state crime

• State Crime - green and ward


  All forms of crime committed by or on behalf of states or governments in order to further their policies
• Types of State Crime

  • Genocide
  • War Crimes
  • Torture
  • Assassination
  • Imprisonment Without Trial
• Categories of State Crime (McLaughlin, 2001)


  • Political Crimes (e.g. Corruption)
  • Crime by Security & Police Forces (e.g. Genocide & Torture)
  • Economic Crimes (e.g. Violation of Health & Safety Laws)
  • Social & Cultural Crimes (e.g. Institutional Racism)
• examples of State Crimes - polpot

  • leader of cambodia forced cambodians to work on the farms or leave the country
  • those who refused were executed
  • those who complied suffered from forced labour, malnutritio, poor health
  • around 2 million cambodians killed
• State Crime

  • The Scale of State Crime: Economic & political elites can bring death, disease, & loss to tens of thousands with a single decision, & can affect entire human groups through the creation of criminal systems of oppression & exploitation
  • The State Makes the Law: The state gets to define what crime is
• Great Power & Great Crimes are Inseparable (Michalowski & Kramer, 2006)
• Natural Rights affected by state crimes

  Life, Liberty, Free Speech
• Civil Rights affected by state crime

  Voting, Privacy, Fair Trial, Education
• Techniques of Neutralisation Theory - matzer and sykes

  • Denial of Victim - ‘they are terrorists, they are used to violence’
  • Denial of Injury - ‘we are the victims, not them’
  • Denial of Responsibility - ‘i was obeying orders’
  • Condemning the Condemners - ‘the world mistreats us’
  • Appeal to Higher Loyalty - ‘we are being loyal to the nation/religion’
• Cohen argues that the techniques of the neutralisation theory are not aimed at denying the crimes have taken place but to 'negotiate or impose a different construction of the event on the population'
• Herman & Julian Schwendingers' (1970) views are compatible with Marxism in that they are suggesting that the State is corrupt and inward-looking – looking after itself at the expense of others
• The Spiral of Denial


  Stage 1) 'It didn't happen' – Deny everything

  Stage 2) 'If it did happen, "it" is something else' – claim it's not what it looks like

  Stage 3) Even if it is what you say, it's justified' e.g. to prevent terrorism and protect national security
• Social Conditioning by the State which creates obedience in people 


  Authorisation – Orders come from those in power & therefore personal judgement must be ignored & detached

  Routinisation – Activities become habitual due to repetition, they become mechanical

  Dehumanisation – Enemies are portrayed as sub-human and therefore morals do not apply
• Hamilton & Kelman (1989) suggest that State Crimes occur because the people who are ordered to carry them out have been conditioned to obey and not question, and thus these crimes seem 'normal' to them
• examples of state crime - hitler ww2


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  • killed over 16 million people
  • included disabled people, gypsies, gays, jehovahs, catholics, war prisoners, political dissidents
• examples of state crime

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  • US guilty of institutional racism with an apartheid culture
  • was expected that whites and non whites should be segregated
• herman and julian schwendinger 


  believe that crime should be defined as violation of human rights rather than breaking legal roles

  • therefore any state that denies anyone of basic human rights should be classed as criminal
• cohen - spirit of denial


  suggests that state legitimises and conceals their crimes through a spirit of denial