Globalisation and Crime

Globalisation, Green crime, Human rights and state crime.

How has globalisation led to new crimes emerging?

• Globalisation = the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of life, from the cultural to the criminal the financial to the spiritual (Held and McGew)
• Globalisation is caused by: the spread of new media and information technology, the removal of trade barriers allowing companies to sell and manufacture goods in an increasing number of countries, the increase of transnational companies which market and manufacture goods globally, mass tourism, mass migration and cheap international air travel.

Has Globalisation actually happened?

• Hyperglobalists: believe globalisation is happening and is broadly a good thing
• Pessimistic globalists: argue globalisation is happening but is a negative feature of contemporary society. They believe that globalisation is largely the westernisation of cultural imperialism leading to a homogenous global society that destroys local cultures.
• Traditionalists: unconvinced globalisation is happening

• Postmodernists: believe globalisation is a significant feature of contemporary society and has a massive impact on crime. The Global Criminal Economy:

• Held et al suggest there has also been a globalisation of crime = an increasing interconnectedness of crime across borders.

• The same processes that have brought the globalisation of legal activities have done the same to illegal activities = which has led to the spread of transnational organised crime across national borders.

• Castells argues that there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum Types of Transnational Organised Crime

1. The international illegal drug trade: World Drug Report 2007 = this trade was worth $322 billion each year.

• This was higher than the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 88% of the countries in the world

2. Human-trafficking: Is the illegal movement and smuggling of people, for a variety of purposes ranging from organ trafficking/prostitution/forced labour.

• National Crime Agency (2014) = roughly 13,000 people in Britain who were victims of slavery
• Closely related to the trading of illegal immigrants/smuggling them into countries where they are forced to work.

3. Money- laundering: is concerned with making money obtained illegally, however it looks like it came from legal sources.

• Castells calls this the 'matrix of global crime'.
• The deregulation of global financial markets, banking secrecy, and technology has made it possible to launder 'dirty money' = complex
• Hard to track due to technology

4. Cybercrime: criminal acts committed with the help of communication and information technology.

• Cybercrime = the fastest growing criminal activity in the world.

• It is global in the sense that many of the offenders have links to outside the country.

• Detica (2011) = cybercrime costs the UK $27 billion each year. The Global Criminal Economy:

• This supply is linked to the globalisation process -Third World drugs - producing countries such as Colombia and Afghanistan have large populations of impoverished peasants.

• Drug cultivation is an attractive option for them - little investment in technology + commands high prices compared with traditional crops.

• In Colombia, 20% of the population depends on cocaine production for their livelihood - cocaine outsells all Colombia's other exports combined. Transnational organised crime:

Farr suggests that there are 2 main forms of global criminal networks:

5. Established mafias: e.g. Italian-American mafia, the Japanese Yakuza. Long-established groups, often organised around family and traditions. Used globalisation to create new opportunities.
6. Newer organised crime groups: emerged since globalisation. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s is important. New groups include Russian, Eastern European, Albanian criminal groups and drug cartels around the world. They are able to connect with one another + established mafias to form transnational organised crime.

• Castells highlights the unreasoning international linkages between criminal groups due to globalisation.

• Glenny (2009) uses the term "McMafia" to describe the way transnational organised crime mirrors the activities of legal transnational corporations (like McDonalds)

• They seek to provide and sell products across the world - self-interested organisations in pursuit of money success.

• Rather than selling burgers, they're selling drugs, sex, guns, body organs, pornography e.c.t The McMafia:

• Under communism, the Soviet state had regulated the prices of everything

• After the fall of communism, the Russian government deregulated most sectors of the economy except for natural resources such as oil = these commodities remained at their old Soviet prices, often only a fortieth of the world market price.

• Thus, anyone with access to funds, such as former communist officials and KGB (secret service) generals - could buy oil, gas, diamonds etc for next to nothing = and then they could sell them abroad at an astronomical profit.

