Crime and the Division of Labor: Testing a Durkheimian Model

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Abstract
This study provided an empirical examination of an unsubstantiated but generally accepted proposition found in Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society. The proposition that deviance or crime will increase concomitant with an increasing division of labor has found wide acceptance in both deviance and organizational studies without having been empirically verified. In order to test this proposition and four corollary suppositions, an examination was made of collective life utilizing data similar to those relied on by Durkheim in his examination of the etiology of suicide. In Durkheimian terms, then, this study involved an examination of degrees of collective order (operationalized as crime rates) as found within different collectivites (communities) possessing differential degrees of functional integration (division of labor). The primary hypothesis was largely refuted, but alternative interpretations of the findings suggest that the model cannot be discounted.

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