1. What do these people have in common?

2. What caused their deaths?

3. Read through the information on each of the deaths – are they as straightforward as the media might have us believe? Start to think about how sociologists might look at this.

4. Opinion
Hoffman: Winehouse: Monroe (long):

5. What different reasons might sociologists and psychologists give for these deaths?
The economy
Social class
Gender
Religion
Region
Age
Ethnicity
Stress
Depression
Individual psychological circumstances
Individual economic problems

6. The ultimate individual act?

7. If it is individual, surely there should be no societal patterns?
Analyse the items

12. What have we learnt so far about this cheery topic ‘Suicide’?
Emile Durkheim collected stats from official sources
We can spot patterns between suicide and region, age, ethnicity, religion etc.
If suicide is an individual act surely there shouldn’t be patterns?
The process of labelling a suicide is subject to social processes
There are societal as well as psychological influences on suicide
Suicide is usually a deviant act (not always) and has been/is a criminal act too.

13. Emile Durkheim
Le suicide 1897

14. Why study suicide?

15. Why did Durkheim study suicide?
To establish sociology as an academic discipline.
To demonstrate that suicide could not be explained by psychology alone.
Durkheim’s ‘Le Suicide’ (1897) is considered a classic ‘positivist’ study and also represented a groundbreaking approach for Sociology

16. SOCIAL FACTS
“We must inquire whether, among the different varieties of death, some have common qualities objective enough to be recognized by all honest observers, specific enough not to be found elsewhere and also sufficiently kin to those commonly called suicides for us to retain the same term without breaking with common usage.”

17. Synoptic link with methods
Durkheim’s study is an exercise in positivism.
He uses the suicide statistics from several European countries
Durkheim regarded statistics as ‘social facts’.
He would establish correlations & reveal the casual relationships which led to suicide.

18. Why does suicide need to be studied for crime and deviance?

19. The ultimate deviant act?
Ecclesiastes 7:17 Be not over much wicked, neither be you foolish: why should you die before your time?
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, said the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
John 10:28 And I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
John 12:25 He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal.

20. The ultimate deviant act?
Islam:
{Nor take life—which God has made sacred—except for just cause.} (Al-Israa' 17:33)
{If anyone killed a person not in retaliation for murder (without just cause) or to spread mischief in the land,
it would be as if he killed all mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved all mankind.} (Al-Ma'idah 5:32
{Have you not turned your gaze to one who disputed with Abraham about his Lord because God granted him power? Abraham said, "My Lord is He Who gives life and death."} (Al-Baqarah 2:258

21. The ultimate deviant act?
Hinduism:
Killing (euthanasia, murder, suicide) interferes with the killed soul's progress towards liberation. It also brings bad karma to the killer, because of the violation of the principle of non-violence.
When the soul is reincarnated in another physical body it will suffer as it did before because the same karma is still present.
Death: The doctrine of karma means that a Hindu tries to get their life in a good state before they die, making sure that there is no unfinished business, or unhappinesses. 
Prayopavesa, or fasting to death, is an acceptable way for a Hindu to end their life in certain circumstances.

22. The ultimate deviant act?
Judaism:
Those who take their own lives are technically not entitled to Jewish burial and mourning rites–but suicide as a freely chosen act (with the above consequences) has been nearly defined out of existence by mental health considerations in the development of Jewish law, and in most cases deaths by suicide are treated like all other deaths.
Excerpted with permission  from The Jewish Religion: A Companion,Oxford University Press

23. UK: Is suicide illegal?
The Suicide Act 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz 2 c 60) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It decriminalized the act of suicide in England and Wales so that those who failed in the attempt to kill themselves would no longer be prosecuted.

24. Ireland
Attempted suicide is not a criminal offence in Ireland and, under Irish law, self-harm is not generally seen as a form of attempted suicide. It was decriminalised in Assisted suicide and euthanasia are, however, illegal.

25. DEFIANCE
In ancient Rome or medieval Japan, suicide was seen as a defiant act of extreme personal freedom against perceived or actual tyrants.

26. STARTER True or false? Suicide is always deviant
Religions view suicide as a deviant act because only God can choose when to end a life
Jewish people will never bury a suicide victim
Durkheim found that suicide is a purely individual act
Durkheim argued that Sociology can be studied as a science
A social fact is a purely individual action

27. Lesson objective
To explore Durkheim’s explanations for suicide.

28. From your knowledge, what might Durkheim attribute suicide to?

29. Durkheim’s theory is grounded in two key concepts
1. Social integration
The degree to which individuals were integrated into society.
Eg: part of a family, at college/work, religious practises etc.

30. 2. Social Regulation Social regulation
The degree to which society regulates (controls) an individual’s behaviour
Eg: the laws in society, religion, socialisation etc...

31. He links each possibility to four types of suicide
Balance
Durkheim believed that if the level of social regulation or integration was too strong OR too weak then suicide is more likely to occur.
He links each possibility to four types of suicide

32. Who commits more suicide?
Durkheim’s Findings
Who commits more suicide?
Married/unmarried
Children/childless
Protestant/Catholic/Jewish

33. Durkheim…
Used quantitative data from official statistics, analysed suicide rates in a number of European cities. Saw 4 patterns…
1. Suicide rates for each society were more or less constant over time.
4. Rates varied greatly within different groups in society. E.g. single more than married etc..
2. When rates did change, they coincided with key events. E.g. war…
3. Different societies had different rates.
Therefore suicide rates cannot simply be the result of motives of individuals

35. Egoistic Suicides (more common in industrial societies)
Social integration is too weak.
Results from the individual not being sufficiently integrated into society.
Compared suicide rates amongst Catholics & Protestant’s as evidence.

