explaining state crime

• adorno et al - authoritarian personality

  • a willingness to obey the orders of superiors without question.
  • patriotic / loyal to their country
  • They argue that at the time of WW2, many Germans had authoritarian personality types due to the punitive, disciplinarian socialisation patterns that were common at the time.
  • E.g propoganda influencing citizens to join the fight
  • this is why many law-abiding citizens becoming involved in state crime
• kelman and Hamilton - crimes of obedience

  • usually crime are defined as deviance from social norms
  • however, state crimes are crimes of conformity, since they require obedience to a higher authority
  • studied a massacre in Vietnam, where a platoon of American soldiers killed 400 civilians
  • they identify three general features that produce crimes of obedience: authorisation, routinisation, dehumanisation
• authorisation

  • When acts are ordered or approved by those in authority, normal moral principles are replaced by the duty to obey.
• routinisation

  • Once the crime has been committed, there is strong pressure to turn the act into a routine that individuals can perform in a detached manner.
• dehumanisation

  • When the enemy is portrayed as sub- human, normal principles of morality do not apply.
• bauman - modernity (holocaust)

  • found key features of modern society that made state crimes, such as the holocaust, possible
  • division of labour - each person given a job so n one felt personally responsible
  • bureaucratisation - made killing a routine job
  • instrumental rationality - rational methods used to achieve goal, no matter what goal is
  • science and technology - used railways to transport victims to death camps
• Cohen - culture of denial

  • states now have to make a greater effort to conceal or justify their human rights crimes, or to re-label them as not crimes.
  • stage 1 - 'it didn't happen'
  • stage 2 - 'it is something else - (not a state crime)'
  • stage 3 - 'it is justified' e.g to defend themselves from war on terror
• Cohen - techniques of neutralisation

  • examines the ways in which states deny or justify their crimes. 
  • use 5 techniques
  • denial of victim - label victims as terrorists
  • denial of injury - project themselves as victims
  • denial of responsibility - argue they have sense of duty to uphold
  • condemning the condemners -  when an individual places the blame on the individual condemning them. 
  • appeal to higher loyalty - claim to serve a higher cause e.g religion, defending the nation
• explanations of state crime

  reasons why citizens become involved in state crimes and why/how they are justified by the state

  • authoritarian personalities
  • crimes of obedience
  • modernity
  • culture of denial