, the analysis will focus on what moral premises were evident in their school and classes, and how such morality was transmitted through the EFL lessons. The conclusion suggests that teachers' implementation of moral education in their classes was dominated by their school communities and the teachers' own preferred value of religiosity. Such value played out in the classes through both the regulative discourse and the instructional discourse.

Theories of moral education and implementation in Indonesia: Re-energizing cultural identity and addressing future challenges

School is regarded as a site of moral training for the younger generation to encounter nation’s future challenges as well as to re-energize nation’s cultural identity. The more competitive global society led by free market trade in terms of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), requires the school to adapt and change its curriculum more frequently. Like many other countries, Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture has introduced and nurtured universal values and traditional values respectively through school curriculum reforms to develop students’ ability to participating in global society. This paper will describe classical and contemporary theories related to moral education that have been implemented in Indonesia’s school curriculum and school activities. The theories developed by Durkheim, Alastair MacIntyre, and Basil Bernstein will be discussed. This includes explaining how far the theories have been adopted in Indonesia and how the approaches are currently being used in Indonesian schooling. This paper suggests despite the implementation of those theories in Indonesian schools, the government needs to optimise the operation of those theories to gain significant outcomes.

Herrat, jätkät ja sotataito : Kansalaissotilas- ja ammattisotilasarmeijan rakentuminen 1920- ja 1930-luvulla

Gentlemen, Lads and the Art of War The Construction of Citizen Soldier- and Professional Soldier Armies into the Miracle of the Winter War During the 1920s and 1930s The Miracle of the Winter War was not a myth - at least according to them, who were making that miracle to happen. This study is not just about the Armed Forces and society, but moreover a study about civil society inside the organization of armed forces. Conscription kept Finnish military organization (and is still keeping) very closely connected with civil society and therefore there is no need to locate the possible critical misunderstandings brought by two different identity-based approaches. The great performance of the Armed Forces during the Second World War was not made of superior art of war. It was not the high level of discipline either. Art of war is basically a (deep level) cultural level equation that has more to do with culturally absorbed schemes of meaning making than rational decision-making. Naturally attrition based approach to effect-making directed the organizational methods in attrition based organisational practices, where there were only minor possibilities to practice any manoeuvre-based organisational behaviour. The practice and method of leadership lent similarly to the attrition-based thinking, which directed the organisational cultural thoughts towards composition that confirmed antagonism between gentlemen and lads . This setting has been absorbed and learned through cultural socialisation and was therefore not a product of the military organisation itself. The Finnish Armed Forces included two different communities (gentlemen and lads) within the same organisation as there were both the official and the unofficial organisations presented. This caused problems as they both made meaning-making processes simultaneously. These organisations had their own overlapping and in most cases also contradictory social meanings. The unofficial organisation has been overshadowed by the vast number of studies concerning the official organisation. The main reason for this systematic neglect is based on the reality of the attitudes and living conditions of the micro-level organisation which produced (perhaps) too realistic and repulsive viewpoints that are presenting a picture of a national level identity process in a way that is separating it from the ideals made to verify the ethos of national values. Complaining, griping, grumbling and moaning are usually situated in a category of abnormal and unwanted behaviour. However, within the context of a citizen soldier army community this was more of a characteristic feature of that organisation (in Finland) and therefore it was crucially important to locate the context of that abnormal behaviour. According to this study, it was not a malicious act but moreover seriously formed efforts in trying to use common sense in the chaos citizen soldiers faced when they were uniformed and placed in an unfamiliar process of disciplinary measures and frictions and competition between different ranks. There is much evidence that reinforces the argument that what seemed to be the most unconventional behaviour was finally the most efficient in a sense of military performance.

From social to political. New forms of mobilization and democratization. Conference proceedings

In the recent evolution of contemporary social movements three phases can be identified. The first phase is marked by the labour movement and the systemic importance attributed to the labour conflict in industrial societies. This conflict has been interpreted as a consequence of the shortcoming of social integration mechanisms by Emile Durkheim, as a rational conflict by entrepreneurs’ and workers’ interests by Max Wener, and as a central class struggle for the transformation of society by Karl Marx. The second phase in this development was led by the new social movements of the post-industrial society of the 1960s and 1970s’ students, women and environmentalist movements. Two new analytical perspectives have explained these movements’ meaning and actions. Resource mobilization theory (McAdam and Tilly) has focuses on rational attitudes and conflicts. Actionalist sociology, in turn, has identified the new protagonists of social conflicts that replaced the labour movement in postindustrial societies. The third phase emerges in a world characterized by the ascendance of markets, the increasingly prominent role of financial capital flows, the closure of communities, and fundamentalism. In this context, human rights and pro-democratization movements constitute alternatives to global domination and the systemic conditioning of individual and groups.