= these people became Russia's new capitalist class (Oligarchs)

• The fall of communism resulted in increasing disorder and these wealthy capitalists now needed protection.

• They hired 'mafias' to protect their interests and move their money/products out of the country.

• These were the KGB/ex-convicts who were once employed by the Communist state - but the government no longer existed.

• Criminal organisations were vital to the entry of the new Russian capitalist class in the world economy.

• At the same time, the Russian mafias were able to build links with criminal organisations in other parts of the world. Glenny:

• Organised crime has taken over the world.

• 500 million people are involved in global crime.

• Main zones of distribution are Mexico and the Bulcans, main zones of consumption were Japan, the EU and the US.

• The primary driver of international organised crime is the Western desire to consume. From global to local - Globalism:

• Hobbs and Dunnigham suggest that the global criminal networks work within local contexts as independent local units.

• The international drug trade and human trafficking require local networks of dealers, pimps and sex clubs to organise supply at a local level and existing local criminals need to connect to global networks to continue their activities.

• Hobbs coined the term 'glocal' to describe the interconnectivity between local and the global, with transnational crime really rooted in glocalities - local contexts with global links. A02 - Synoptic link to Winlow:

• Winlow's study of bouncers in Sunderland - they are now involved in lucrative crime opportunities due to globalisation - drug dealing, duty-free tobacco, alcohol e.c.t How has globalisation affected crime?

7. Disorganised capitalism and growing inequality (Taylor's argument): It has allowed transnational corporations to switch manufacturing to low-wage countries, producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty in working-class communities. 📝E.g. Primark produces its products in the Third World.

• Deregulation: means that governments have little control over their economies e.g. to create jobs or raise taxes, while state spending on welfare has declined.

• Marketisation has encouraged people to see themselves as individual consumers thereby undermining social cohesion.

• Left realists argue increasing materialistic culture promoted by global media portrays success in terms of lifestyle of consumption.

• All these factors create insecurity, widening inequality that encourages people, especially the poor to commit crimes.

• The lack of legitimate opportunity destroys self-respect and drives the unemployed to look for illegitimate ones.

• Marginalisation -> crime A02 synoptic link: Merton strain and 'keeping up with the Joneses'

• At the same time, globalisation creates criminal opportunities for elite groups on a grand scale. For example, deregulation of financial markets create an opportunity for the movement of funds across the globe to avoid taxation

• Globalisation has also led to new patterns of employment - people employed for less than minimum wage, people working in breach of health and safety or other labour laws. A03 - Evaluation:

Strength: Taylor's theory is useful in linking global trends in the capitalist economy to changes in the patterns of crime.

Weaknesses: it does not adequately explain how the changes make people behave in criminal ways. For example, not all the poor turn to crime - a deterministic approach

• Traditionalists are unconvinced that globalisation is really happening = crimes have always existed, and that new technology has always changed the nature of crime to some extent, but nothing significant or new is happening today.

8. Supply and demand in a globalised world: immigration has become harder in many countries - creating a market for illegal human trafficking

• Many illegal immigrants are in debt to the smuggling gangs, leading them into virtual slavery to pay their debts or women are forced into prostitution.
• Part of the reason for the scale of transnational organised crime is the demand for its products and services in the rich West.
• But the global criminal economy couldn't function without a supply slide that provides the source of drugs, sex workers etc that is demanded in the West.
• The supply is linked to the globalisation process - Third World drug-producing countries such as Colombia and Afghanistan have large populations of impoverished peasants.
• Drug cultivation is an attractive option for them - little investment in technology + commands high prices compared with traditional crops.

9. More opportunities for crime: (see above - new types of crime) new means of carrying out crimes e.g. through the internet 'dark web' - little risk of detection for criminals.

• Crimes committed in England may be done by someone in Australia.

10. Cultural globalisation and ideology of consumerism: westernised lifestyle promoted in a media-saturated society.

• Social inclusion but economic exclusion (Left realism)
• Young (Left realist) argues that the bulimic society we live in forces people to turn to crime

11. Growing individualisation: Bauman = people can no longer rely on welfare state to protect them from unemployment or poverty.

