A Durkheimian Analysis of Racialised Crime and Punishment Police Practices and the Demand for Change

The analysis of racialised police attitudes has been frequently addressed in academic articles, but the application of a Neo-Durkheimian approach has been largely overlooked. This article will apply Durkheimian theory to illuminate the need for a shift in crime and punishment policy and practices to avoid the present societal moral stagnation. In order to do so it will address both, the recent Black Lives Matter protests in America and the 2011 Riots in London. The use of the two case studies signifies the continuity of problematic police behaviour and political address. It is evident that such an article is embedded in an extremely sensitive topic, therefore it does not presume to provide a solution to the overwhelming circumstances. Rather, in illuminating the relevance of Durkheimian theory it signifies that current global circumstances demand a moral shift in societal understandings of solidarity and “the cult of the individual”, providing pivotal foundations for police practices. However, this requires participation of criminologists alongside practitioners and activists.


Introduction
Durkheim is considered to be a "founding father" of sociology. 1 It has been over a century since his passing, but his importance remains steadfast. 2 However, "Durkheim is in need of redemption and recognition" 3 in the field of criminology. Durkheim This paper does not presume to provide an all-encompassing interpretation of Durkheim's ideas. For example, this essay does not discuss his work on suicide, 4 nor does it perform an evaluation of his penal evolution. 5 While these related bodies of works are mentioned, they are not the central focus. Rather, this essay argues that Durkheim's radical notion of critiquing social structures 6 is central to the future of crime and punishment theory today. By contextualising Durkheim's concepts to align with contemporary crises, his concern for inequalities 7 will be expanded to include the consideration of race.
Throughout this paper, Durkheim's ideas on solidarity, anomie, collective effervescence, and the "cult of the individual" 8 will be applied to interpret the chosen events. Durkheim believed that observing reality induces morality. 9 The resulting morality in turn exposes the crime and punishment rationales of society, thereby signifying the values and inequalities upheld by society. The police, as central figures in crime control and punishment, embody such values and inequalities. This essay reveals that Durkheim's ideas are of value in exposing inequalities and threats to solidarity, but if Durkheim is to be of any practical influence, a shift to avoid moral stagnation beginning with the police must be enforced. This essay begins by discussing Durkheim's aforementioned ideas. It is then split into four sections, focusing on the Durkheimian police, the 2011 Tottenham riots, Black Lives Matter, and, finally, the demand for a shift. It continuously implements Durkheim's ideas to reveal the role of the police in conveying societal values and inequalities, whilst simultaneously portraying the evident need for an evolutionary transition 10 in moral solidarity.

Durkheim and His Concepts
David Émile Durkheim was born in the Lorraine region of France in 1858. 11 His childhood experience of war and Jewish upbringing led him to believe that social science could be a source for national unity. 12 (1912). All are contextually rooted in the political climate of France and the unprecedented threat to group life at the time. 13 Durkheim saw a need for a revival, 14 with an attempt to balance individualism and socialism. 15 The emergence of an industrial society led to his idea of stratification 16 as an aim to address the advanced division of labour. His desire was to seek unity amongst the turmoil of modernity. 17 Durkheim's concern with individual freedom and social order 18 made the sociologist a moralist. 19 In The Division of Labor, Durkheim focused on solidarity during the rapid social and economic transition of modernity. For him, industrialisation was not the end of solidarity, but instead demanded a reconfiguration of its origin. 20 In his work, Durkheim expressed two evolutionary stages of solidarity: "mechanical solidarity," which can be found in unified societies and is based on the notion of sameness, 21 and "organic solidarity," consisting of a high level of differentiation. 22 He noted that dependency is present in organic solidarity, as "cooperation between individuals or groups of individuals" becomes essential. 23 In stark contrast to solidarity, Durkheim proposed anomie. Anomie is a fluid concept with a long history of various uses. This essay refers to the anomie described in The Division of Labor, as opposed to the homo duplex form found in Suicide. 24 Anomie is the condition produced by the forced division of labour, a lack of regulation, inequalities, or unjust exchange rates in worth. 25 I specifically refer to anomie produced by inequalities in this essay. This form of anomie occurs if there are external inequalities 26that is, an unequal distribution of material factors hindering an individual's opportunities. 27 Durkheim focused on the external inequality present in inherited economic disparity and believed that solidarity demanded its abolition. 28 He also described the internal inequality of aptitude. 29

