This included the "existence of some specific sanction" as was to be found in societal laws and "currents of opinion" that affected the level of birth, marriage and suicide rates in different social groups. Parkin (1992:8) suggests "Durkheim often seemed to operate under the conviction that any argument or thesis which flew in the face of common sense was thereby endowed with scientific status" and this notion is clearly evident in his analysis of crime and suicide.
Arguing against the commonly held perception in most societies that criminal actions were abnormal and required punishment, Durkheim (1966:65-71) posited that from a sociological perspective crime is both normal and necessary. Normal in the sense that it is found in all societies meeting with some form of punishment or sanction, and necessary in the sense that any behaviour defined as punishable also serves to define the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour - such boundary definition being fundamental to social order and essential for a functional society. Durkheim in fact goes further, suggesting that a "society of saints is impossible because a process of social redefinition continuously ensures that all the positions on the scale from deviance to conformity are filled" (Roach-Anleu, 2000:285).
Essentially Durkheim argued that crime and deviance united people in shared indignation and outrage when valued rules of conduct were broken thus bringing together the collective conscience, increasing social solidarity, reinforcing morality, making people more conscious of shared interests and values, thus reaffirming agreement on standards or social norms. Therefore "what we collectively think is greater than any one individual, and the collective conscience has the feature of shaping and regulating our behaviour as an independent, powerful external force" (White and Haines, 2000:62). Durkheim thus provided the basis for contemporary strain theory.