As histórias de coletivos para uma psicologia brasileira contemporânea

Este trabalho pretende problematizar as concepções de coletivo que se apresentam nos discursos da psicologia brasileira contemporânea. Tomamos como campo os artigos da revista Psicologia e Sociedade e construímos duas imagens: a imagem do coletivo representação é acompanhada por concepções naturalizantes das categorias com as quais trabalha. Nesta imagem de coletivo a separação entre indivíduo e sociedade é bem marcada e acaba produzindo construções abstratas dos seus fenômenos. Ao percorrer uma breve história da psicologia vemos esta surgir como uma tecnologia voltada para a ?gestão? dos coletivos, construindo e reproduzindo conhecimentos acerca dos indivíduos e do social. A imagem dos coletivos clandestinos é pautada em referências que desestabilizam as fronteiras impostas das ciências modernas e concebem tanto o indivíduo quanto o social efeito de uma produção simultânea, problematizando as fprmas de cpnhecimento das ciências tradicionais. A metodologia conta com a perspectiva histórica de Michel Foucault que afirma a primazia das relações de poder, e com as contribuições de Bruno Latour e suas conexões criando hibridismos. A proposta metodológica foi um importante instrumento ara romper com as barreiras separatistas, acentuando a presença do pesquisadpr como participante igual aos outros elementos do campo de pesquisa, enfatizando que o modo de pesquisar é com o outro e não sobre o outro. Desta forma As histórias de coletivos para uma psicologia brasileira pretende desnaturalizar modos de produzir conhecimento e categorias de coletivos herméticas. Para finalizar entre formas de fazer e perceber o coletivo temos o trabalho de campo atravessado pordois sociólogos, Emile Durkheim e Gabriel Tarde, contribuindo com as problematizações dos coletivos representação e clandestinos. Gabriel Tarde contribui produzindo uma concepção de coletivo processual, onde a imitação e a invenção ressaltam o caráter relacional do indivíduo e do social e os coloca numa produção de dupla emergência.

Corpo em festa: Juventude, sociabilidade e produção de sentidos nos bailes cariocas

A presente pesquisa consiste em um estudo da representação do corpo jovem a partir de dois bailes: o baile coletivo de debutantes promovido pela Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) para as moradoras de algumas comunidades cariocas, e o baile do passinho, vertente do funk carioca, que atrai os meninos das comunidades e ressignifica seu papel social dentro das favelas onde vivem. O recorte para o estudo parte, inicialmente, de questões de gênero atribuídas a ambos os bailes. O fim dos bailes funk no processo de pacificação das favelas tem desdobramentos significativos na rotina dos jovens. De um lado, a reivindicação das jovens deu origem ao baile coletivo de debutantes como estratégia de aproximação da polícia com o público feminino; por outro, levou o passinho para as lan houses e fez dos cômodos das casas cenário para a gravação de vídeos e a sua divulgação e compartilhamento em rede. O objetivo do trabalho é observar nos jovens que participam dos bailes supracitados a maneira pela qual seus corpos são "adequados" para tais festas e quais os aspectos que influenciam e afetam a construção da identidade juvenil. A estratégia metodológica desenvolvida contemplou a pesquisa documental disponível em mídia impressa e digital sobre os bailes e suas danças, a realização de entrevistas abertas e semi-estruturadas, a observação dos jovens participantes nos bailes, e a pesquisa bibliográfica para embasamento teórico - sendo considerado o referencial sócio-antropológico de David Le Breton, Michel Maffesoli, Roberto DaMatta e Hermano Vianna, a sociologia de Émile Durkheim e Marcel Mauss, os estudos culturais de Raymond Williams, Peter Burke, Néstor Garcia Canclini e Stuart Hall, além das pesquisas em comunicação de Denise Siqueira e Christine Greiner. Para a presente pesquisa as projeções no corpo impelem um olhar crítico e o analisar das referências que circundam os jovens moradores das comunidades cariocas. Desta forma, questionar as representações do corpo em festa move este estudo.