• Taylor argues that people do what's best for them regardless of the costs.
• Individualisation and global consumer ideology put personal gain above community benefit
• New crimes combined with growing individualisation provide individuals with a means of achieving rewards which are otherwise unobtainable.

12. Global risk society: globalisation adds to the insecurity and uncertainty of life in our society - Beck argues it generates a global risk society

• People become more 'risk conscious' and fearful of things like losing their jobs, having their laptops hacked and their identities stolen. Become fearful of immigrants.
• The media plays on these fears - scare stories and moral panics about gun crime, terrorist threats, growing social disorder caused by 'scroungers'
• These can fuel hate crimes A03: Evaluation of crime and globalisation:

Strengths: The study of globalisation is relevant and contemporary. This helps to put new crimes into perspective and gain an understanding.

Weaknesses: The secretive and complex nature makes it hard to investigate

• Secondary sources like reliable stats are not always available - validity?
• Crime rates for most offences have been dropping.
• Much crime is committed in local communities by local offenders, rather than being influenced by globalisation.

Green Crime:

What is green crime? - 2 definitions:

13. Traditional criminology focuses on Green Crime which has by definition broken environmental law. They are interested in regulations concerning the environment. For example, sociologists such as Situ and Emmons (2000) define environmental crime as "an unauthorised act or omission that violates the law". It investigates the patterns and causes of law-breaking

Advantage: it has a clearly defined subject matter

Disadvantages: They simply accept the definitions of environmental problems and crimes, which are typically shaped by powerful groups

Also – the same harmful environmental action may be defined as illegal in some countries but not in others

14. Green criminology takes a more radical approach to overcome this problem legal/illegal -White (2008) argues green crime is any action that harms the environment and/or the (non) human animals within it regardless of whether a law has been broken or not. - Green criminology is a form of transgressive criminology – it includes new issues and oversteps the boundaries of traditional criminology to include new issues – this approach is known as 'zemiology' – the study of harms -Different countries have different laws so what is a crime in one country may not be a crime in another. Therefore, legal definitions can't provide a consistent standard of harm = less chance of prosecution. -By moving away from legal definitions - green criminologists can develop a 'global perspective'. -Green criminologists take a similar view to Marxists. They believe powerful interests are able to define in their own interests what is unacceptable environmental harm. A03 - Evaluation of Green Criminology:

Strength: Recognises the growing environmental concerns and the need to address the harms and risks of the environment

Weaknesses: One problem with all forms of transgressive criminology is the difficulty of categorisation. By focusing simply on "harm" the activity that could come under criminologists' investigations is almost infinite.

• Furthermore, the question of whether harm has been caused becomes one of political and more judgment rather than empirical and value-free research.
• 📝For example, while all green criminologists might decide to include animal cruelty within their definitions of crime, some would include all meat production or even the consumption of meat, while others would consider that entirely normal and acceptable behaviour. Two views of harm - White (2008)

Anthropocentric (Human-centred view) - this assumes humans have the right to dominate nature for their own ends and our economic growth before the environment

• This view is usually adopted by national states and transnational corporations. Eco-centric:

• This view sees humans and their environment as interdependent so environmental harm hurts humans too.

• This view sees both humans and the environment as liable to exploitation, particularly by global capitalism

• This view is usually adopted by green criminologists for judging environmental harm Primary and Secondary Green Crimes - South (2014)

15. Primary green crime: direct harm to the environment
16. Secondary green crime: crime that grows out of the flouting of rules aimed at preventing or regulating environmental disasters. 📝E.g. killing an elephant for ivory would be a primary green crime. The organised criminal network involved in the illegal ivory trade involves lots of secondary green crime.

