Sociology - Crime and Deviance

Definitions Of State Crime

• Chambliss - Domestic Law
  • Acts defined by laws as criminal and cmmitted by staate officials in pusuit of their jobs as representitives of the state.
• Michalowski - Social harm + Zemiology
  • Any act that harms society, doesnt need to break the law
• Interactionalst view - Labelling + societial reaction
  • Crime depends on whether the social audience defines it.  Recognises that the state is socially constructed, can vary between classes. 
• Rothe + Mullins - International Law
  • Any action by or on behalf of a state that violates the international law and or a states own domestic laws
• Herman + Schwendinger - Human rights
  • Any crime by government that imposes exploitation or breaks basic human rights. 

Why we have state crime:

• Adorno - Authorisation personality 
  • Suggests some people have a personality type that makes them suceptable to obedience, this is often a product of harsh parenting - Very common in Germany = the holocaust more successful as people are socialised to obay
• Kelman + Hamilton - Crimes of obedience, 3 factors leading to state crime
  • Authorisation - Crime is approved by authority firgure (Hitler)
  • Routinisation - A certian act becomes routine that has been preformed, became de-sensitised by routine (it became very common to presecute Jews in Nazi Germany)
  • Dehumanisation - The 'Emny' is often given non-human characteristics (E.g. giving jewish people numbers instead of names in concentration camps)
• Bauman - Modernity
  • Division of labour - One job for every person, everyone has a role to play in society 
  • Bureaucratisation - killing has been normalised by video games, it is not much pf a big deal anymore
  • Instramental nationality- Rational, effective methods used to achieve goal E.g. an aryan race would iradicate disease/ deformaties
  • Science/Tech - Advances in science and tech advances have made it easier to commit state crimes E.g. transporting Polish people on trains to the gas chambers in the holocaust. 
  • Culture of Denial - States deny comitting crimes E.g. Russia denying Novichock poisoning 

Types of State Crime

• Crimes committed by governments .E.G the holocaust
• Mclaughin- 4 types of state crime
  • Political - Corrputin in politics
  • Security - Crimes comitted by police (torture)
  • Ecomonic - Reduction in health and safety/ funding that puts people at risk
  • Social/Cultural - Institutional racism
• Kramer + Michalowski - State initiated crime/ State faciliated crime
  • State iniated = Challenge space shuttle disaster, state reduced funding whihc meant it was unsafe and many people died
  • State faciliated = BP deep water horizen oil spill, the state did not implicate regulations to stop this 

Scales of state crime

• Often occurs on large sclaes
  • E.g. 6 million jews killed in the holocaust
  • Khmer rouge in Cambodia, 1/3 of population was killed