It is worth remembering that Durkheim was writing at the time that consequentialist theorists such as Bentham were influential, and when in France the penal strategy known as 'social defence' (Ancel 1987) was being elaborated. Development of the human sciences was facilitating the growth of positivist criminology and its correlate, correctional penology, with reformist penalties for the 'corrigible' and preventive detention for the 'incorrigible'. It is unlikely that Durkheim was unaware of these develop¬ments in a realm in which he was so interested. It is plausible, then, to imag¬ine that Durkheim is suggesting that even if punishment in general, or any form of punishment in particular, such as imprisonment, is ineffective in the control of crime, it will (and should) persist because of its functionality for social solidarity through the expression of outrage and thus the affirmation of values, rather than to attribute to him actual repudiation of correctional or preventive aspiration on the part of those who legislate or administer punishments. Again, the analogy of the rain ceremony is helpful. Here, the stated function of the ceremony is not fulfilled, yet the ceremony persists and, so the functionalists argue, there must be some other function which is served. The same approach seems to fit Durkheim's arguments about punishment, that if penal practices seem to be ineffective in achieving the stated goals of penal policy, they may be accomplishing some other social function. This distinction between stated goals and 'real' functions is, as we shall see in the following chapters, a theme that recurs throughout the soci¬ology of punishment.