State Crime Flashcards
(32 cards)
What are the two types of state crimes?
Traditional and transgressive
What’s traditional state crime?
Illegal or deviant acts that are perpetrated by or with the complicity of the state. It includes genocide, war crimes, torture, imprisonment without trial and assination
What’s transgressive state crime?
Cohen argues that the defonition of crime should involve both crimes and human rights violations commited by the state. These may be things that have broken their own or international law
What does McLoughlin identify as the 4 categories of state crime?
- Political crimes such as censorship and corruption. 2. Crimes by security and the police eg genocide, torture and the dissaperance of individuals. Economic crimes eg the violation of health and safety laws. 4. Social and cultural crimes such as institutional racism.
What is an example of torture and mass punishment of citizens?
In 2012 the UKS military of defence paid £14 million to Iraquis illegally detained during the Iraq invasion
What is an example of state corruption?
Sani Abacha was a Nigerian army officer and dictator who was revealed after his death to have stolen $3-5 billion of public money
What are two example of state assination or targeted killing?
The sailsbury poisonings in 2018 and the assination of Kim Jong Nam by North Korea in 2017
What is an example of state war crimes?
The Israeli Palestine war
What’s an example of Genocide?
the Serbenia genocide which happened even while UN soldiers were there
What’s an example of a state crime in Russia?
The propaganda against homosexual people.
Who came up with the idea of transgressive criminology?
Herman and Julia Schwendinger
What is transgressive criminology?
Herman and Julia Schwendingers argument that we should define crime in the terms of violation of human rights rather than the breaking of rules. If a state practices racism or sexism or economically exploits its citizens it is violating human rights and should be guilty of a crime. Sociology should defend human rights.
What arguably supports transgressive criminology?
The Nazis made it legal to persecute Jews, if just looking in traditional legal terms this would have made it okay when it obviously was not.
What is a critism of transgressive criminology?
Our views and morals are always going to change with time, therefore it’s upto debate who gets too decide what is morally right and what is not.
When was the declaration of human rights?
1948
What does O’Bryne argue?
The state are increasingly assessed by the extent to which they preserve human rights and by the extent of which the fail to do so through injustice, discrimination, torture, violence, slavery or genocide.
What are 4 examples of human rights?
The right to life. Being born free and equal. Not subject to torture. Full equality in a fair public trial.
What is an example of war crimes that the UK government have been found guilty of?
War crimes in Iraq such as prisoners being tortued.
What is the problem with attempting too punish states who break human rights?
How would we decide who to punish them?
Who identify 2 explanations of state crime?
Green and Ward
What are Green and Wards explanations?
- Integrated theory. 2. The crime of obedience model
What is integrated theory?
This suggests that state crime arises from similar circumstances of other crimes and consists of 3 elements: opportunity, motivation of offenders and failures of control of methods.
What’s the crime of obedience model and who came up with it?
It was created by Kelman and Hamilton. Violent states encourage obedience by those who carry out state backed human rights abuses in 3 ways: 1. Authorisation - saying its in line with policy. 2. Dehumanisation- Creating sub humans and marginalised the victims by stripping their identity. 3. Routinisastion, this involves creating routine violence and destruction.
What event does Baumen argue was caused by the process of crime of obedience model?
The Holocaust