Durkheimian Police
The representation of the collective conscience comes in the form of the state. However, the state does not encompass the entirety of the collective conscience. Rather, it represents the "most vivid" elements. 62  the state but through secondary agencies. 64 These agencies are the "channels of communication" that enable continuous integration between people and the state. 65 Durkheim's desire to avoid a socialist authoritarian government or a polarised democracy 66 led to other channels of communication being required. 67 To Durkheim, the communicative channels and the state are the directive through which collective life is symbolised. 68 The police are a regulative organ that communicates between the government and the masses, establishing them as one of these secondary agencies. 69 The police represent the moral architecture of the community, 70 constructing and reconstructing moral and social order. 71 Their actions are thus "socially generated and about society," 72 expressing collective realities. 73 They must therefore be dignified, aligned, and fair, revolving around social cohesion 74 and the individual's sacredness. 75 The police enact the most visible everyday forms of criminal punishment, which is a public ritual to restore social order by responding to a threat to the collective. 76 Durkheim considered the law to be the core morals, 77 which can cool popular convictions; 78 it is enacted to ensure cohesion in a specific context, 79 representing the common requirements of social well-being. 80 In societies with organic solidarity, the final morality is the "sacredness of man, human rights and international solidarity." 81 Therefore, moral action must not degrade the individual. 82 The collective effervescence provides an emotional exterior to the individual, thus maintaining harmony and solidarity. 83 Since punishment is an "expressive institution," 84 the cult of the individual requires the reduction of punishment that offends individual dignity. 85 The need to reject such actions indicates that penal practices hold social meaning. 86 A neo-Durkheimian task is to consider when "punishment becomes dysfunctional" 87those which hinder solidarity. The communicative power of punishment to disrupt solidarity is unparalleled. 88 Varying penal practices may have different cultural meanings. For example, to conservative Americans, the death penalty is seen as an underused tool, whilst for "African Americans, it communicates the message of unacceptable racial violence and lynching." 89 Any change in penal culture necessarily reflects a change in social relations. 90 Where actions that contravene beliefs occur, the masses must be consulted in order to evaluate how crime and punishment is practiced, particularly in cases of violent and racist behaviour on the part of the police. In recognising the communicative power of punishment and the police's representation of the core values of society, questions concerning whose solidarity is being formed must be asked when considering dysfunctional punishmentjust as Burkhardt and Connor ask when critiquing the privatisation of prisons. 91 In the two letters he wrote in response to the Dreyfus Affair, 92 88 Burkhardt and Connor, "Durkheim," 93. 89 Garland, "Concepts of Culture," 435. 90 Garland, 434. 91 Burkhardt and Connor, "Durkheim," 84-85. 92 In the 18 th century Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer, was falsely convicted of passing military secrets to the enemy Germans and sentenced to death on Devil's Island. It created society wide anti-Semitic attitudes that contradicted the inclusive motif of the French emancipation. The trial turned into an international affair due to evidence proving Dreyfus' innocence leading to politically and ideologically infused riots. Dreyfus was returned to France in 1899 to be re-trialed. He was once again sentenced guilty, but the President of France pardoned him. In 1906 Dreyfus was acquitted. 93 Lukes, "Durkheim's Individualism," 14.
of the individual, an attempt on a man's life will produce "horror as though in touch with the profane." 94 Homicide should thus decrease. 95 Yet the killing of Black men by the police in America and the UK is "institutionalised behaviour." 96 These racist killings by the police suggest a continuation of punishment that disregards the dignity of the individual. If beliefs and values are crystallised in institutions that sanction, the police perform as a cult of the individual that excludes Black individuals. A segmentary society is one in which the laws protect the elite, making it repressive. 97 Messner et al. argue that if solidarity is hierarchical, it is criminogenic. 98 The law which excludes Blackness from sacredness is therefore criminogenic.
