State And Green Crime Flashcards
Two types of state crime
TRADITIONAL: Green and Ward (2005) define state crime as illegal or deviant activities perpetrated y or with the complicity of the state. It includes genocide, war crimes, torture, imprisonment ithout trial and assassination.
TRANSGRESSIVE: Cohen (2001) uses a transgressive approach and argues that the scope of iminology should be expanded to include crimes committed by the state, and HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES. States, and their agents, may commit crimes and illegal human rights abuses which ontravene the laws of their own countries or binding international agreements.
Categories of state crime
Categories of crime - types
Eugene McLaughlin (2001) identifies 4 categories of state crime:
- Political crimes - censorship and corruption
- Crimes by security and the police e.g. genocide, torture and the disappearance o individuals.
- Economic crimes e.g. the violation of health and safety laws
- Social and cultural crimes such as institutional racism.
Examples of state crime with torture
le torture and illegal punishment of citizens - Examples include:
- The mass murder and torture of thousands of political opponents of the Gaddafi regime in Libya
- Pol Pot - Communist dictator - Between 1975 and 1978 in Cambodia the government of Pol Pot killed 1/5 of the country’s population.
- Guantanamo bay - The most controversial American Prison camp based in Cuba. Was ordered to close by Obama in 2009 and in 2013 155 prisoners remained. Frequent reports of torture are shown from here.
- Even the UK were found guilty of using white noise torture on IRA suspects and in 2012 the ministry of defence paid £14 million compensation to Iraqis illegally detained during the Iraq invasion
Herman and Julia schwendinger
Herman and Julia Schwendinger argue that we should define crime in terms of the violation of human rights rather than the breaking of rules. If a state practises racism or sexism or economically exploits its citizens it is violating human rights and should be guilty of a crime. Transgressive criminology
In this view the definition of crime is highly political. For example, the Nazi’s simply made it legal to persecute Jews. If we accept the legal view, we may become subservient to whatever the government decides.
The Schwendingers argue that Sociology should defend human rights- this again is transgressive criminology because it goes beyond traditional criminology as defined law.
Obyrne
O’Byrne (2012) argues that the state are increasingly assessed by the extent to which they press human rights, and the by the extent the in which they fail to do so through injustice, discrimina torture, violence, slavery or genocide.
Green and ward
Green and Ward identify 2 main explanations of state crime:
1) Integrated theory - this suggests state crime arises from similar circumstances to those of other crimes and consists of 3 elements opportunity, motivation of offenders and failures of control methods.
2) The Crime of obedience model- Kelman and Hamilton (1989) they suggest violent states encourage obedience by those who carry out state backed human rights abuses in 3 ways:
1. Authorization - saying it’s in line with policy
- Dehumanisation - Creating sub-humans and marginalising the victims by stripping their identity
- Routinization- this involves creating a routine violence and destruction.
Swann (2001) argued this creates ‘enclaves of barbarism’ places where violence is encouraged and rewarded.
Cohen
Cohen argues that we should study the issue of human rights to focus more on the victims of crime and the growing impact of international human rights movements such as amnesty international.
Cohen is focussed on the ways in which the state conceals human rights crimes. Dictatorships may deny them and democratic societies have to legitimate their actions.
He says they do this by a three stage spiral of denial.
Problems of researching crime
Problems of researching state crime
1) There is not enough agreement on what constitutes human rights therefore using human rights violation as an indicator of state crime is problematic
2) It is difficult to find out the true extent of state crime as governments either deny or attempt to justify their actions
3) Some people argue that it is necessary to go beyond the limits of the law in fighting terrorism, claiming that assassination and torture are ‘necessary evils’
4) It is very hard to research state crime as perpetrators will be hard to access. As a result, our knowledge of the topic is based on media coverage and secondary documents which may contain bias. There is a huge ‘dark figure’ of state crime
5) Tombs and Whyte (2003) point out that researchers are likely to face strong official resistance as they can use their powers to refuse sociologists funding, refusing access to documents and in some countries they risk imprisonment and torture.
Traditional theorists in green crime
Traditional theorists: Wolf (2011) points out that green crime was traditionally used to describe actions that break the laws protection the environment.
Transgressive theorists in green crime
Transgressive theorists: Lynch and Stretsky (2003) believe green criminology should study
‘individuals or entities who/which, kill, injure and assault other life forms (human, animal, plant) by poisoning the earth’
Global risk society
Global risk society and the environment:
For Beck, the major risks we face today are of our own making. E.g. Global warming. new technology and productivity have created new dangers which are global rather than local. Beck calls late modern society ‘global risk society’
South at al
Iypes of green crime
South ef al (2008): identifies 2 types of green crime.
1) Primary crime- resulting directly from the destruction of the Earth. These include-air pollution, deforestation, species decline, water pollution.
2) Secondary crime- this comes of breaking the rules that could prevent environmental disaster
These include -
state violence against opposition groups and illegal waste dumping.
Victims of green crime
The victims of green crime
Wolf argues that there are inequalities in the distribution of harm and risks to victims caused by environmental destruction in both how laws are made and enforced. I grinosoet?
White (2003) argues that those living in the developing world are at far greater risk of environmental crime.
Sutherland
Sutherland argues that unlike white-collar and cooperate crime, environment crime does not carry the same stigma.
White
White (2008) argues that green crime arises as TC and nation states have anthropocentric views of the world. This suggests that the most important consideration for the nations is the wellbeing of its citizens through economic growth and the environment is a secondary consideration.
