Ward and Green - defining state crime
‘illegal or deviant activities committed by, or with the complicity of state agencies on behalf of the state or the government’
McLaughlin - 4 types of state crime
- political crimes
- security/police force crimes
- economic crimes
- cultural crimes
political crimes (McLaughlin)
- corruption
- state censorship
- freedom of speech
- eg China’s censorship to access to the internet
security/police force crimes (McLaughlin)
- genocide (eg Rwanda/Bosnia)
- torture (eg Abu Graib, Camp X Ray)
- disappearance of dissidents (eg Chile)
- targeting of civilians (eg Libya/Syria)
economic crimes (Mclaughlin)
- government violations of health and safety laws
cultural crimes (McLaughlin)
- institutional racism
- eg Apartheid, South Africa
problem defining state crime (human rights)
each country defines what is legal and illegal within its own borders, with not everyone agreeing there are such things as human rights
Herman - overcoming definitions of crime in different countries
this approach states that state crimes are crime that violate human rights, no matter where they take place
feminist view of state crime
many state crimes are simply an extension of the patriarchal control of men because many state crimes involve the systematic victimisation of women and children (eg rape as a weapon of war featured heavily in conflicts in Bosnia, Libya and Syria)
interactionist view of state crime
- would suggest that state crime, like any other crime, is a consequence of moral entrepreneurs labelling an activity as criminal
- this is especially relevant for state crime as the persecution of a group at a particular time in a particular country may not be a crime or violate social norms
- it is only when moral entrepreneurs such as the UN define an activity as criminal that it becomes a state crime
Cohen - 3 stages to justifying state crime/spiral of decline (interactionism)
stage 1 - ‘it did not happen’, government denies claim (eg torture/massacre did not happen)
stage 2 - ‘it’s something else’, government denies it was a crime (eg civilians killed were ‘collateral damage’)
stage 3 - ‘it is justified’, government rationalises actions (eg had to protect national security with war on terror)
Cohen - 5 ways governments justify state crime actions / Matza - techniques of neutralisation (interactionism)
1 - denial of victim (eg they are terrorists)
2 - denial of injury (eg terrorists started it)
3 - denial of responsibility (eg we were following orders)
4 - condemning the condemners (eg rest of the world picks on us but they are just as bad)
5 - appeal to higher loyalty (eg it is in defence of the nation)
Kelman and Hamilton - 3 features of state crime occurring due to obedience (interactionism)
1 - authorisation (act is approved by those in power, removing individual’s moral responsibility and replacing it with need to obey)
2 - routinisation (once the crime has occurred it becomes routine so individuals can do it in a detached manner)
3 - dehumanisation (portraying enemy as human makes them easier to attack
is state crime the most serious form of crime? (4 reasons)
- power of the state creates mass victimisation (yes)
- government’s power means it can enforce and cover up violence (yes)
- difficult for external agencies such as UN to police due to principle of national sovereignty (yes)
- state decides what is criminal so can use this control to persecute enemies (yes)
strengths of state crime/human rights theory
- universal standard of human rights set out by the UN
weaknesses of state crime/human rights theory
- Cohen says there are no definitive definitions of human rights
- secrecy and power of states committing crimes makes it difficult to access needed data to research
- governments may put pressure on sociologists to give up research in a dangerous way
- most widely used data source is media reports which may have a lot of bias
