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Sociology
Crime & Deviance
Human rights & state crime
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Cards (8)
Green
&
Ward
Define state crime as
‘illegal
or
deviant activities perpetuated by
, or
with
the
complicity
of
state agencies.’
State crimes can include…
genocide
war crimes
torture
imprisonment without trial
assassination
McLaughlin
Identifies four categories of state crime:
political crimes
(such as
corruption
or
censorship
)
crimes by
security
and
police forces
(such as
genocide
or
torture
)
economic
crimes (such as
official violations
of
health
&
safety laws
)
social
&
cultural
crimes (such as
institutionalised racism
)
State crime is serious for two reasons
The
scale
of state crime
The state is the
source of law
Herman
&
Julia Schwendinger
Define crime in terms of
violation
of
human rights
, rather than breaking legal rules.
The state as
perpetrator.
Subservience
to the
state.
Transgressive
criminology.
Cohen
Dictatorships
deny
,
democratic
states
legitimate.
Spiral
of
denial:
Stage 1 - it
didn’t
happen.
Stage 2 -
if
it didn’t happen.
Stage 3 -
even
if
it
is
what you say it is, it’s
justified.
Neutralisation
theory:
Denial of
victim.
Denial of
injury.
Denial of
responsibility.
Condemning
the
condemners.
Appeal
to
higher loyalty.
Kelman
&
Hamilton
Crimes of
obedience
produced by:
authorisation
routinisation
dehumanisation
Bauman
State crime is a
product
of
modernity.
