Contempory Issues In Crime - State Crime Flashcards
Mclaughlin’s 4 types of crime:
Political crime - corruption (immoral behaviour of the powerful) or censorship
Crimes by security - genocide, torture and disappearances of dissidents
Economic crimes - official violations of health and safety laws
Social and cultural crimes - institutional racism
Two reasons why state crime can be seen as the most serious forms of crime:
The scale of state crime,
The state is the source of law
The scale of state crime
The power of the state allows them to commit almost any crime and get away with it.
Weber - the gov have a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence to use when they have to.
This power allows them to conceal all of their crimes or avoid punishment.
Although media attention is often on state crime, committed by the Third World dictatorships. Democratic states such as Britain and the US have been guilty of crimes such as the military use of torture in Iraq.
Michealowski and Kramer - ‘great power and great crime are inseparable’. They argue that we need to study ‘the way that economic and political elites can bring death, diseases and loss of thousands with a single decision and can affect entire human groups through the creation of criminal systems of oppression and exploitation’.
The state is the source of law
It is the states role to define what is criminal and to manage the criminal justice system and prosecute offenders.
State crime undermines the system of justice.
Its power also means that it can avoid defining its own actions as criminal.
For example, in Nazi Germany, the state created laws, permitting it to sterilise disabled people against their will.
State control of the criminal justice system also means that it can persecute its enemies .
The state is the law AO3:
The principal of national sovereignty-that states are the supreme authority within their own borders-means that it is very difficult for external authorities like the UN to intervene.
The scale of state crime AO3:
This is linked to the Marxist notion of ‘crime of the suites’ and the ability of those who have the power to commit the most serious crimes and get away with it.
State crime and human rights: the state commits crime that violates human rights
Critical criminologists such as Schwendinger and Schwendinger argue that we should define crime in terms of violation of basic human rights, rather than breaking the legal rules. For example states that practice, imperialism, racism,or sexism or inflict economic exploitation on their citizens are committing crimes.
From a human rights perspective, the state can be a perpetrator of crime, but not simply an authority that defines and punishes crime . This is referred to as the definition of crime is inevitable political.
For example, in the 30s, the Nazi state attacked the human rights of the Jews and other groups perfectly legally simply by passing laws that persecuted them .
In respect, their view is an example of transgressive criminology .
Schwendinger & Swendinger AO3:
Stanley and Cohen, criticise Schweninger and Schweninger. He argues that while gross violations of human rights, such as genocide and torture are clearly crimes or acts, such as economic exploitation are not self, evidently criminal, even if we find them morally unacceptable.
State crime and the culture of denial - the state can deny their own crimes
Stan Cohen sees the issue of human rights, and state crime is central to criminology, he is particularly interested in the ways in which state conceal and legitimate the human rights.
Dictatorships generally will simply deny committing human rights abuses.
Democratic states, follow a three stage ‘spiral of denial’.
1. First state claims the abuse ‘didn’t happen’
2. When proof emerges that it did happen, ‘they claim it’s not what it looks like’ - not an abuse
3. Third when evidence emerges that it was an abuse, the state claims ‘it is justified.’
Culture of denial AO3:
This theory lacks contemporary relevance.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the government to hide, deny and reject state crime.
The growth of social media allows the public to spread messages around the globe.
Neutralisation theory (Matza)
Neutralisation techniques, provide an excuse that states might give for committing human right abuses.
Denial of the victim - they exaggerate they are terrorists; they are used to violence; look what they can do to each other.
Denial of injury - they started it; we are the real victims, not them.
Denial of responsibility - I was only obeying orders doing my duty. AO2: Nazi concentration camp guards used this justification.
Condemning the condemners - the whole world is picking; they are condemning us, only because of their anti-Semitism, the hostility to Islam.
Appeal to higher loyalties - self righteous justification-the appeal to the higher cause whether the nation the revolution, religion, etc.
Matza AO3:
Global political organisations can punish government officials who commit state crime. E.g. Slobodan Milosevic tried for war crimes.
Crimes of obedience - people commit crime as they are willing to obey authority
State, crimes or crimes of conformity since they require obedience to hire authority.
Research suggests that many people are willing to obey authority even when this involves harming others. Sociologists argue this is because of the way we are socialised.
For example, according to Green and Ward in order to overcome norms against the use of cruelty individuals who become torturous often need to be re-socialised through training.
From a study of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, where American soldiers killed 400 civilians. Kalman and Hamilton often identify three general features that produce state crimes of obedience:
Authorisation -people feel they have a duty to open authority
Routinisation -once the crime has been committed; there is a strong pressure to turn the act into a routine that individuals can perform in detached manner
Dehumanisation -where the enemies portrayed as subhuman, normal principles of morality do not apply.
Crimes of obedience AO3:
(Support) marxist would argue that crimes of obedience do take place as the bourgeoisie manipulate the proletariat to carry out these crimes on their behalf. The proletariat do this, and they are brainwashed by the state and have a false class consciousness, this suggests that capitalism is the root of obedience.
State crime is a crime of modernity
Bauman argues that modern society creates these conditions, which allows crime on a large scale. He points to the example of Nazi Germany as a product of modernity. He says that products of maternity such as science technology and the division of labour. The holocaust wouldn’t have been able to happen. It is a product of modern societies ability to dehumanise victims and turn mass murder into a routine administrative task.