The criminalisation of Black individualsby the police, 99 the prison system, 100  can be undermined by subsequent degradation. 105 The killing of Black individuals by the police is symbolic of the repeated undermining of sacred Blackness. The law that protects white supremacy is disguised by "post-race institutions," making race "invisible to those [who are] privileged." 106 Therefore, the solidarity and morality of society represented by the police is one of exclusion, as evidenced in the lack of Black individuals seeking police help. 107  The need to shift away from the criminogenic solidarity requires a new morality and sacralised individual implemented by the police. This morality, prior to its crystallisation, is brought about through "socially sanctioning actions," 111 such as protests and riots.

The 2011 Tottenham Riots
Durkheim's critique of inequalities and institutions has been deemed "radical. Black individuals] in the criminal justice system." 127 This event is indicative of a hierarchical society that protects white supremacy.
Since the 1980s, Tottenham has been a site of Black struggle. 128 The death of Duggan produced a collective memory of the 1985 Broadwater Farm Riots. 129 Riots had since become cultural heritage. 130 Although in 2011 many rioters' justifications were based on anger toward the police, 131 it was not always at the forefront of their minds. 132 Other frustrations interlinked, such as unemployment and welfare cuts. 133 In applying a Durkheimian interpretive approach, these riots can be understood as a crisis in modernity's evolution. The anomie produced through inequalities resulted in a "loss of direction, a sense of apathy, an absence of attachment to life itself." 134 The looting was described as a spontaneous unity, 135 correlating to the power of collective effervescence and its ability to produce sentiments one could not achieve alone. 136 Crowds and mass gatherings produce "intense passion" 137 and the killing of Mark Duggan offended solidarity because it disregarded the sacrality of the individual. The law embodied by the police is supposed to cool popular emotion, 138 but their response amplified passion. If there is "no respect for those producing legislations," then cooperation will stop and "collective solidarity will collapse." 139 Cohen coined the term "moral panics," which emerge out of a threat to societal values stylised by the mass media. 140 It is a form of collective effervescence in response to a crime. 141 The media shapes societal values. Just as the mass media mobilised the crowds during the 127 Katheryn Russell-Brown, "Critical Black Protectionism," 382. 128 Elliot-Cooper, "The Struggle That Cannot Be Named," 2445. 129  Dreyfus Affair, 142 the media influenced society, law, and order during the riots as harsher policing occurred following a public outcry. 143 The media preps the public for accountability, participating in the criminalisation process. 144 Politicians described those involved in the riots as being a "vicious immoral minority." 145 The criminalisation of the rioters resulted in a harsh state response. 146 24-hour courts were held to distribute sentences alongside pre-emptive policing. 147 This policing reaction led to the infamous use of stop and search, 148 indicating that the reaction was multi-layered as it enabled further racial bias in policing. 149 The description of the riot as acts committed by a "criminal minority" belittled the cry of discontent. 150 Although explanations for the riots were based on welfare inefficiencies, welfare beneficiaries were demonised by the Prime Minister, who suggested throwing rioters out of their homes. 151 The responses by the media, police, and politicians did not address inequality, leading to the question of whose solidarity was being constructed. 152 The delegitimisation and marginalisation of the protestors and rioters contradicts any aim to absolve inequality. This is embedded in the tension founded in contemporary neo-liberal market society, which claims to eradicate class, but actually silences concerns and distributes wealth to the elite few. 153 A Durkheimian reading of the described event would deem the failure to acknowledge the underlying inequalities behind the anomie-producing behaviour as evidence of a moral crisis

Black Lives Matter
In video of his violent death was widely circulated on social media. This video was reminiscent of Eric Garner's (amongst others') cry of "I can't breathe," as Floyd called out for his mother.