📝Examples of primary green crime:

• Crimes of Air Pollution: Burning fossil fuels from industry and transport adds 3 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year
• Crimes of Deforestation: Between 1960 and 1990, one-fifth of the world's tropical rainforests were destroyed, for example through illegal logging
• Crimes of Species Decline and Animal Rights: 50 species a day are becoming extinct, and 46% of mammals and 11% of bird species are at risk.
• Crimes of Water Pollution: Half a billion people lack access to drinking water and 25 million die annually from drinking contaminated water. 📝Examples of secondary green crime:

State violence against oppositional groups:

• 1985 French secret service blew up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, New Zealand.

• The ship was trying to prevent the French testing of nuclear weapons Hazardous waste and organised crime:

• High cost of safe and legal disposal, businesses may seek to dispose of such wastes illegally -2004 tsunami – hundreds of barrels of radioactive waste were illegally dumped by European companies on the shores of Somalia Bhopal Disaster 1984:

• Union Carbide chemical company leaked poisonous gas

• Affected 500,000 people

• By 2012 – around 25,000 deaths

• At least 120,000 people still suffering severe symptoms e.g. blindness and birth defects in children Traditional criminological approach: the disaster arose because Union Carbide broke local health and safety laws

Transgressive criminological approach: Union Carbide deliberately located plants in countries where health and safety laws were weak and there was less concern for the environment

Volkswagen Emissions Scandal 2015:

• 11 million vehicles were illegally fitted with a defeat device aimed at cheating emission tests

• Breached environmental regulations

• The company was possibly responsible for nearly 1m tonnes of extra air pollution every year Green crime, globalisation and global risk society:

• Beck argues that many environmental disasters in the past, such as droughts, famine and flooding were a result of natural origin and largely outside human control

• In late modern societies, he suggests there are new kinds of risk that are created by the actions of humans through the application of science and technology.

• Beck refers to potentially disastrous consequences for the global environment

• Events in one country might have consequences in many, e.g. deforestation of the Amazon rainforests creating major climate changes

• The use of nuclear energy creates a growing problem of nuclear waste disposal as well as increasing risks of nuclear accidents.

• White = globalised character of environmental harms by the way transnational corporations move manufacturing operations to the Global South to avoid pollution laws. Global risk society - Beck

• Some sociologists argue that globalisation is also an important factor in green crime.

• While some environmental crimes are local in character, many cross national borders such as pollution.

• This link with Beck (late modernist) works on a global risk society - where he points to issues like global warming and the way they pose a risk to the whole world.

• He argues that many of these risks are manufactured risks that have been created by the way we organise contemporary society.

• He argues that in today's late modern society, there are new kinds of risks created by the actions of humans through science and technology.

• As a result he increased productivity and technology that sustains these resources have created manufactured risk which could involve harm to the environment and consequences for humanity.

The complexity of green crime:

Wolf (2011) identifies 4 groups who commit green crimes:

17. Individuals: cumulative impact - littering, illegal disposal of household waste, dealing with endangered animals.
18. Private business organisations: cause the most devastating environmental harm. Green crime is a typical example of corporate crime - large corporations pollute the land, air, water through emissions of toxic minerals, dumping of waste and breaching health and safety regulations.
19. States and governments: in collusion with private businesses. Military - largest institutional polluter, arms race in the 20th century
20. Organised crime: low risk/high profits, often in collusion with governments, mafias in Italy colluded with legal businesses with regards to hazardous waste disposal. The Victims of Green Crimes:

• Victims are more likely to be of a working class background or from a minority ethnic group - in both developed and undeveloped countries.

• Potter = there is an 'environmental racism': those suffering the worst effects of environmental damage are of different ethnicity from those causing the damage.

• People living in the developing world (which were legal and illegal dumping sites) face greater risks of exposure to pollution than those in the developed world

• In the developed world - it is the working class that face greater risks of pollution + consequences of industrial accidents. Enforcement against green crimes:

• Governments create and enforce laws and regulations that control green crime - but they often form policies in collaboration with the businesses that are principal offenders. A02 - Synoptic link: to Snider (Mx) = states are reluctant to pass laws + regulations against pollution ect as they may lose funding/support.

