State Crime

• Weber


  State is a group that successfully claims monopoly of legitimate use of violence within a given territory.
• How states commit crimes

  • Breaking it's own laws - individuals within government can break their laws on behalf of the state
  • Breaking international law - e.g. UN declaration of human rights
• Types of state crimes

  • Killing of civilians
  • Suppression of democracy
  • Suppression of free press
  • Environmental abuses
  • Denial of minority rights
  • Destruction of culture
• Problems with defining state crime

  Discovery

  • the state can cover up their actions

  Prosecution

  • the state controls law enforcement

  Scale

  • laws are made for individuals not large scale crimes, making it difficult to attribute the amount of crimes
• Zemiology - study of harm

  Argues that state crime is difficult to define because the state can make their crimes legal. They therefore judge crimes as actions that cause harm, rather than break the law.

  • Eval - subjective definitions of harm
• Schwendinger - Human rights


  Argues that a common standard of human rights should be applied, and if violated is a state crime.

  • Eval - need consent, a universal standard won't work for all
• Chomsky 


  Western countries are some of the worst perpetrators of crime, particularly the US violating its own electoral laws, killing its citizens and violating other countries sovereignty. US is a 'failed state'
• Cohen - Eval Chomsky


  Says Chomsky holds Western countries to higher standards - moral relativism. Cohen says that it is clear the US doesn't violate international laws or human rights on the same level as non-western states.
• Spiral of Denial


  Cohen - the way states deny their actions

  1. It didn't happen - using the media or security to cover up
  2. If it did happen, it is something else - argue a different perpetrator or the victim was criminal
  3. It's justified - argue it was necessary for the future of the country