state crime T12

Question 1

why is state crime the most serious form of crime?

Answer 1

• the scale of state crime
• the state is the source of law

Question 2

the state is the source of law

Answer 2

• able to avoid defining its own harmful actions as criminal
• state control CJS so can persecute enemies

Question 3

scale of state crime

Answer 3

• large-scale widespread victimisation
• can conceal crimes / escape punishment
• national sovereignty makes it difficult for organisations to intervene

Question 4

McLaughlin

Answer 4

4 types of state crime
- political (corruption & censorship)
- crime by security and police force (genocide, torture)
- economic crime (h&s violation)
- social and cultural (institutional racism)

Question 5

definitions of state crime

Answer 5

• domestic vs international law
• social harms and zemiology
• human rights and state crime
• labelling and societal reaction

Question 6

example of state concealing crime

Answer 6

USA & UK military torture in Iraq - Guantanamo Bay

Question 7

example of state avoiding defining harmful actions as criminal

Answer 7

Nazi Germany created laws permitting persecution of Jews and sterilising disabled people against will

Question 8

problem with domestic law v international law

Answer 8

• ignores states creating laws to avoid criminalising own actions (Nazi Germany)
• acts may be legal in one place and not another

Question 9

Rothe & Mullins

Answer 9

state crimes should be defined as any law violating international law/treaties = globally agreed definition

Question 10

evaluation of Rothe & Mullins

Answer 10

international law socially constructed involving use of power so powerful nations may use influence to overturn international bans (Japan bribed other nations to vote against whaling ban)

Question 11

Zemiology

Answer 11

crime should be replaced with the ‘study of harms’

Question 12

Michalowski

Answer 12

much harms done by the state are not illegal but legally permissible despite causing harm

Question 13

Hillyard

Answer 13

should replace study of crime with zemiology (e.g. state-facilitated poverty has widespread consequences but not illegal)

Question 14

evaluation of zemiology

Answer 14

definition too vague - who decides what counts as harm?

Question 15

Schwendinger

Answer 15

crime should be defined as breaking human rights not law (inflicting racism, sexism etc deny basic rights)

Question 16

Risse

Answer 16

supports human rights definition as most states care about human rights image as it’s a global norm = by breaking would lead to shame and consequence

Question 17

Cohen’s evaluation of Schwendinger

Answer 17

violations like genocide & torture are clear crimes but economic exploitation not evidently criminal so there is a limited agreement on what counts as human rights (e.g. should freedom from poverty be a human right?)

Question 18

examples of state crime

Answer 18

• Guantanamo Bay
• Nazi Germany
• Khmer Rouge
• Argentina military takeover

Question 19

Argentina military takeover

Answer 19

• 30,000 disappearances
• babies given to those who supported regime
• 1976-83

Question 20

Khmer Rouge - Cambodia

Answer 20

• communist regime
• mass genocide
• population dropped by 1/3

Question 21

theories of state crime

Answer 21

• crimes of obedience
• culture of denial
• modernity

Question 22

how are state crimes crimes of obedience?

Answer 22

they require obedience to higher authority. people are willing to obey authority even when it involves harming g others due to being socialised into it

Question 23

Green & Ward

Answer 23

to overcome norms against the use pf cruelty, individuals need to be re-socialised, trained and exposed to propaganda about ‘the enemy’

Question 24

Kelman & Hamilton

Answer 24

• studied My Lai massacre in Vietnam where American troops killed 400 civilians
• explained crime of obedience in terms of
  1) authorisation
  2) routinisation
  3) dehumanisation

Question 25

authorisation

Answer 25

following orders of those in authority, moral principles are replaced by duty to obey

Question 26

routinisation

Answer 26

once the act is committed it is seen as a routine that one can be detached from

Question 27

dehumanisation

Answer 27

enemies re presented as sub-human so normal principles of morality dent apply

Question 28

Bauman

Answer 28

Holocaust was a product of modernity which was made possible by - division of labour - bureaucratisation - instrumental rationality - science and technology

Question 29

division of labour

Answer 29

each person was responsible for a small task so no one felt personally responsible

Question 30

Bureaucratisation

Answer 30

enabled Nazis to dehumanise victims and turn to mass murder into a routine administrative task

Question 31

instrumental rationality

Answer 31

efficient methods used to achieve a goal

Question 32

science and technology

Answer 32

e.g railways transporting victims to camps, industrially produced gas, weaponry to fight war

Question 33

evaluation of modernity

Answer 33

- not all genocides occur through highly organised division of labour that allows pps to distance themselves e.g. Rwandan genocide carried out my large groups - ignores ideological factors that caused Holocaust - racist ideology supplied by decades of propaganda

Question 34

Alvarez

Answer 34

recent years have seen growing impact of international human rights movement which brings pressure on states = led to culture of denial

Question 35

Cohen - culture of denial

Answer 35

states have to go to greater efforts to conceal and legitimise human rights crime

Question 36

Cohens 3 stage spiral of state denial (democratic states)

Answer 36

1) 'it didn't happen' e.g. states claim no massacre but human rights organisations, victims & media show it did 2) claim it's not what it looks like 3) justify action to protect nation e.g. fight 'war on terror'

Question 37

Cohen's techniques of neutralisation (justify abuses)

Answer 37

- denial of victim - denial of injury - denial of responsibility - condemning the condemners - appeal to higher loyalty

Question 38

denial of victim

Answer 38

they exaggerate, they are terrorists, they are used to violence etc

Question 39

denial of injury

Answer 39

they started it, we are the victims

Question 40

denial of responsibility

Answer 40

only obeying orders, doing my duty

Question 41

Cohen's view on war on terror

Answer 41

USA had to publicly justify its interrogation practices and claimed they were not torture as they were merely stress induced and not physically/psychologically damaging. attempt to normalise torture

Question 42

evaluation of Cohen

Answer 42

draws attention to similarity between crimes of powerful & powerless. This is because govs use the same types f justifications for crime as w/c juveniles do. don't deny the event happened but seek to impose a different construction of the event from what actually happened.