NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY, BHOPAL

CRIMINOLOGY
CRIMINOLOGY OF SUICIDE

Submitted To: Dr. P.K.Shukla

Professor Criminology

Submitted By: Kumar

Abhinav
2015 B.A.Ll.B 76
9/14/2016

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Table of Contents
ACKNOLEDGEMENT.....................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................4
Aims and Learning Objectives......................................................................................................................5
Literature Review........................................................................................................................................6
Research Methodology................................................................................................................................7
Laws Related To Suicide In India And In World............................................................................................8
INDIAN SCENARIO....................................................................................................................................9
Condition in England and Wales...........................................................................................................10
Legal Status in United States.................................................................................................................11
Criminological Theories Related To Suicide.............................................................................................13
Strain Theory.........................................................................................................................................13
THEORIES DERIVED FROM STRAIN THEORIES;......................................................................15
General Strain Theory........................................................................................................................15
Institutional Anomie Theory..............................................................................................................16
Illegitimate Opportunities Theory......................................................................................................16
Emile Durkheim on Suicide...................................................................................................................16
Types Of Suicide........................................................................................................................................18
Criticisms..............................................................................................................................................23
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................25

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ACKNOLEDGEMENT

I take this opportunity to express a deep sense of gratitude to The National Law Institute
University (NLIU) for providing me with this excellent opportunity to make this project. I extend
my sincere thanks to everybody who helped with the completion of this project. I am greatly
obliged to our teacher for Criminology, Dr. P.K Shukla for his blessing, help and guidance.. I am
also thankful to the Library Administration for the provision of necessary books and texts needed
for the completion of this project. Finally, I would like to thank my seniors and friends for their
support.

- Kumar Abhinav
2015 B.A LL.B 76

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INTRODUCTION

Suicide is the act of causing one's own death intentionally. The causes of suicide include mental
disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, alcoholism,
or substance misuse. Others are impulsive acts which may be due to stress caused from financial
difficulties, troubles with relationships, or from bullying or harassment. It has been observed that
those who have previously attempted suicide are much vulnerable to another attempt. Suicide
prevention efforts include limiting access to method of suicide, such as firearms and poisons,
treating mental disorders and substance misuse, proper media reporting of suicide, and
improving economic conditions. Although crisis hotlines are common, there is little evidence for
their effectiveness.

The most commonly used method of suicide varies between countries, and is partly related to the
availability of effective means. Common methods include hanging, pesticide poisoning,
and firearms. Suicide resulted in 842,000 deaths in 2013 up from 712,000 deaths in 1990.This
makes it the 10th leading cause of death worldwide.

Views on suicide have been influenced by broad existential themes such as religion, honor, and

the meaning of life. The Abrahamic religions traditionally consider suicide an offense towards
God due to the belief in the sanctity of life.  During the samurai era in Japan, a form of suicide
known as seppuku was respected as a means of making up for failure or as a form of
protest. Sati, a practice outlawed by the British Raj, expected the Indian widow to kill herself on
her husband's funeral fire, either willingly or under pressure from the family and society. Suicide
and attempted suicide, while previously illegal, are no longer in most Western
countries.It remains a criminal offense in many countries. In the 20th and 21st centuries, suicide
has been used on rare occasions as a form of protest, and kamikaze and suicide bombings have
been used as a military or terrorist tactic. The word is from the Latin suicidium, which means
"the killing of oneself".

There is no known unifying underlying path physiology for either suicide, or depression.] It is

however believed to result from an interplay of behavioral, socio-environmental and psychiatric

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factors.

Aims and Learning Objectives

 What is suicide?
 What is philosophy of suicide, included what constitutes suicide, whether or not suicide
can be a rational choice, and the moral permissibility of suicide?
 How a criminologists see suicide?

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Literature Review

Explanation requires comparison; comparison requires classification; classification requires the

definition of those facts to be classified, compared, and ultimately explained. Consistent
with The Rules of Sociological Method, therefore, Durkheim began his 1897 work with a
warning against notiones vulgares, together with an insistence that our first task... must be to
determine the order of facts to be studied under the name of suicide... 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.

