Rehabilitating Durkheim: Social Solidarity and Rehabilitation in Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829-1850
![handle is hein.journals/punisen5 and id is 16 raw text is: (2009) IJPS Vol 5 No ]
REHABILITATING DURKHEIM:
SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AND REHABILITATION IN EASTERN
STATE PENITENTIARY, 1829-1850
Ashley T. Aubuchon-Rubin
Doctoral Student, Jurisprudence and Social Policy, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley
ABSTRACT:
Durkheim famously postulated that crime tears at the moral fabric of society and
that punishment is the means by which society strengthens its solidarity. But
Durkheim did not speak to purposes of punishment (e.g., rehabilitation,
incapacitation, deterrence) except retribution. This study describes the
relationship between penal rehabilitation and Durkheim's concept of social
solidarity by examining the writings of certain Pennsylvanians who were
involved in the creation and maintenance of the Eastern State Penitentiary
between 1829 and 1850. Specifically, it seeks to answer two questions: (1) How
does rehabilitation affect (strengthen, weaken, or not affect) social solidarity?
and (2) What circumstances lead a society to choose rehabilitation over other
methods or purposes of punishment? This study argues that penal rehabilitation
strengthens social solidarity through its negative and positive expressive
statements, and results in solidarity-generating and solidarity-enhancing effects.
This study also offers a framework for what conditions lead a society to choose
rehabilitation-conditions that lead a society to be optimistic instead of
pessimistic. It closes with suggestions for future work in this area.
I. INTRODUCTION
Durkheim famously postulated that crime tears at the moral fabric of society and that
punishment is the means by which society strengthens its solidarity: by condemning the criminal
and his' criminal act, society reminds itself that there is still great consensus surrounding the
values it holds dear, those values which it has enshrined in the criminal law (Durkheim 1984).
However, the more a society advances, he argued, the less intense its punishments will become,
and the more its punishments will be based solely on the privations of certain rights (Durkheim
2004). But Durkheim did not speak to purposes of punishment (e.g., rehabilitation,
incapacitation, deterrence) except retribution, which was, for him, the only real purpose of
punishment (1984, 45-48). However, there have been periods throughout history where penal
actors have affirmed that rehabilitation was, if not the sole purpose2 of punishment, at least one
of the two or three most important purposes of punishment, or, at the very least, a proper goal of
punishment. What causes one society in one time and place to lash out against the violator of the
common conscience and another society to identify an individual, guilty of the same crime, as
simply in need of reform, as one who could-and should-return to the fold? This is a question
that falls well within the boundaries of Durkheim's project, but was left both unasked and
unanswered in his works.3
This study describes the relationship between penal rehabilitation and Durkheim's
concept of social solidarity by examining the writings of certain Pennsylvanians who were
involved in the creation and maintenance of the Eastern State Penitentiary between 1829 and
1850. Specifically, it seeks to answer two questions:
How does rehabilitation affect (strengthen, weaken, or not affect) social solidarity?
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Aubuchon-Rubin](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/punisen5&div=6&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Rehabilitating Durkheim: Social Solidarity and Rehabilitation in Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829-1850
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