state crime

• State crime is defined by illegal and deviant activities peformed by the state or government agencies. State crime is extremely serious, since the states enormous power gives it the potential to inflect harm on a large scale and since the state is the source of law. One extreme example is genocide, such as was seen in Nazi Germany during te Second World War.
• McLaughlin defines 4 catagories:

  1. Political crimes. Corruption and censorship. EG MPs misuing expenses 'nannygate'
  2. Crimes of the police & security forces. EG the UK has been complicit in the torture of terrorist prisoners
  3. Social & cultural crimes. crimes of discrimination against social groups. EG homeosexuality is illegal in many countries, EG yemen, can even get the death penalty
  4. Economic crimes. such as failing to pay employees minimum wage
• Green & Ward: 262 million people were murdered by governments during the 20th century
• Green & Ward: state crimes refer to 'any violation of human rights perpetrated by, or with, the complicity of state agencies'. However this definition is problematic as some states have legalise actions which others see as criminal. EG in Saudi Arabia execution and public flogging is legal, whereas in the Western world this is highly illegal and seen as a violation of human rights. This shows that the subject of human rights is conceptual. Therefore research on state crime is incomplete as its not representative unless every countrys human rights legislation is studied.
• Green & Ward fail to acknowledge that crime is socially constructed and whats seen as 'normal' varies across the world.
• the fact that nation states maintain power and control over large territories and populations mean that they have the potential to engage in large scale crimes which victimise extremely large numbers of people. The 1970s Cambodian genocide estimated to have wiped out 25% of the population
• The state has a monopoly over violence which also allows it the potential to cause great physical harm and to oppress populations by threatening harm. Though the mass media has given some attention to such crimes, these tend

  to focus on third‐world countries such as Cambodia; however, there are numerous examples of Western countries which have also used violence and torture (such as the IRA in Northern Ireland).
• This is because the mass media is dominated by Western countries in terms of its ownership and therefore they are more able to cover up their illegitimate activities to allow them to continue. It is also particularly difficult to exert authority over states committing such crimes because of the principles of national sovereignty, which means that the state is the ultimate authority within its own borders and so it is difficult for external nations to intervene (such as the United Nations).
• This leads on to the view that the state is its own source of

  law which means it is able to decide what is defined as

  criminal. The state also takes control over the criminal

  justice system and the ways in which it prosecutes

  offenders. However, state crime undermines the justice

  system as it is able to define its own actions as not being

  criminal. This was the case in Nazi Germany, as the state

  allowed the state to disable people against their will.