Durkheim's initial effort at such a definition indeed followed common usage, according to which
a "suicide" is any death which is the immediate or eventual result of a positive (e.g., shooting
oneself) or negative (e.g., refusing to eat) act accomplished by the victim himself. But here
Durkheim immediately ran into difficulties, for this definition failed to distinguish between two
very different sorts of death: the victim of hallucination who leaps from an upper story window
while thinking it on a level with the ground; and the sane individual who does the same
thing knowing that it will lead to his death. The obvious solution -- i.e., to restrict the definition
of suicide to actions intended to have this result -- was unacceptable to Durkheim for at least two
reasons. First, as we have seen (p. 64 above), Durkheim consistently tried to define social facts
by easily ascertainable characteristics, and the intentions of agents were ill-fitted to this purpose.
Second, the definition of suicide by the end sought by the agent would exclude actions -- e.g., the
mother sacrificing herself for her child -- in which death is clearly not "sought" but is
nonetheless an inevitable consequence of the act in question, and is thus a "suicide" by any other
name.

The distinctive characteristic of suicides, therefore, is not that the act is performed intentionally,
but rather that it is performed advisedly -- the agent knows that death will be the result of his act,

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regardless of whether or not death is his goal. This criterion is sufficient to distinguish suicide,
properly so-called, from other deaths which are either inflicted on oneself unconsciously or not
self-inflicted at all; moreover. Durkheim insisted that such a characteristic was easily
ascertainable, and that such acts thus formed a definite, homogeneous group. Hence Durkheim's
definition:Suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive
or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result. Herein this project
I will try to analyze Durkhiem’s view on suicide, and what other criminologist thinks about it.

Research Methodology

To be critical in an academic context does not just mean participating in the debates within an
intellectual discipline. It also involves questioning the paradigms within which the discipline sits;
the assumptions, concepts and categories through which it frames its concerns; and the methods
by which it seeks to arrive at an understanding of the world. Herein this project I will try to
remain critical and objective though the prevention and philosophy part can be subjective.

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Laws Related To Suicide In India And In World

Suicide is a crime in some parts of the world. However, while suicide has been decriminalized in
some western countries, the act is still stigmatized and discouraged. In other contexts, such as
ancient Rome or medieval Japan, suicide was seen as a defiant act of extreme personal freedom
against perceived or actual tyrants.

While a person who has completed suicide is beyond the reach of the law, there can still be legal
consequences in the cases of treatment of the corpse or the fate of the person's property or family
members. The associated matters of assisting a suicide and attempting suicide have also been
dealt with by the laws of some jurisdictions.

Historically laws against suicide and mercy killing have developed from religious doctrine, for
example, the claim that only God has the right to determine when a person will die.[

In ancient Athens, a person who had died by suicide (without the approval of the state) was
denied the honours of a normal burial. The person would be buried alone, on the outskirts of the
city, without a headstone or marker.A criminal ordinance issued by Louis XIV in 1670 was far
more severe in its punishment: the dead person's body was drawn through the streets, face down,
and then hung or thrown on a garbage heap. Additionally, all of the person's property was
confiscated.

The 'Burial of Suicide Act' of 1823 abolished the legal requirement in England of burying
suicides at crossroads.

Even in modern times, legal penalties for the act of suicide have not been uncommon. By 1879,
English law had begun to distinguish between suicide and homicide, though suicide still resulted
in forfeiture of estate. Also, the deceased were permitted daylight burial in 1882

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INDIAN SCENARIO

The Section 309 in the Indian Penal Code lays down the punishment for attempted suicide.
The maximum punishment which can be awarded is imprisonment for a term of 1 year

Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, says that, whoever attempts to commit suicide and does
any act towards the commission of such offence, shall he punished with simple imprisonment for
a term which may extend to one year. However, upon considering the recommendations of the
Law Commission, Government of India introduced Mental Healthcare Bill and the same was
passed in the Rajya Sabha on August 8, 2016.

Bill seeks to provide a better health care facilities for those people who are suffering from mental
illnesses. Bill also seeks to decriminalize the offence of Attempt to Suicide.  By virtue of Section
124 of the Mental Healthcare Bill, notwithstanding anything contained in section 309 of the
Indian Penal Code, any person who attempts to commit suicide shall be presumed, unless proved
otherwise, to be suffering from mental illness at the time of attempting suicide and shall not be
liable to punishment under the said section.

