ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim was sensitive to the problems involved in formulating and verifying general evolutionary laws. In linking the nature of control to the organization of society Durkheim makes explicit what too many investigators ignore—the fact that punishment is deeply rooted in the structure of society. In order to test Durkheim’s theory, all forms of punishment were analyzed within each of the 48 societies. In relatively complex societies, where controls were more formal, impersonal and regularized, evidence was typically available for both punishment-on-the-books and punishment in practice. Punishments reported in Type I societies were the most severe and included aggravated capital punishment, mutilation, torture and severe corporal penalties for a wide range of offenses. Durkheim argues that the acquisition of more advanced controls requires the dropping out of primitive penal types. To account for the character of penal evolution and establish the limits of leniency, Durkheim argued that individual crimes come to be punished more severely as societies evolve.
