human rights and state crimes

• state crimes

  crimes committed by governments

  they include : corruption, discrimination, war crimes. torture and genocide
• transgressive criminology - state crimes

  they are interested in the broader definition of crime - activities that cause harm

  human rights are recognised by international law, many actions recorded as abuses of human rights are not against the law in the countries where they happen
• human rights

  refer to the legal and moral entitlements that all people should have, regardless of where they live or any other characteristic
• hate crimes

  can also be see as examples of human rights abuses, but usually by private individuals rather than states

  these are crimes where the motive is discrimination against individuals
• spiral of denial - Cohen


  1996- identified a spiral of denial that states use when accused of human rights abuses
• what are the steps in the spiral of denial?

  'it didn't happen'

  'it's not how it looks'

  'it had to be this way
• four categories of state crime - McLaughlin

  2012

  political crimes - corruption and intimidation

  crimes by security and police - genocide and torture

  economic crimes - violation of health and safety

  social and cultural crimes - institutional racism
• evaluation of state crimes

  some worry that discourses of human rights are ethnocentric

  seeking to apply western norms to all societies