Section 124 further provides that, the appropriate Government shall have a duty to provide care,
treatment and rehabilitation to a person, having mental illness and who attempted to commit
suicide, to reduce the risk of recurrence of attempt to commit suicide.

In P. Rathinam v. Union of India, (1994 AIR 1844, 1994 SCC (3) 394) Honourable Supreme
Court held that, an act of suicide cannot be said to be against religion, morality or public policy,
and an act of attempted suicide has no baneful effect on society. Further, suicide or attempt to
commit it causes no harm to others, because of which State's interference with the personal
liberty of the persons concerned is not called for.

Thus, the Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code violates the Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
Hence, it was held that, Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code deserves to be effaced from the
statute book to humanize our penal laws.

However, in Smt. Gian Kaur v. The State of Punjab, (1996 AIR 946, 1996 SCC (2) 648)
Supreme Court of India held that, Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code is not violative of either
Article 14 or Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. In other words, the apex court held that,
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Section 309 of IPC is constitutionally valid.

Further, in 210th Law Commission Report on Humanization and Decriminalization of Attempt to Suicide ,

it is felt that attempt to suicide may be regarded more as a manifestation of a diseased condition
of mind deserving treatment and care rather than an offence to be visited with punishment.

In Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug v. Union of India & Ors., [(2011) 4 SCC 454] Supreme
Court of India opined that, although Section 309 of IPC has been held to be constitutionally valid
in Gian Kaur's case, the time has come when it should be deleted by Parliament as it has become
anachronistic. A person attempts suicide in a depression, and hence he needs help, rather than
punishment. We therefore recommend to Parliament to consider the feasibility of deleting
Section 309 from the Indian Penal Code.

Condition in England and Wales.

Laws against suicide (and attempted suicide) prevailed in English common law until 1961.
English law perceived suicide as an immoral, criminal offence against God and also against the
Crown. It first became illegal in the 13th century. Until 1822, in fact, the possessions of
somebody who committed suicide could even be forfeited to the Crown.

Suicide ceased to be a criminal offence with the passing of the Suicide Act 1961; the same Act
made it an offence to assist in a suicide. With respect to civil law the simple act of suicide is
lawful but the consequences of committing suicide might turn an individual event into an
unlawful act, as in the case of Reeves v Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis [2000] 1 AC
360,where a man in police custody hanged himself and was held equally liable with the police (a
cell door defect enabled the hanging) for the loss suffered by his widow; the practical effect was
to reduce the police damages liability by 50%. In 2009, the House of Lords ruled that the law
concerning the treatment of people who accompanied those who committed assisted suicide was
unclear, following Debbie Purdy's case that this lack of clarity was a breach of her human rights.
(In her case, as a sufferer from multiple sclerosis, she wanted to know whether her husband
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would be prosecuted for accompanying her abroad where she may eventually wish to commit
assisted suicide, if her illness progressed.) As a result, this law is expected to be revised.

Legal Status in United States

Historically, various states listed the act of suicide as a felony, but these policies were sparsely
enforced. In the late 1960s, eighteen U.S. states had no laws against suicide. By the late 1980s,
thirty of the fifty states had no laws against suicide or suicide attempts but every state had laws
declaring it to be a felony to aid, advise or encourage another person to commit suicide.By the
early 1990s only two states still listed suicide as a crime, and these have since removed that
classification. In some U.S. states, suicide is still considered an unwritten "common law crime,"
as stated in Blackstone's Commentaries. (So held the Virginia Supreme Court in 1992. Wackwitz
v. Roy, 418 S.E.2d 861 (Va. 1992)). As a common law crime, suicide can bar recovery for the
late suicidal person's family in a lawsuit unless the suicidal person can be proven to have been
"of unsound mind." That is, the suicide must be proven to have been an involuntary act of the
victim in order for the family to be awarded monetary damages by the court. This can occur
when the family of the deceased sues the caregiver (perhaps a jail or hospital) for negligence in
failing to provide appropriate care. Some American legal scholars look at the issue as one of
personal liberty. According to Nadine Strossen, former President of the ACLU, "The idea of
government making determinations about how you end your life, forcing you...could be
considered cruel and unusual punishment in certain circumstances, and Justice Stevens in a very
interesting opinion in a right-to-die [case] raised the analogy." Physician-assisted suicide is legal
in some state.  For the terminally ill, it is legal in the state of Oregon under the Oregon Death
with Dignity Act. In Washington state, it became legal in 2009, when a law modeled after the
Oregon act, the Washington Death with Dignity Act was passed. A patient must be diagnosed as
having less than six months to live, be of sound mind, make a request orally and in writing, have
it approved by two different doctors, then wait 15 days and make the request again. A doctor
may prescribe a lethal dose of a medication but may not administer it.

