modified:: 2023-10-18, 2352
up:: Durkheim Theory
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Repressive Laws

Overview

Repressive Laws are based off Moral Facts and are intended to punish deviant behaviour as crimes to show they are intolerable in order to maintain Mechanical Solidarity.

• Repressive Laws are expiatory; Seek offender to atone for their offence against the Collective Consciousness.
  • See #Quotes#Injury made Good.
• Society collapses if its members don't feel safe, i.e., if you let murderers/furries walk the street.
  • Instead of everyone deciding they need the right to carry arms.
• Corresponds to most of Penal Law.
• The common people can judge crimes of repressive laws as it is an offence to their own moral rules.

Quotes

Common Characteristic of all Crimes

"Now the only characteristic to satisfy that condition refers to the opposition that exists between crime of any kind and certain collective sentiments." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 40)

"In other words, we should not say that an act offends the common consciousness because it is criminal, but that it is criminal because it offends that consciousness." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 40)

Injury made Good

"It is a sign indicating that the sentiments of the collectivity are still unchanged, that the communion of minds sharing the same beliefs remain absolute, and in this way the injury that the crime has inflicted upon society is made good." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 63)

See Also

• Moral Facts: The superset of Repressive Laws.