Durkheim's views on crime were a departure from conventional notions. He believed that crime is "bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life" and serves a social function. He states that crime implies "not only that the way remains open to necessary changes but that in certain cases it directly prepares these changes." Examining the trial of Socrates, he argues that "his crime, namely, the independence of his thought, rendered a service not only to humanity but to his country" as "it served to prepare a new morality and faith that the Athenians needed." As such, his crime "was a useful prelude to reforms." In this sense, he saw crime as being able to release certain social tensions and so have a cleansing or purging effect in society.