In California, medical facilities are empowered or required to commit anyone whom they believe
to be suicidal for evaluation and treatment

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Criminological Theories Related To Suicide

Research into why individuals become suicidal has identified psychiatric disturbance as the
strongest predictor of future suicidality. In particular, depression, both unipolar and bipolar, is
associated with the greatest suicidal risk, and even in schizophrenics and substances abusers,
both groups with high rates of suicide, depression is the strongest predictor of which individuals
in those groups will complete suicide (Maris, Berman, and Silverman 2000). Among the
components of depression, the cognitive component, which has been
called pessimism and hopelessness by Aaron Beck and his colleagues (1979), is a more powerful
predictor than the somatic components of depression (such as loss of appetite) or the mood
symptoms (such as guilt).

Suicidal individuals are found to have experienced a high level of stress for a long period of
time, and often have an increasing level in the time leading up to their suicidal action. In
addition, suicidal individuals are found to have few resources, and the resources that they have
are often unavailable (Lester 2000). For example, the people available to turn to for help may be
resented by the suicidal person, or the resources may be hostile toward the suicidal person.

The family plays a critical role in each of these factors. Physiological and psychological theories
of psychiatric disorder stress the role of the parents, either in passing on the genes for the
disorder (in physiological theories) or in creating a pathological home environment (in
psychological theories) (Maris, Berman, Silverman 2000). Family members are often the cause
of much of the stress that suicidal individuals experience, and they are the resources that may be
unavailable to the suicidal individual.

Strain Theory
Strain theory is a sociology and criminology theory developed in 1957 by Robert K. Merton. The
theory states that society puts pressure on individuals to achieve a socially accepted goals (such
as the American dream) though they lack the means, this leads to strain which may lead the
individuals to commit crimes. Examples being selling drugs or becoming involved in prostitution

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to gain financial security.

Strain may either be:

Structural: this refers to the processes at the societal level which filter down and affect how the
individual perceives his or her needs, i.e. if particular social structures are inherently inadequate
or there is inadequate regulation, this may change the individual's perceptions as to means and
opportunities; or

Individual: this refers to the frictions and pains experienced by an individual as he or she looks
for ways to satisfy his or her needs, i.e. if the goals of a society become significant to an
individual, actually achieving them may become more important than the means adopted.

Strain theories state that certain strains or stressors increase the likelihood of crime. These strains
lead to negative emotions, such as frustration and anger. These emotions create pressure for
corrective action, and crime is one possible response. Crime may be used to reduce or escape
from strain, seek revenge against the source of strain or related targets, or alleviate negative
emotions. For example, individuals experiencing chronic unemployment may engage in theft or
drug selling to obtain money, seek revenge against the person who fired them, or take illicit
drugs in an effort to feel better. The major versions of strain theory describe 1) the particular
strains most likely to lead to crime, 2) why strains increase crime, and 3) the factors that lead a
person to or dissuade a person from responding to strains with crime. All strain theories
acknowledge that only a minority of strained individuals turn to crime. Emile Durkheim
developed the first modern strain theory of crime and deviance, but Merton’s classic strain
theory and its offshoots came to dominate criminology during the middle part of the 20th
century. Classic strain theory focuses on that type of strain involving the inability to achieve
monetary success or the somewhat broader goal of middle-class status. Classic strain theory fell
into decline during the 1970s and 1980s, partly because research appeared to challenge it. There
were several attempts to revise strain theory, most arguing that crime may result from the
inability to achieve a range of goals—not just monetary success or middle-class status. Robert
Agnew developed his general strain theory (GST) in 1992, and it has since become the leading
version of strain theory and one of the major theories of crime. GST focuses on a broad range of
strains, including the inability to achieve a variety of goals, the loss of valued possessions, and
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negative treatment by others. GST has been applied to a range of topics, including the
explanation of gender, race/ethnicity, age, community, and societal differences in crime rates. It
has also been applied to many types of crime and deviance, including corporate crime, police
deviance, bullying, suicide, terrorism, and eating disorders. Much evidence suggests that the
strains identified by GST increase the likelihood of crime, although the predictions of GST about
the types of people most likely to respond to these strains with crime have received less support

