TY - JOUR PY - 1952// TI - Suicide and Crime in Folk and in Secular Society JO - American journal of sociology A1 - Porterfield, Austin L. SP - 331 EP - 338 VL - 57 IS - 4 N2 - Some sociologists regard the secular society and the folk society as ideal polar types. The latter is hypothetically well integrated. The former is not. Hypothetically the former is more pathological in its manifestations of suicide and crime. In this study the theory of polar types is modified by the idea of a continuum, extending between the poles on both national and local levels, for which an index is provided. The comparison of indexes of suicide and crime along a continuum shows that suicide but not crime is an outstanding attribute of the secular society, crime being more characteristic of depressed folk groups.
LA - SN - 0002-9602 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/220968 ID - ref1 ER -