• May be pressured to pass them due to opposition groups e.g. Greenpeace Often, green crime does not carry the same stigma as street crime:

• Transnational corporations (TNC's) have the power to de-label the crimes

• Can get away with it or pay fines - link to Cicourel and typifications

• Higher fine in 2011-12 = £170,000, just 16 prison sentences given out (longest was 27 months)

• Corporations will take the risk (rational choice theory)

• Poorer countries don't have the resources, political will or power to enforce restrictions - which makes it an easy place to commit green crime. Marxists - blame capitalism:

According to Marxists, the single biggest cause of green crimes is industrial capitalism

• The primary aim of most governments is achieving economic growth, and the means whereby we achieve this is through producing and consuming stuff

• As it stands, companies are all too often given the green light by governments to extract and pollute.

• An important part of a Marxist analysis of green crime is to explore who the victims of green crime are, and the victims of pollution tend to be the poorest in society. E.g. Bhopal tragedy (eco-racism?!)

• Wolf states that it is those in the developing world, the poor and ethnic minorities that are most likely to face the effects of environmental crime.

• This is due to their inability to move away from areas where these crimes take place. For example, the people of Bhopal in India who were the victims of the Union Carbide gas leak in December 1984

• It needs to be cut out (capitalism is like cancer)

• Capitalism is dependent on infinite growth within the planet

• Losing key resources/species/aspects of the environment due to capitalism and economic growth

• Global economy growing at 3% a year (doubles every 24 years)

• Links to an anthropocentric view

• Corporations using third world countries for illegal dumping – space going to run out in future

• Money = resources = natural right to do what they want = Rich are to blame

• He advocates communist ideals Green crime and Fracking:

• Fracking = refers to the process of extracting shale gas from solid rock deep underground using hydraulic fracturing the rock.

• Green criminologists believe that fracking creates environmental risks - earthquakes, air pollution, groundwater contamination

• Traditional criminologists argue it's good, creates jobs and reduces the import of liquid natural gas, and reduces the burning of coal.

• Tracking can be seen as a state corporate crime - Lampkin (2016) = trade-off between possible public + environmental health risks + potential for economic development + expansion of the other. Marxists would support this view. Now fracking is illegal in the UK.

• Lampkin can be criticised as it creates loads of jobs and helps the economy. Problems with researching green crimes:

Sociologists face a number of difficulties in researching green crime:

• Different laws: countries have different laws about green crime, which means that official statistics may not always be comparable between different countries.

• Different definitions: there is some dispute over what counts as a green crime and this will vary between different researchers and nations.

• Wolf = this generates problems in the measurement, monitoring and reporting of green crime and there are a few reliable and standardised sources of data.

• Difficulties in measurement: green crime is often carried out by individual organised crime syndicates, powerful states and multinational corporations who will have the capacity to conceal their crimes and the most powerful can often avoid persecution (negotiation of justice) even if their crimes are discovered. State crimes:

• Green & Ward: "State crime is the illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agencies".

• It includes all forms of crime committed by or on behalf of states and governments in order to further their policies.

• State crimes do not include acts that merely benefit individuals who work for the state, such as police officers who accept bribes. The Seriousness of State Crime:

21. The scale of state crime: the power of the state enables it to commit extremely large-scale crimes with widespread victimisation
22. The state is the source of the law: it is the role to define what is criminal and to manage the criminal justice system and prosecute its offenders.

• Its power means that it can conceal its crime, evade punishment for them and even avoid defining its own actions as criminal in the first place

• State crime undermines the system of justice and public faith in it.

• However the principle of national sovereignty - that states are the supreme authority within their own borders - makes it difficult for external authorities (e.g. EU) to intervene. This is despite the existence of international conventions and laws against acts such as genocide. 📝Examples of state crimes:

• Torture and illegal treatment or punishment of citizens.