THEORIES DERIVED FROM STRAIN THEORIES;

General Strain Theory

General strain theory (GST) is a sociology and criminology theory developed in the 1992
by Robert Agnew. The core idea of general strain theory is that people who experience strain or
stress become distressed or upset which may lead them to commit crime in order to cope. One of
the key principle of this theory is emotion as the motivator for crime. The theory was developed
to conceptualize the full range of sources in society where strain possibly comes from, which
Merton's strain theory does not. The theory also focuses on the perspective of goals for status,
expectations and class rather than focusing on money( as Merton's theory does). Examples of
General Strain Theory are people who use illegal drugs to make themselves feel better, or a
student assaulting his peers to end the harassment they causes.

GST introduces 3 main sources of strain such as:

Loss of positive stimuli (death of family or friend)

Presentation of negative stimuli (physical and verbal assaults)

The inability to reach a desired goal.

Institutional Anomie Theory

Institutional anomie theory (IAT) is a criminology theory developed in 1994 in by Steven

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Messner and Richard Rosenfeld. The theory proposes that an institutional arrangement with a
market, where the market/economy is allowed to operate/dominate without restraints from other
social intuitions like family will likely cause criminal behavior. Derived from Merton's Strain
Theory, IAT expands on the macro levels of the theory. IAT's focus centers on the criminal
influences of varied social institutions, rather then just the economic structure.

Illegitimate Opportunities Theory

Illegitimate opportunities is a sociology theory developed in 1960 by Richard
Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin. The theory states that crimes result from a high number of illegitimate
opportunities and not from a lack of legitimate ones. The theory was created from Merton's strain
theory to help address juvenile delinquency.

Emile Durkheim on Suicide

Durkheim focused his studies on trying to figure out what makes people commit to this life
ending choice and what factors in their lives may have given them the final push. Durkheim
thought that economical, religious, marital, and militarily factors would influence his findings.
After his study he concluded that there are four different “types” of suicide.

The first type is the Egoistic suicide. This type of suicide occurs when the degree of social
integration is low. When a person commits this type of suicide they are not well supported in a
social group. They feel like they are an outsider or loner and the only people they have in this
world are themselves. They often feel very isolated and helpless during times in their lives when
they are under stress.  

The second type is Altuistic suicide. This type of suicide occurs when the degree of social
integration is too high. When a person commits this type of suicide they are greatly involved in a
group. All that they care about are that groups norms and goals and they completely neglect their
own needs and goals. They take their lives for a cause. A good example of this would be a
suicide bomber.

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Durkheim’s third type of suicide is Anomic Suicide. This kind of suicide is related to too low of
a degree of regulation. This type of suicide is committed during times of great stress or change.
Without regulation, a person cannot set reachable goals and in turn people get extremely
frustrated. Life is too much for them to handle and it becomes meaningless to them. An example
of this is when the market crashes or spikes.

The final type of suicide is Fatalistic suicide. People commit this suicide when their lives are
kept under tight regulation. They often live their lives under extreme rules and high expectations.
These types of people are left feeling like they’ve lost their sense of self

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Types Of Suicide

Durkheim defines suicide as follows:

...the term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or
negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result.

— Durkheim, 1897[3]

He also distinguished between four subtypes of suicide:

Egoistic suicide reflects a prolonged sense of not belonging, of not being integrated in a

community, an experience, of not having a tether: an absence that can give rise to
meaninglessness, apathy, melancholy, and depression. It is the result of a weakening of the bonds
that normally integrate individuals into the collectivity: in other words a breakdown or decrease
of social integration. Durkheim refers to this type of suicide as the result of
"excessive individuation", meaning that the individual becomes increasingly detached from other
members of his community. Those individuals who were not sufficiently bound to social groups
(and therefore well-defined values, traditions, norms, and goals) were left with little social
support or guidance, and therefore tended to commit suicide on an increased basis. An example
Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people, particularly males, who, with less to bind
and connect them to stable social norms and goals, committed suicide at higher rates than
married people.

