State crimes

Question 1

How do Green and Ward (2012) define state crime?

Answer 1

State crime is ‘illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by, or with the complicity of, state agencies’

Question 2

What are the 2 reasons why state crime is perhaps the most serious form of crime?

Answer 2

1. The scale of state crime
   - Green and Ward: a figure of 262 million people were murdered by governments during the 20th century
2. The state is the source of law
   - It is the state’s role to define what is criminal, to uphold the law and to prosecute offenders
   - Its crimes may be concealed, they may evade punishment, and even avoid defining its own actions as criminal in the first place

Question 3

What are McLaughlin’s (2012) 4 categories of state crime?

Answer 3

1. Political crimes- corruption, censorship…
2. Crimes by security and police forces- genocide, torture….
3. Economic crimes- violations of health and safety laws
4. Social and cultural crimes- institutional racism…

Question 4

Genocide in Rwanda

Answer 4

• Rwanda became a Belgian colony in 1922 and the Belgians used the minority Tutsi to mediate their rule over the Hutu majority
• The Belgians ‘ethnicised’ the 2 groups, issuing them with racial identity cards and educating them separately
• Rwanda gained independence in 1962 and elections brought the Hutus into power
• 1990’s: there was an economic and political crisis which led to a civil war
• 1994: The Hutu’s president’s plane was shot down and led to the genocide
• In 100 days, 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered and it is estimated that 1/3 of the Hutu population actively participated in the genocide

Question 5

State corporate crimes

Answer 5

• Kramer and Michalowski distinguish between ‘state-initiated’ and ‘state-faciliated’ corporate crime
• State-initiated- when states initiate, direct, or approve corporate crimes: The Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986. Led to the deaths of 7 astronauts
• State-facilitated- when states fail to regulate and control corporate behaviour, making crime easier: The Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster where 11 workers died

Question 6

War crimes

Answer 6

2 kinds of war-related crime:

1. Illegal wars
   - War can only be declared by the UN Security Council
   - Invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified as the USA and UK claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction
2. Crimes committed during war or its aftermath
   - Whyte: the USA neo-liberally colonised Iraq and the constitution was changed so that the economy could be privatised
   - Torture of prisoners during the Iraq War

Question 7

Social harms and zemiology

Answer 7

Critics argue that a ‘harms’ definition is potentially very vague:

• What level of harm must occur before before an act is defined as a crime?
• Who decides what counts as a harm?

Question 8

Labelling and societal reaction

Answer 8

• This definition recognises that state crime is socially constructed: so what people regard as a state crime can vary over time and between cultures or group
• But it is unclear as to who is supposed to be the relevant audience that decides whether a state crime has been committed, or what to do if different audiences reach different verdicts about an act

Question 9

International Law

Answer 9

• International law is law created through traties and agreements between states, such as the Geneva and Hague Conventions on war crimes
• One advantage of this is that it doesn’t depend on the sociologists own definitions of harm/the relevant audience
• One negative: international law is is a social construction involving the use of power

Question 10

Human rights

Answer 10

• Human rights include:
  a) natural rights- rights that people have simply by virtue of existing, these include liberty and free speech
  b) civil right- the right to vote, to privacy, education…
• Schwendinger: we should define state crime as the violation of people’s basic human rights by the state or its agents
• Advantages: most states care about their human rights image as they are now global social norms so this makes them susceptible to shaming

Question 11

Explaining state crime

Answer 11

1. The authoritarian personality
   - Adorno et al: includes a willingness to obey the orders of superiors without question
2. Crimes of obedience
   - Research suggests many people are willing to obey authority even when it may result in the harm of others
   - Kelman and Hamilton studies the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, 3 general features that produce crimes of deviance:
   a) authoritisation
   b) routinisation
   c) dehumanisation

Question 12

Modernity

Answer 12

Bauman: Certain key features of modern society that made the Holocaust possible:

1. A division of labour
2. Bureaucratisation: victims could be dehumanised as ‘units’
3. Instrumental rationality: where ratoinal, efficient methods are used regardless of the goal
4. Science and technology

Question 13

Evaluation

Answer 13

• Not all genocides occur through a highly organised division of labour that allows participants to distance themselves from the killing
• Nazi ideology of being an Aryan meant other identities were excluded. This meanst they did not need to be treated according to normal standards of morality

Question 14

The culture of denial

Answer 14

Stage 1: ‘it didn’t happen’
Stage 2: ‘if it did happen, it’s something else
Stage 3: ‘even if it is what you say it is, it’s justified’

Question 15

What are the 5 techniques of neutralisation that Cohen describes?

Answer 15

1. Denial of victim
2. Denial of injury
3. Denial of responsibility
4. Condemning the condemers
5. Appeal to higher loyalty