state crime

Question 1

what does Michalowski argue about zemiology?

Answer 1

recognises many actions caused by the state cause harm but are not against the law

therefore, we should see state crime in terms of harm (zemiology) whether legal or illegal

Question 2

state crime and labelling theory

Answer 2

• whether an act is seen as criminal depends on the reaction the act gets (thus, state crime is socially constructed)

crime is socially constructed across genders and ethnicity

Kauzlarich - Iraq war protestors ready to stop the war because they saw it as harmful but would not label it as criminal

Question 3

what does Rothe and Mullins say about international law and state crime?

Answer 3

definition: state crime is any action that violates international law and/or a state’s own domestic law (however international law tends to focus on war crimes rather than societal corruption)

Question 4

what human rights protect us from the state?

Answer 4

Natural rights - rights ever person has e.g liberty, free speech

Civil rights - the right to vote, privacy, a fair trial, education

Question 5

what does Cohen argue in counter?

Answer 5

• not all violations of human rights are clear crime (e.g economic exploitation)

Question 6

what are the 4 key issues of researching state crime?

Answer 6

1. difficult to get clear stats (company denial)
2. control of info by Govs means full sets of data may not be released. This means there will be a large dark figure of crime
3. researchers often reliant on media reports when researching state crime (may not represent all of state crime)
4. research can be dangerous in dictatorships which can risk imprisonment (seen as enemies of the state)

Question 7

4 categories of state crime? - McLaughlin

Answer 7

political crimes e.g corruption

crime by security and police forces egg genocide in Rwanda

economic crimes e.g official violation of health and safety

social and cultural crimes e.g institutional racism (George Floyd)

Question 8

what are 2 reasons as to why state crime is considered the most serious form of crime

Answer 8

scale of state crime: green and ward - 262 million people were murdered by governmentts during the 20th century

The state’s is the source of law - state’s role is tp define what is criminal, uphold the law and prosecute offenders - however it can conceal crimes and evade punishment

Question 9

what is the marxist view?

Answer 9

Chambliss - the role of criminology is to focus on crimes of the state e.g illegal activities which states engage (money laundering)

McLaughlin - the state has the power to define its actions as legitimate

Question 10

what are the 4 key explanations

Answer 10

1. Integrated theory
2. Crimes of obedience model
3. culture of denial - techniques of neutralisation
4. Authoritarian personality

Question 11

outline 1. Integrated theory x2

Answer 11

3 elements that lead to crime - motivated offender, opportunity for crime, failure of control

(links to Hirshi control theory and felsons routine activity)

Question 12

outline 2. Crimes of obedience model

Answer 12

Kelman and Hamilton - (My Lai massacre Vietnam study) violent states encourage obedience by those who actually carry out state backed systematic human rights abuses (torture)

Question 13

3 ways the state encourages obedience?

Answer 13

authorisation - makes it clear orders are official

dehumanisation - involves state promotion of identity based on marginalisation (excluding minorities portrayed as sub-human)

Routinisation - organising actions in a way that they become part of a regular routine and can be performed in a detached (denies perpetrators opps to raise moral qs)

Question 14

what does Swann say about Routinisation?

Answer 14

states reinforce violence through ‘enclaves of barbarism - places where state violence is encourages and rewarded

Question 15

what does Bauman say about the crimes of obedience model?

Answer 15

the Holocaust was made possible by these three processes -barbaric acts became state-approved routine work

• this involved the detached application of modern science and etch to the mass destruction of an ethnic group defined as sub-human

Question 16

outline 3. culture of denial - techniques of neutralisation

Answer 16

Cohen applies matza’s concept of techniques of neutralisation to explain the 3 stage spiral of denial

1. it didn’t happen
2. if it did happen, ‘it’ is something else - there were deaths but it was in self defence
3. if it did happen it is justified (national security)

Question 17

what are Matza’s 5 techniques of neutralisation? - VIRLoC

Answer 17

1. denial of a victime
2. denial of injury (we are the victims)
3. denial of responsibility (I was only obeying orders)
4. condemning the condemners - they are condemning us only because of their racism/ anti-semitism
5. appeal to higher loyalty - self righteous justifications that claim to be serving a higher cause

Question 18

outline 4. Authoritarian personality

Answer 18

Adorno - an ‘authoritarian personality’ includes the willingness to obey the orders of superiors with questions leads to crime e.g in WW2 many germans had authoritarian personality due to disciplinary socialisation.

Arendt - highlights in his study of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman - seen to be relatively normal and not particularly anti-Semitic (desk murderer Handmaids context)