According to David Emile Durkheim, the self of the person who commits egoistic suicide is
characterized by deep meditation and self-examination, while the self of the person
committing anomic suicide is marked with keen desire and sensuality. Durkheim viewed egoistic
suicide as a consequence of the deterioration of social and familial bonds and linked anomic
suicide to disillusionment and disappointment.

The egoist is unhappy because he sees nothing "real" in the world besides the individual, the
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egoist sees no goal to which he might commit himself, and thus feels useless and without
purpose. The melancholy of the egoist is one of incurable weariness and sad depression.

Durkheim contended that the reasons why people kill themselves by their own hand or invite it at
the hands of others is far from being a random or idiosyncratic matter. For each social group, he
contended, "there is a specific tendency to suicide [that depends] upon social causes..."

In certain types of societies, "excessive individuation leads to suicide." In others, "insufficient

individuation has the same effects." Durkheim based his conclusions on statistical comparisons
between suicide rates in Catholic, Protestant and Jewish populations in Europe toward the end of
the 19th century

Egoisitic suicide resulted from too little social integration. Those individuals who were not
sufficiently bound to social groups (and therefore well-defined values, traditions, norms, and
goals) were left with little social support or guidance, and therefore tended to commit suicide on
an increased basis. An example Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people, particularly
males, who, with less to bind and connect them to stable social norms and goals, committed
suicide at higher rates than unmarried people. 1

People have a certain level of attachment to their groups, which Durkheim calls social
integration. Abnormally high or low levels of social integration may result in increased suicide
rates; low levels have this effect because low social integration results in disorganised society,
causing people to turn to suicide as a last resort, while high levels cause people to kill themselves
to avoid becoming burdens on society.2

Altruistic suicide is characterized by a sense of being overwhelmed by a group's goals and

beliefs. It occurs in societies with high integration, where individual needs are seen as less
1
Kate Hollu, 1998
2
http://ssr1.uchicago.edu/PRELIMS/Theory/durkheim.html
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important than the society's needs as a whole. They thus occur on the opposite integration scale
as egoistic suicide. As individual interest would not be considered important, Durkheim stated
that in an altruistic society there would be little reason for people to commit suicide. He stated
one exception, namely when the individual is expected to kill themselves on behalf of society – a
primary example being the soldier in military service.

Altruistic suicides are marked by cultural approval and benefit the social order. They occur in
social groups where there is a low value placed on the individual. The principle loci of altruistic
suicide are primitive societies and the modern military. Subtypes of altruistic suicide (obligatory,
optional, acute) are delineated and evaluated. Military suicide rates are seen as being inversely
related to civilian suicide rates. Key limitations of Durkheim's model are discussed including his
exaggerating the prevalence of obligatory suicide. Suggested points of departure for future
research on altruistic suicide include comparative analyses of suicide in the modern military, and
application of the concept of optional altruistic suicide to the impact of suicide acceptability on
national suicide rates3

Altruistic suicide describes a voluntary death that, in very specific circumstances,society deems
significant of praise or prestige. It only occurs in societies where groupmembership is elevated
above the individual’s self-worth. Durkheim finds thataltruistic suicide is more common in
‘lower societies’ (that is, non-Western societies),because in Western societies ‘as individual
personality becomes increasingly freefrom the collective personality, such suicides could not be
widespread’ (1979: 228).He does, however, identify the military as the only context in which
altruistic suicideis likely to occur in modern Western nation4

 Altruistic suicide, was a result of too much integration. It occurred at the opposite end of the
integration scale as egoistic suicide. Self sacrifice was the defining trait, where individuals were
so integrated into social groups that they lost sight of their individuality and became willing to
sacrifice themselves to the group's interests, even if that sacrifice was their own life. The most
common cases of altruistic suicide occurred among members of the military.5

