State crime

Question 1

What is state crime an example of?

Answer 1

Transgressive crimonology

Question 2

What is transgressive crimonology?

Answer 2

An area that transgresses or goes beyond conventional definitions of crime and deviance.

Question 3

Who defines state crime?

Answer 3

Green + Ward

Question 4

How do Green + Ward define state crime?

Answer 4

As ‘illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by, or with the complicity, of state agencies’.

Question 5

What do state crimes include?

Answer 5

All forms of crimes committed by or on behalf of states and governments in order to further their policies.

State crimes DO NOT include acts that merely benefit individuals who work for the state, such as a police officer who accepts a bribe.

Question 6

Why is state crime the most serious form of crime? (2 reasons)

Answer 6

1. The scale of state crime
2. The state is the source of law

Question 7

Explain the scale of state crime

Answer 7

The state’s enormous power gives it the potential to inflict harm on a huge scale and conceal its crimes or evade punishment. For example, Green + Ward cite a figure of 262 million people murdered by governments during the 20th century alone!

Question 8

What does the principle of national sovereignty do?

Answer 8

The principle of national sovereignty - that states are the supreme authority within their own borders - makes it difficult for external authorities e.g. the United Nations to intervene despite the existence of international conventions and laws.

Question 9

Explain “the state is the source of law”

Answer 9

The state makes the law and can avoid defining its own harmful actions as criminal. The power of the state means it can conceal crimes, evade punishment and even avoid defining its own actions as criminal in the first place.

Question 10

Give an example of “the state is the source of law”

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

Who identifies 4 categories of state crime?

Answer 11

McLaughlin

Question 12

What 4 categories of state crime does McLaughlin identify?

Answer 12

1. Political crimes (corruption)
2. Crimes by security and police forces (genocide/torture)
3. Economic crimes (violation of health and safety laws)
4. Social and cultural crimes (institutional racism)