BLM symbolises the extent of the loss of Black lives at the hands of the police. 161 Thousands of people have taken to the streets in "collective action against racial injustice." 162 The majority of the protests consist of peaceful demonstrations, marches, kneeling, and rallies, and contrast starkly to the 2011 Tottenham riots.
Collective effervescence's power to shape society remains true in the case of George Floyd.
His death has been the first to result in an officer being charged with murder. 163 Great social upheaval creates an effervescence that produces revolutionary epochs. 164 The outcry and demand for accountability will have to be acknowledged if the law is to represent the conscience collective. 165 Durkheim termed direct action, being that which is publicly visible, "the most forceful means of legitimate communication by the regulated to the regulators." 166 Since the police systematically fail to acknowledge the shift to Black sacredness, BLM is symbolic of those who need to partake in direct action to attain equality and equity. 167 BLM expands the cult of the individual to include Black people by expressing the "horror" of a killing. 168 BLM echoes the "linked fate" between the self and the group evident in Black Protectionism. 169  163 Russell-Brown, "Critical Black Protectionism," 409. 164 Giddens, Emile Durkheim, 231. 165 Cotterrell, Emile Durkheim, 176. 166 Cotterrell,[193][194]193. 168 Lukes, "Durkheim's Individualism", 22. 169 Russell-Brown, "Critical Black Protectionism," 369. 170 Lukes, Emile Durkheim, 163. 171 Giddens, Emile Durkheim, 234.
As discussed above, mainstream media constructs a powerful collective effervescence 172 by constructing "good" or "bad victims." 173 The partisan reporting in American news polarised attitudes towards BLM. 174 Reporters focused on brutal confrontations rather than actual events: peaceful rallies and protests. 175 This connected BLM to radical political ideology, dismissing state-supported systematic racism. 176 Transformed into a political notion, BLM's demand for equal treatment for Black individuals risks being ignored. The use of social media counteracts such risk by redirecting the attention onto the police's actions. The use of imagery, including that of Black men protecting police officers, 177 contradicts the mainstream media. Furthermore, distributing images and recordings creates accountability. The media during the 2011 riots shaped public perspectives into a condemning effervescence. In contrast, BLM replaces traditional media with a platform that enables discussion. 178 Specifically, social media supports a transnational conversation of the oppressive systems 179 that do not achieve equal opportunity and do not uphold the sacredness of the individual. As such, a solidarity that gives voice to the experience of those often undermined is communicated across the globe. 180 However, this solidarity requires societal re-construction. Solidarity can be slippery. 181 It holds colonial notions, requiring the colonised to become "white." 182 Solidarity can become exclusive through only including a proportion of society that fits norms, e.g., those that pass as white. 183 A form of exclusive solidarity was produced in the responses to the 2011 riots, where were involved. Social media in BLM has helped re-construct solidarity, avoiding its exclusive potential. More than 65% of American adults, over two billion people worldwide, use social media every day. 184 It can "scale up" 185 a movement and mobilise action 186 to create a new public sphere. 187 The hashtag removed figurehead leadership, creating globalised protests. 188 This international response indicates the scale of the impacted collective effervescence. Social media has reformed solidarity, challenging the colonial narrative through the notion of allyship. 189 Allyship as a form of solidarity resolves issues of Durkheim's solidarity being too homogeneous. 190

The Demand for a Shift
Durkheim perceives justice not as an ideal, but as a function. 195 It conveys the relevant societies' solidarity and moral values. 196 If the current societal order does not enable equality, then it needs to be eradicated and replaced with a new one. 197 BLM asks allies to challenge the racism within their communities, 198 interrogating the sometimes subtle ways in which structural racism operates. 199 White individuals have power in society, holding an important role in advancing efforts towards social change. 200 There is a need to recognise this power to transfer these benefits to subjugated groups, of which education to promote tolerance, inclusivity, and equality "is one method." 201 If the demand to sacralise the Black individual evident within BLM and as an undercurrent of the 2011 riots is to be met, then allyship must go beyond social media and protests to transformative social change.