Depression and 'crises of meaninglessness' in the political-economic theology of the money-God

The thesis starts with a historical analysis of the development of depression as a concept. Through this inquiry, the controversies behind the apparent consensus about depression’s etiology and treatment are illuminated, suggesting that the understanding of the climbing rates of depression in contemporary Western civilization is still up for grabs. That’s what the thesis sets out to investigate. In order to accomplish this aim, the study builds upon the classical accounts of Georg Simmel, Émile Durkheim and the more contemporary ideas of Dany-Robert Dufour, in dialogue with an array of supplementary theoretical sources. Navigating through this ‘sea’ of extraordinary and different theories, a new avenue of reflections arises, contributing for the sophistication of the questions made about the phenomenon of depression’s rates. The fundamental argument emerging from this theoretical undertaking is that ‘crises of meaninglessness’ that pervade the collective body of Western contemporary societies have, as one of its consequences, the expansion of depression rates. Meaninglessness in contemporary times is the primary object of investigation of the thesis. The concept, in the context of this study, is not understood as merely an effect of the historical decline of shared social norms due to processes of individualization. Rather, it is claimed, it originates from and is reinforced by the ‘political-economic theology of neo-liberalism’ which becomes virtually generalized in the West, erecting money as a God. The study concludes that by undermining culturally established values, ideals, institutions and principles that may block the dissemination of commodities this new transcendence has been challenging the task of signifying life, potentializing – among other subjective difficulties – the diffusion of depression.

Pupil participation in school life: an approach from the educational community

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989) is currently the most ratified international treaty. Several authors have highlighted its potential for both a moral education and citizenship. However, paradoxically, different studies report its limited or occasional incorporation into school practices. This article explores experiences of participation in schools,the third P of the CRC, from the plurality of voices and actors of the educational community,by means of 14 discussion groups in 11 autonomous communities in Spain. Discourse analysis evidence low levels of student participation in school life. But, at the same time, a favorable educational environment for the development of projects that contribute to child participation is found, as well as for the incorporation of the CRC as a mover and a referential integrator of the different schools projects. However, it is also an educational background conductive to projects for its development, such as the incorporation of the CRC as a referential integrator of the schools projects.

Reentry as a Rite of Passage

Mary Douglas argues that, ‘There are some things we cannot experience without ritual.’ Ex-prisoner reintegration may be one of them. The punishment process involves an inordinate amount of ritual behavior, from the drama of the courtroom to the elaborate de-individuation processes involved in institutionalization. Durkheim argues that these rituals served a distinct purpose for society: engendering social solidarity and shaping penal sensibilities. Like the commission of a crime, the reintegration of the former outcast back into society represents a challenge to the moral order, a delicate transition fraught with danger and possibility. However, unlike punishment, reintegration is not a process characterized by well-orchestrated and familiar rituals. This lack might explain the failings of prisoner reentry in contemporary society. This article reviews the sociological and anthropological literature on rituals, explaining what they are and what they do, focusing in particular on the role of status degradation ceremonies in criminal justice work. Drawing on this literature, the core elements that would be needed to develop rituals of reintegration powerful enough to counteract these degradation effects are discussed, and the potential impact of such hypothetical rituals is explored.

War, peace and suicide: The case of Northern Ireland

Durkheim’s idea that war reduces suicide through greater social and political integration has been used to explain suicide trends during the Northern Ireland conflict and in the period of peace. The applicability of Durkheim is critically evaluated through a case study of suicide trends by age, gender and cause of death over a forty year period. The key finding is that the cohort of children and young people who grew up in the worst years of violence during the 1970s, have the highest and most rapidly increasing suicide rates, and account for the steep upward trend in suicide following the 1998 Agreement. Contrary to Durkheim, the recent rise in suicide involves a complex of social and psychological factors. These include the growth in social isolation, poor mental health arising from the experience of conflict, and the greater political stability of the past decade. The transition to peace means that externalised aggression is no longer socially approved. It becomes internalised instead.

Religion and the risk of suicide: longitudinal study of over 1 million people

Background: Durkheim’s seminal historical study demonstrated that religious affiliation reduces suicide risk, but it is unclear whether this protective effect persists in modern, more secular societies.

Aims: To examine suicide risk according to Christian religious affiliation and by inference to examine underlying mechanisms for suicide risk. If church attendance is important, risk should be lowest for Roman Catholics and highest for those with no religion; if religiosity is important, then ‘conservative’ Christians should fare best.

Method: A 9-year study followed 1 106 104 people aged 16–74 years at the 2001 UK census, using Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for census-based cohort attributes.

Results: In fully adjusted models analysing 1119 cases of suicide, Roman Catholics, Protestants and those professing no religion recorded similar risks. The risk associated with conservative Christians was lower than that for Catholics (HR = 0.71, 95% CI 0.52–0.97).

Conclusions: The relationship between religious affiliation and suicide established by Durkheim may not pertain in societies where suicide rates are highest at younger ages. Risks are similar for those with and without a religious affiliation, and Catholics (who traditionally are characterised by higher levels of church attendance) do not demonstrate lower risk of suicide. However, religious affiliation is a poor measure of religiosity, except for a small group of conservative Christians, although their lower risk of suicide may be attributable to factors such as lower risk behaviour and alcohol consumption.