3
Center for Suicide Research, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA. aa1051@wayne.edu
4

http://www.academia.edu/1073888/What_would_Durkheim_say_Altruistic_suicide_in_analyses_of_suicide_terro
rism
5
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~amman/soc171/resources/suicide.htm
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Anomic Suicide  reflects an individual's moral confusion and lack of social direction, which is
related to dramatic social and economic upheaval. It is the product of moral deregulation and a
lack of definition of legitimate aspirations through a restraining social ethic, which could impose
meaning and order on the individual conscience. This is symptomatic of a failure of economic
development and division of labour to produce Durkheim's organic solidarity. People do not
know where they fit in within their societies. Durkheim explains that this is a state of moral
disorder where man does not know the limits on his desires, and is constantly in a state of
disappointment. This can occur when man goes through extreme changes in wealth; while this
includes economic ruin, it can also include windfall gains – in both cases, previous expectations
from life are brushed aside and new expectations are needed before he can judge his new
situation in relation to the new limits.

Egoistic and altruistic suicide, as we have seen, are the respective consequences of the
individual's insufficient or excessive integration within the society to which he belongs. But
quite aside from integrating its members, a society must control and regulate their beliefs and
behavior as well; and Durkheim insisted that there is a relation between a society's suicide rate
and the way it performs this important regulative function. Industrial and financial crises, for
example, increase the suicide rate, a fact commonly attributed to the decline of economic well-
being these crises produce. But the same increase in the suicide rate, Durkheim observed, is
produced by crisis resulting in economic prosperity; "Every disturbance of equilibrium," he
insisted, "even though it achieved greater comfort and a heightening of general vitality, is an
impulse to voluntary death.6

No living being, Durkheim began, can be happy unless its needs are sufficiently proportioned to
its means; for if its needs surpass its capacity to satisfy them, the result can only be friction, pain,
lack of productivity, and a general weakening of the impulse to live. In an animal, of course, the
desired equilibrium between needs and means is established and maintained by physical nature --
the animal cannot imagine ends other than those implicit within its own physiology, and these
are ordinarily satisfied by its purely material environment. Human needs, however, are not
limited to the body alone; indeed, "beyond the indispensable minimum which satisfies nature
when instinctive, a more awakened reflection suggests better conditions, seemingly desirable
6
http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/suicide.html#pgfId=2844
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ends craving fulfillment.7

"Anomie, therefore, is a regular and specific factor in suicide in our modern societies; one of the
springs from which the annual contingent feeds. So we have here a new type to distinguish from
the others. It differs from them in its dependence, not on the way in which individuals are
attached to society, but on how it regulates them.  Egoistic suicide results from man's no longer
finding a basis for existence in life; altruistic suicide, because this basis for existence appears to
man situated beyond life itself.  The third sort of suicide, the existence of which has just been
shown, results from man's activity's lacking regulation and his consequent sufferings.  By virtue
of its origin we shall assign this last variety the name of anomic suicide"8

Fatalistic suicide occurs when a person is excessively regulated, when their futures are
pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive discipline. It is the opposite of
Anomic suicide, and appears in overly oppressive societies, causing people to prefer to die than
to carry on living within their society. A good example would be within a prison; some people
might prefer to die than live in a prison with constant abuse and excessive regulation that
prohibits them from pursuing their desires.

These four types of suicide are based on the degrees of imbalance of two social forces: social
integration and moral regulation. Durkheim noted the effects of various crises on social
aggregates – war, for example, leading to an increase in altruism, economic boom or disaster
contributing to anomie.

The above considerations show that there is a type of suicide the opposite of anomic suicide....  It
is the suicide deriving from excessive regulation, that of persons with futures pitilessly blocked
and passions violently choked by excessive discipline.  It is the suicide of very young husbands,
of the married woman who is childless, .. of slaves ...  To bring out the ineluctable and inflexible
nature of a rule against which there is no appeal, and in contrast with the expression "anomie"
which has been used, we might call it fatalistic suicide."
7
1897b: 247. This argument -- that desires are simple and few in the "state of nature," but multiply with
advancing civilization -- is one that we (and presumably Durkheim) owe to Rousseau's  Discourse on
the Origin of Inequality (1755)
8
http://routledgesoc.com/content/elementary-forms-religious-life
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The reverse situation, namely excessive regulation without integration, leads to fatalistic suicide
The slave is integrated only via the tie to his or her master, the future is fundamentally blocked
by excessive regulation. Durkheim's examples were childless married women in his world who
lack an independent integration into the world via their role as mothers, while the tie to the
husband gets increasingly fictive. The husband is free to develop social relations in the social
world and thus will be increasingly removed from his wife while she continues to be governed
by the norms for conduct and behavior as a married woman. 

