State crime

• State Crime


  crime committed by the government/state

  e.g. corruption, misuse of state funding, war crimes (genocide)
• (Geneva Conventions - international law on war)

  First Geneva Convention - 1864: focused on the treatment of wounded and sick soldiers on the battlefield

  Second Geneva Convention - 1906: Extended protections to wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel at sea

  Third Geneva Convention - 1929: Addressed the treatment of prisoners of war

  Fourth Geneva Convention - 1949: Established protections for civilians in war zones and updated previous convetions
• (Universally illegal)

  Genocide - 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

  Crimes against humanity are defined under the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court and various post ww2

  Slavery prohibited by 1926 Slavery Convention and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• (Nuremburg trials)


  International prosecutions against Nazi workers

  - prosecuted by USA, UK and France - international, merged legal systems

  - Nazis committed genocide

  - prosecuted for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity
• Complications when defining state crime

  Consensus issue - not all countries agree/have the same laws

  People committing the state crimes are the ones who would enforce it

  If crime isn't enforced, it is more guidance than actual laws

  Westernisation - ideas of state crime are very westernised
• Green and Ward


  Integrated theory of state crime:

  3 elements to be considered about committing state crime:

  - Motive - government's desire to attack a country, suppress a group

  - Opportunity - refers to justification/excuse resulting from provocative actions by the targeted group

  - Failures of control mechanisms - such as international organisations, plays a role in allowing state crimes to happen
• Cohen


  Culture of denial

  - 'it didn't happen' - state going to deny it until evidence is presented

  - 'it's not how it looks' - twisting the truth and questioning the evidence (after it comes out in the media) e.g. misinformation

  - 'it had to be this way' - admitting to the event, but blaming the victim/situation, say it was the only way to avoid further issues
• Adorno


  Authoritarian personality

  - a personality type that includes willingness to follow orders

  - will go too far if told to

  (Milgram)
• Kelman and Hamilton


  3 reasons people commit state crimes:

  - Authorisation - morality replaced by obedience, shift blame to whoever told them to commit the crime

  - Routinisation - normalised, once the crime becomes apart of the culture, people become desensitised

  - Dehumanisation - take a group and argue rights no longer apply to them, so morality doesn't apply, makes it easier to torture them for example
• Bauman - modernity


  Key features of modern society make it easier to commit crimes on behalf of the state: e.g. Holocaust

  - Division of labour - you aren't head of the force, everyone responsible for small tasks, no one feels personally responsible

  - Bureaucracy - normalised a crime (e.g. killing) by making it a repetitive, routine job, victims dehumanised

  - Rationalisation - most efficient way to pursue goal, regardless of what the goal is

  - Science and technology - railways transporting victims to industrially produced gas