State crime

• What’s state crime ? 

  Green and Ward (2005) define state crime as ‘illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by, or with the complicity of, state agencies’.
• Domestic law - Chambliss

  Acts defined by law as criminal and committed by state officials in pursuit of the jobs as representatives of the state e.g MP Expenses Scandal
• Social Harm and Zemiology

  Michalowski (1985) - State crime includes illegal acts but also legally permissible acts whose consequences are similar to those of illegal acts in the harm that they cause.

  Hillyard (2004) - Replace the study of crime with Zemiology regardless of if the act is against the law.
• International Law

  Rothe and Mullins (2008) State crime is an action by or on behalf of a state that violates international law and/or a states own domestic law.
• Human Rights

  United Nations Declaration of Human Rights 1948

  Schwendinger 1975 State crime should be defend as a violation of people’s basic human rights by the state and their agents.
• What are the 4 categories of crime McLaughlin identified?

  1.Political crimes

  2. Crimes by security and police

  forces,

  3. Economic crimes

  4. Social and cultural crimes
• What are the most common examples of political corruption?

  • Politicians siphoning public money off to their private bank accounts,

  • Unfairly granting government contracts in return for bribes

  • Electoral fraud (vote rigging).
• Political censorship 

  when a government attempts to conceal, fake, distort, or falsify information that its citizens receive by suppressing or crowding out political news that the public might receive through news outlets.
• What are the 2 types of war crime ?

  1. Illegal Wars

  • Not self defence or declared by UN

  2) Crime committed during war

  • Abu Graib

  • Bombing of Civilians
• What’s genocide ?

  Genocide means any act committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group e.g Holocaust 1939 – 1945
• What’s torture ?

  The action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something e.g Guantanamo Bay
• What’s inprisonment without trial ?

  Detained in prison or psychiatric facilities without knowledge of why or for how long e.g e.g Guantanamo Bay
• What’s disappearance of dissidents ?

  Political dissent refers to any expression designed to convey dissatisfaction with or opposition to the policies of a governing body. E.g china has been accused of this crime 
• What are the economic crimes ?

  1. Official violations of health and safety laws.

  Where the government knowingly allowed health and safety breaches in public services to save money or create profit.

  • Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

  • Flint Michigan Water contamination
• 2. Economic Policies which cause harm to the citizenry

  Economic policies which the government knows will lead to harm upon the citizens of their country

  • Austerity in the UK
• What’s the two types of social + cultural crimes ?

  1)Institutional Racism - Police force targeting certain groups in society, Ethnocentric Curriculum ignore certain groups histories

  2) Deliberate and conscious destruction of the culture or heritage of native groups.

  • ISIS destruction of Churches and shrines in Mosul

  • USA Destruction of Native Indian sites and lands