Criticisms
Durkheim's study of suicide has been criticized as an example of the logical error termed
the ecological fallacy.Indeed, Durkheim's conclusions about individual behaviour (e.g. suicide)
are based on aggregate statistics (the suicide rate among Protestants and Catholics). This type
of inference, explaining micro events in terms of macro properties, is often misleading, as is
shown by examples of Simpson's paradox.

However, diverging views have contested whether Durkheim's work really contained an
ecological fallacy. Van Poppel and Day (1996) have advanced that differences in suicide rates
between Catholics and Protestants were explicable entirely in terms of how deaths were
categorized between the two social groups. For instance, while "sudden deaths" or "deaths from
ill-defined or unspecified cause" would often be recorded as suicides among Protestants, this
would not be the case for Catholics. Hence Durkheim would have committed an empirical rather
than logical error. Some, such as Inkeles (1959), Johnson (1965)[and Gibbs (1968), have claimed
that Durkheim's only intent was to explain suicide sociologically within a holistic perspective,
emphasizing that "he intended his theory to explain variation among social environments in the
incidence of suicide, not the suicides of particular individuals."

More recent authors such as Berk (2006) have also questioned the micro-macro
relations underlying criticisms of Durkheim's work. For instance, Berk notices that

Durkheim speaks of a "collective current" that reflects the collective inclination flowing down
the channels of social organization. The intensity of the current determines the volume of
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suicides (...) Introducing psychological [i.e. individual] variables such as depression, [which
could be seen as] an independent [non-social] cause of suicide, overlooks Durkheim's conception
that these variables are the ones most likely to be effected by the larger social forces and without
these forces suicide may not occur within such individuals.

CONCLUSION

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As Durkheim’s theory has progressed as a basis of modern theory and policy, it has had to adapt
to the values and norms of an immensely modernized and industrialized society.
Institutional anomie has become the primary basis to the concept of normlessness and the basis
of crime and deviance in accord with the concept of anomie that Durkheim asserted initially. In
short, Institutional anomie describes a society in which economic values, like monetary success,
penetrate non-economic institutions, like family, education, and policy. From there, community
values and social bonds are weakened, ultimately causing social controls over self serving
behavior, like deviance and crime, to be vastly reduced. Inherently in its nature,
institutional anomie theory has some similarities to Robert Merton and Robert Agnew’s strain
theory of crime and deviance. Strain theory asserts that there is a discrepancy between culturally
defined goals and the means available to achieve these goals. Currently, the culturally defined
goals are wealth and material success and that happiness is equivalent to these goals; thus, the
institutionalized means to acquire these goals that are hard work and education. Furthermore, it is
widely accepted that those who do not succeed are inherently lazy or inept in some way.
Through the application of Merton and Agnew’s strain theory it is simple to see the trouble that
the lower and middle class face. The institutionally defined means of education and hard work
are only attainable by those who are wealthy or financially comfortable enough to access a
formal education or well paying occupation. As a result, or consequence, of this inability or
unrealistic goal the middle and lower classes are subject too there is strain, or anomie. Therefore,
this sense of anomie, imbalance, and division of labor justify the modes of adaptation the
disadvantaged resort too. The modes of adaptation are, more often than not, criminal, ultimately
supporting Durkheim’s anomie theory.

            So what does the criminal justice system do to avoid this? What are the policies put forth
to deal with this inevitable dependence on crime? Although difficult, it is essential to strengthen
the non- economic social institutions, like church or public school educations. There must be less
emphasis placed on the importance or status of private school education. In addition, it is
necessary to equalize the opportunities for success. The lower level employees must have the
same amount of opportunity that the upper level employees have, or once had. The lesser
employees must not be alienated within the workplace or held accountable for things that the
upper level employees are excused of. The current crack down on white-collar crime is an

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example of how the criminal justice system is working to even the playing field in the work
place. Due to the fact that monetary success and status are the goals set by the collective
conscience, as Durkheim would say, the criminal justice system has began to withdraw from the
biased environment that causes this anomie and strive to balance the means by which success is
attainable.

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