Durkheim emphasises the role of schools in socialisation, providing a basis for societal morals. 202 Since education teaches the solidarity of the given society, it must include the cult of the individual. In 1938, James Cone created a Black Theology in order to reclaim the correlation between Black individuals, Christ, and God. 203 Although this focuses on Christian theology, it is an example of the need to reframe belief systems in alignment with inclusionary teachings. Copeland took Cone's Black Theology further by framing the eucharist as a ritual to "reclaiming sacred Black bodies," drawing parallels between the cross and the lynching tree. 204 These reconstructions of Christian theology based on Black experience indicates the need to re-construct exclusionary practices and beliefs. They envisage feasts and ceremonies conducive to social reintegration, 205 formulating "realistic utopias" to remake and reimagine institutional arrangements. 206 Democracy is necessary for these ideals to produce a shift, both on a social level and at the state level. 207  The 2011 Tottenham riots and on-going BLM protest movement question morality held by white privileged individuals. The death of George Floyd and the "racialisation of punishment and crime control" 213 evident in the 2011 riots exposed the "absurdity of the present order." 214 This essay has emphasised that crime control is increasingly under the influence of mass media, which constructs "popular emotion." 215 It is here that this essay points towards the role of the democratic under-labourer 216 (interchangeable here with the civic criminologist). 217 To reconfigure the sacred individual, responding to the demand of collective effervescence in must be implemented. This aligns with Loader and Sparks' democratic under-labourer, who must critique pre-existing norms to create innovative new approaches. 219 Criminologists must examine their own involvement in forwarding racial discourse. 220 The colour-blind racism detailed by Bonilla-Silva 221 enables the silencing of race, even in co-existence of contradictory data. 222 Criminology's use of race as a variable misunderstands race as a biological phenomenon rather than recognising it as an ideological one. 223 235 There is a positive correlation of peaceful interactions between ethnic groups and participation in BLM protests. 236 Durkheim indicated that a growth in society that produced regular interaction would enable the recognition of the higher common collective individual. 237 This knowledge provides pragmatic insights into reconstructing solidarity. The existence of racialised areas 238 needs to be dismantled if the cult of the individual is to include Black people.
The requisite for better community relations between Black communities and the police 239 should be prioritised in crime control and punishment policies. Loader and Sparks' democratic under-labourer, who thinks of possible futures 240 offering "alternative ways of thinking about and responding to crime," 241 should undertake such tasks in response to the exposed racism in institutions.

Concluding Remarks
The value of Durkheim's ideas to address contemporary problems in crime and punishment policies and practices is significant, as his concepts illuminate embedded inequalities. A neo-Durkheimian influenced perspective includes and prioritises racial inequalities.
Through applying Durkheim's concepts, this essay has shown that the 2011 Tottenham riots initially conveyed the problematic exclusion of Black individuals from sacralisation but went on to express the economic disparities present within the current neo-liberal society. The political, media, and police responses to the riots did not address the anomie produced by inequality or the threat to the sacred individual. Rather, the riots were perceived as a crime that offended the norm. Alternatively, BLM's use of social media focuses solely on the exclusionary sacrality enacted by the police. BLM questions the racially disproportionate actions of the police. 242 A neo-Durkheimian study of the events reveal a collective effervescence that could be determining moments in social development. 235 Selvanathan, et al., "Whites for Racial Justice," 894. 236 Selvanathan, et al., "Whites for Racial Justice," 895. 237 Giddens, Emile Durkheim,184. 238 Elliot-Cooper, "The Struggle that Cannot be Named," 2449. 239 Long, Perpetual Suspects, 217. 240 Loader and Sparks, "Criminology's Public Roles," 29. 241  Bierstedt, Robert. Emile Durkheim. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966. 243 Sparks, "What are we Going to do Now?," 8. 244 Lukes, "Durkheim's Individualism," 14. 245