Durkheim and the law

Law was a topic of central interest to Durkheim and to his followers. In his first major work, The Division of Labour in Society, Durkheim advanced three bold and striking hypotheses about law. The first concerned how law should be conceived - as an 'external' index which 'symbolizes' the nature of social solidarity. The second concerned its evolution, as societies developed from less to more advanced forms, from an all-ecompassing religiosity to modern secularism, and from collectivism to individualism. It postulated an overall shift from a predominantly penal law with 'repressive organized sanctions' to the prevalence of 'civil law, commercial law, procedural law, administrative and constitutional law' with 'purely restitutory' sanctions. The third hypothesis concerned its functioning, above all in the context of crime and punishment, and claimed that crime is a violation and punishment an expression of collective sentiments and that punishment's 'real function is to maintain inviolate the cohesion of society by sustaining the common consciousness in all its vigour.