state crime

• GREEN and WARD = state crime is 'illegal or deviant activities perpetrated bu or with the complicity of states agencies'
• definitions of state crime

  • domestic law
  • zemiology
  • international law
  • human rights
• definitions of state crime

  domestic law

  • CHAMBLISS - acts defined by law as criminal and committed by state officials in pursuit of the jobs as representatives of the state
  • MP's expenses
• definitions of state crime

  zemiology

  • MICHALOWSKI - state crime includes illegal acts but also legally permissible acts whose consequences are similar to those if illegal acts in the harm that they cause
  • HILLYARD - replace the study of crime with zemiology regardless of the act is against the law
• definitions of state crime

  international law

  • ROTHE AND MULLINS - state crime is and action by or on behalf of a state that violates international law and/or states own domestic law
• definitions of state crime

  human rights

  • SCHWENDINGER - state crime should be defined as a violation of peoples basic human rights by the state and their agents
• types of state crime - MCLAUGHLIN

  • political crimes
  • crimes by security, military and police
  • economic crimes
  • socio and cultural crimes
• types of state crime - MCLAUGHLIN

  Political crimes

  • censorship or corruption
  • correlation between corruption, war and conflict and poverty - Somalia, north Korea, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq are the most corrupt
  • Scandinavian countries - least corrupt
• types of state crime - MCLAUGHLIN

  Crimes by security, military and police

  • genocide, torture, imprisonment without trial and disappearance of dissidents
  • genocide - Rwanda 1994, Cambodia 1970
  • imprisonment without trial - Guantanomo bay
  • disappearance of dissidents - China, Russia
  • RUMMEL - from 1990-1987 over 169 million people had been murdered by goverments
• types of state crime - MCLAUGHLIN

  Economic crimes

  • official violations of health and safety laws - chernobyl disaster
  • economic policies which cause harm to the population - austerity
• types of state crime - MCLAUGHLIN

  social and cultural crimes

  • institutional racism - police target certain groups in society, ethnocentric curriculum
  • destruction of native cultures and heritage - ISIS destruction of churches and shrines in Mosol, USA destruction of Native Indian lands
• seriousness of state crime

  Scale

  • states are large and powerful entities - can cause large and powerful crimes
  • Cambodia - 1975-1978 the Khmer rouge government killed up to 1/5 of the entire population
• seriousness of state crime

  State as a source of law

  • states have the power to conceal their crimes and make them harder to detect - change the law to their benefit
• seriousness of state crime

  culture of denial - COHEN

  1. 'it didn't happen'
  2. 'if it did happen, it is something else'
  3. 'even if it is what you say it is, it's justified'
• seriousness of state crime

  neutralisation theory

  • SYKES AND MATZA
  • justification of the act through:
  • denial of the victim
  • denial of injury
  • denial of responsibility
  • condemning the condemners
  • appeal to higher loyalty
• explaining state crime

  • integrated theory
  • modernity
  • social conditions
• explaining state crime - integrated theory

  • GREEN AND WARD - state crime arises from similar circumstances to those of other crimes
  • motivation, opportunity and lack of controls
• explaining state crime - modernity BAUMAN - certain features of modern society that made state crime possible

  1. a division of labour - each person is responsible for one task so no one if fully responsible
  2. bureaucratisation - normalisation of the act by making it repetitive and routine - dehumanisation
  3. instrumental rationality - rational and efficient methods to achieve a goal regardless of the goal itself
  4. science and technology - scientific and technological knowledge to justify the means and the motive
• explaining state crime - social conditions

  • state crimes tend to be crimes of obedience rather than deviance
  • KELMAN AND HAMILTON -

  1. authorisation - those in power approve of acts - normal moral principles are replaced with duty to obey
  2. routinisation - turn the act into a routine behaviour so it can be performed in a detached manner
  3. dehumanisation - the victims are portrayed as sub-human so normal morality doesn't apply