State and Human rights crime

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(McLaughlin 2001) 4 catergories of state crime

1. Political crimes=curruption , censorship

2. Crimes by security and police forces= genocide, tourture ,Nazi Germany is a good example

3. Economic crime ; official violations of health and safety laws ; in 1986 the Challenger space shuttle exploded after doing cost cutting which made it unsafe

4. Social and cultural crime (institutional racism) ; the police were accused for being I.R in terms of Stephen Lawrences murder, it took years for the murderes to be brought to justice.

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War crimes

1. illegal wars; many see the US led war in Afghanistan and Iraq as 'the war on terror'  as illegal.

2. crimes commited during the war of its aftermath; it is claimed that the USA engaged in torture of prisoners during the war.

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Social harms and zemiology

Zemiology ; is the study of harms but ithas been criticised for not saying what is counted as a crime

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Human rights

The schwendigers (1970) argue that crime should be defined in terms of the violation of human rights over breaking of legal rights.

the deny of basic human rights should be regarded as criminal

Cohen states however that some violations are clearly torture but some are not.

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Explaining state crime

AUTHORITAN PERSONALITY; including willingness to obey orders

it is suggested that many Germans had an authoriterian personality during Hitlers reign

MY LI MASSACRE IN VIETNAM; 3 GENERAL FEATURES THAT PRODUCE CRIMES OF OBEDIANCE FROM A STUDY THAT KILLED 400 SOLDIERS;

Authorisation; where acts are ordered by those in authority

Routinisation; pressure to replay criminal acts in a detached manner

Dehumanisation; when the enemy is portrayed as sub-human

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Neutralisation theory

Cohen also looks at how the state denies and justifies their crimes.

he uses the work of Matza and Sykes (1957) who identify 'five nutralisation techniques'

1. Denial of victim; 'they are terrorists'

2. Denial of injury ; 'they're not the vicim , we are'

3.Denial of responsibility ; 'i was just doing my job'

4. condeming the condemmers ; ' they're just racist'

5. Appeal to higher loyalty ; ' we are defending the 'free world'

they don't give a clear picture of the events they offer a different version of events and seem justified

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