36. Homelessness: A silent killer A research briefing on mortality amongst homeless people (Crisis: December 2011)
“Homeless people are over 9 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population”

37. Gang members
Around a third (34.2 per cent) had attempted suicide

38. 2. Anomic Suicide (more common in industrial societies)
Social regulation is too weak
Results from the individual not being sufficiently regulated by society.
Where traditional norms & values are disrupted by rapid social change producing ‘uncertainty’ in the minds of individuals.
Durkheim pointed out that suicide rates increase in economic booms and busts as evidence.

39. 'My grandfather killed himself in the '29 crash'
The Wall St Crash of 1929 is popularly remembered for stories of bankrupt investors throwing themselves to their deaths. The grandfather of criminologist and film-maker Roger Graef was one of them.

40. 3. Altruistic Suicide (more common in pre~industrial societies)
Social integration is too strong
Where the individual sacrifices their life out of a sense of duty to others.
Eg: Hindu wives, Japanese kamikaze pilots, elderly Inuits etc..

41. KAMIKAZE
world-war-ii/world-war-ii- history/videos/kamikaze-pilots

42. 4. Fatalistic Suicide (more common in pre~industrial societies)
Social regulation is too strong
Common among slaves & now rare in industrial societies.
“ the suicide of persons with futures pitilessly blocked & passions violently choked by opressive discipline”.
Durkheim said these were of ‘historic interest’.

43. a) A rural migrant who is bewildered by city life
Allocate each of the following cases of suicide to one of the four types identified in Durkheim’s typology of suicide:
a) A rural migrant who is bewildered by city life
b) A servant who kills himself on the death of his master
c) A bravery stunt with a gun that works too well
d) A prisoner facing a life sentence in a tough labour camp
e) A person’s attempt to make an ex-lover return
An educated person who has just lost his wife and children but cannot turn to religion
Egoistic – integration too low Anomic – regulation too low
Altruistic – integration too high Fatalistic – regulation too high

44. What category would these people fit?

45. Match the suicide to Durkheim’s categories
Altruistic; Egotistic ; Anomic; Fatalistic
Match the suicide to Durkheim’s categories
Suicide of slaves/prisoners
Hindu women throwing themselves on graves/suicide bombers
Protestants
Economic booms/depression

46. Evaluation
What are the strengths and weaknesses of his approach?

47. Evaluation Weaknesses Relied on official stats too much Strengths
Cannot be verified
Stats are socially constructed
Overestimated role of religion, could be area
Strengths
Sociological classic
Used for over 70 years
Links the claim that sociology can be a science

48. Partial agreement
Stack (1983), in a comparative analysis of 25 countries, creatively refined Durkheim's thesis to arrive at the finding that lower suicide rates-for women, but not for men-are associated not with religiously based social integration (as Durkheim and others have argued) but with commitment to a few "life preserving" religious beliefs, values, and practices

50. Frans van Poppel and Lincoln H. Day
The gap between Protestant and Catholic suicide rates in the Netherlands during the years 1905 through appears to be the result of nothing more mysterious than differences in how deaths to Catholics and deaths to Protestants were recorded:
A large proportion of deaths to Catholics, which would have been categorized as suicides had they occurred to Protestants, were categorized as "sudden death" or "death from ill-defined or unspecified cause."

51. Kruijt (1960)
The differences in suicide rates recorded by religious composition in the Netherlands might be explicable largely in terms of nothing more arcane than differences in recording practices:
[T]he lowest registration of suicides ... in the south of the Netherlands, and perhaps also in some Orthodox Protestant areas, may correlate with prevailing negative attitudes toward filling in "suicide" as a cause of death on the death certificate.
There is a stronger tendency among Roman Catholics to conceal the fact that suicide was the cause of death than among groups that do not judge suicide so harshly or punish suicide with religious sanctions.

52. Ecological fallacy
A fallacy is an error of logic usually based on mistaken assumptions. The ecological fallacy is an error of deduction that involves deriving conclusions about individuals solely on the basis of an analysis of group data. 

53. Douglas (67) Interactionist approach
Stats are based on coroners opinion
People commit suicide for four reasons
Transforming self
Transforming oneself for others
Achieving fellow feelings
Gaining revenge

54. Achieving fellow feelings
I’m so unhappy
Transforming self
You ruined my life
Transforming oneself
Please help me!
Achieving fellow feelings
I killed myself because you rejected me
Gaining revenge

55. Can we adopt a scientific approach?
Individuals place different meanings on suicide
Need to look at why not just the stats
Therefore using Douglas’s work Durkheim’s work is useless

56. Atkinson Interactionist approach Stats are socially constructed
Based on coroner’s decision
Coroner’s inquest is based on
Suicide note
Mode of death
Location and circumstances
Life history and mental condition
Shows how Durkheim’s work is questionable
as stats are based on coroner’s
decision

57. Taylor (90) All have ignored parasuicides
What about those people who attempt suicide and fail?
When questioned these people are taking more of a gamble than a definite decision
Need to incorporate Durkheim and Douglas
Successful suicides can be linked into Durkheim’s explanations
But we also need to include the meanings behind them