The Crutch of Ritual: Social Control in the Modern American Capital Punishment System Page: 9
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Echoing Durkheim's social solidarity thesis, Bell describes "the end of ritualization" as
"evocation of a consensus on values, symbols, and behavior" (Bell, 1992, p. 110). She also
emphasizes the fact that ritual is "designed to do what it does without bringing what it is doing
across the threshold of discourse or systematic thinking" (p. 93), reiterating the ritual's
connection with emotion rather than with rational thought. Bell, whose primary work Ritual
Theory, Ritual Practice is "widely recognized as one of the most influential contributions to
contemporary discourse" on ritual (Phelan, 2008, p. 145), is a striking example of the fact that
the Durkheimian tradition remains a legitimate and influential basis for scholarship on ritual,
even to the present.
Ritual in the Contemporary Criminal Justice System and Its Social Control Purpose
Ritual can be found operating within many contemporary criminal justice processes,
performing the social functions that both classical and contemporary ritual scholars discuss in
their work. For example, many offenders first enter the formal criminal justice system by means
of a criminal trial, at which point they find themselves participating in what is already a highly
ritualized procedure. According to Durkheim (1933), the accused criminal has not only harmed
his individual victim but has committed "an action [that] shocks the common conscience," (p. 81)
sending shockwaves through the social group because "everybody is attacked" (p. 102) by a
criminal act. The experience of victimization for Durkheim is truly communal. From a
Durkheimian standpoint, the rift created as a result of chaotic, lawless action that crime
represents must be repaired, as "it is impossible for offenses against the most fundamental
collective sentiments to be tolerated without the disintegration of society" (p. 397).9
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Pellegrino, Alexandra Clarke. The Crutch of Ritual: Social Control in the Modern American Capital Punishment System, thesis, August 2019; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1538795/m1/13/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .