Statistics from coroner’s reports show that some social facts such as religion, family and marriage affect whether someone is likely prey for suicide. Unmarried people for example have the highest rate of suicide, followed by those married with kids. Durkheim believes that this is due to these groups having less social ties than those with kids and extended families. Durkheim asked the question: how many social ties does each random person chosen have and come up with the conclusion that the more social ties a person had the less likely they were to commit suicide. Evidence of this are periods of time during the war and the coal strikes where suicide rates fell as people created more social ties as a means of a social support network and pulled together to fight these common causes.
Durkheim’s study has two sets of main criticisms which are those from his own positivist side and those from other perspectives. An internal criticism is that he failed to operationalise the definition of social facts there by declaring his research unreliable as it cannot be tested. Some other positivists reject his realist approach and see that the causes to suicide can be found in the underlying processes and structures that cannot be directly observed and measured. External criticisms of Durkheim is that he assumes that the official statistics used were accurate, which show reliability and validity problems in his research such as it’s the coroner’s that decide whether or not a death is a suicide and what is to say that they don’t make mistakes which deems their results as inaccurate and invalid. Another criticism is that there is no main social fact that is continually linked with suicide so it’s down to each person’s own individual thoughts on suicide which makes it immeasurable as it means something different to everyone. These criticisms show that although Durkheim’s research showed a good insight to suicide it has been proved to be invalid and unreliable.
Interpretivists on the other hand believe that suicide is more about how each individual defines and gives meaning to their action though use of clues found at the crime scene such as suicide notes the and/or inspection into diaries of the victims. Douglas found that there are five patterns of meanings, which are: Revenge suicide- This is the victim making someone who would be affected by their death guilty for some wrong doing they have done like an ex-boyfriend. A search for help suicide- This a cry for help when everything else has failed. Escape suicide- This is when the victim has no other way out as life has become unbearable. Repentance suicide- This is seen as repentance for the wrong doings they have causes in the past and an attempt to set the score straight. Self-punishment suicide- This is punishing one’s self for crimes they have committed. These patterns then are linked with wider beliefs of culture e.g. In Western society’s suicide is usually seen as an escape route that is the only way out.
Atkinson, a phenomenologist, believes that suicide is a social construction. He argues that suicide is a meaning that there is no beyond that as suicide is defined differently by different people, which makes it invalid as it these theories are not looking at the real factors behind suicide which is that how do these deaths get categorised into suicides. He believes that coroner’s look for primary clues such as suicide notes and evidence from the scene of the crime then they look for secondary clues such as a history of self harm or a holiday booked for the next day that could support and reject the claim of suicide. He says that all coroner’s share a common sense theory which helps them decide whether or not a death was a suicide. For example if the victim had a background of self harm, depression and was friendless that person would be considered to have committed suicide.
Although Atkinson’s research was very useful as it showed how coroner’s define particular deaths as suicides there are two main criticisms of his work. He fails to define how come all coroner’s have this common sense theory where all there meanings of suicide come from. For example a coroner could class a death as a suicide using evidence of other cultures having done the same thing. Barry Hindess (1973) argues that if statistics mirror the interpretations of coroners then research findings would be based on sociologists interpretations, which means there would be no point in studying anything as there would never a possibility of an objective knowledge of society, which would make the research weak as everyone knows that there are topics worth studying in all areas in life, not just sociological.
In conclusion the evidence shows that both Positivists and Interpretivists show a good insight into suicide in the way they each look into areas of their own but in my opinion I believe that the Interpretivists show a better understanding of suicide as they focus on individuals and also look out other factors while Positivists only focus on wider factors of suicide. This shows that Interpretivists have a more sound research that is valid.