• Gaddafi regime in Libya - overthrown in 2011

• The UK in the 1970s used 'white noise' to torture IRA suspects.

• The UK paid £14 million in compensation to Iraqis who were illegally tortured and detained

• US - Guantanamo Bay

• War crimes: Israel has repeatedly been condemned for the deliberate targeting of civilian populations in the Israel-Palestine conflict. UK accused of war crimes in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

• Corruption: organised stealing of money e.g. Egyptian dictator Mubarak - embezzled money

• Assassination or 'targeted killing': Instruments of state power, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh - the Palestinian Hama commander was killed in Dubai in 2010

• Genocide: the systematic mass murder of people belonging to an ethnic, national or religious group, Natzi's against the Jews, Rwanda genocide of 1994

• State-sponsored terrorism: the state itself carrying out terrorist acts or supporting others doing it. The US supported illegal rebel groups against elected regimes e.g. in Central and South America. Problems with defining state crimes:

23. There is considerable controversy in defining what a state crime is: the state is the source of law and it defines what a crime is. It has the power to avoid defining its own acts as criminal (e.g. Natzi persecution of Jews was permitted under German law)
24. Even if states commit acts that are clearly illegal under international law, they have the power to disguise, decriminalise and justify these offences Transgressive approach to state crime - the violation of human rights:

• Because of the problems defining state crime, sociologists have adopted a more transgressive approach - this involves going outside the usual boundaries of defining crime as simply law-breaking
• Schwendinger and Schwendinger (1975) and Green and Ward (2012) suggest that state crimes should be considered as violations of human rights. This is their definition "State organisational deviance involving the violation of human rights"

Different definitions of State crime:

25. Domestic law - Chambliss: defines state crime as acts defined by law as criminal and committed by state officials in pursuit of their jobs as representatives of the state. A02: synoptic link to Marxism - crimes of the powerful

A03: However, using a state explanation of crime is inadequate and ignores the fact that the state can manipulate the definition.

For example, during Natzi Germany, laws were legalised permitting it to compulsorily sterilise the disabled.

26. Social harms and zemiology (transgressive approach): This recognises much of the harm done by the state is not against the law – Michalowski (2004) defines state crimes as not only illegal acts but legally permissible acts whose consequences are similar to those of illegal acts, in the harms they cause. Hillyard et al (2014): we should have a much wider view of state wrongdoing – we should replace the study of crime with – zemiology = the study of harms, whether or not they are against the law. For example, these harms would include state-facilitated poverty.

This definition prevents states from ruling themselves 'out of court', by making laws that allow them to misbehave. It also creates a single standard that can be applied to different states to identify which ones are most harmful to human or environmental well-being.

A03: critics argue that the harm definition is very vague - how much harm must occur before an act is defined as a crime? Who decides what counts as harm?

27. Labelling and societal reaction: Labelling theory argues that whether an act constitutes as a crime will depend on whether the social audience for that act defines it as a crime the audience may see the act directly or indirectly - e.g. through media reports, This definition recognises that crime is socially constructed, so what people define as star crime (due to different cultures/beliefs etc.

A03: this definition is even vaguer than social harms

28. International law: some sociologists base their definition of state crime on international law – laws created through treaties and agreements between states e.g. Geneva + Hague Conventions on war crimes. For example – Rothe and Mullins (2008) define state crime as or behalf of a state that violates international law and/or a state's own domestic law.

29. Advantage: uses globally agreed definitions of state crime: intentionally designed to deal with state crime, unlike domestic law. A03: Laws are made by individual states, International law is socially constructed, involving the use of power, for example, sociologists found that countries have changed their laws to suit their actions.

30. Human rights: Sociologists use human rights as a way of defining state crime:

31. Natural rights – rights people naturally have, e.g. right to live

32. Civil rights – such as the right to vote, to privacy and to fair trial and education Herman and Schwendinger (1975) argue we should define crime as the violation of people's basic human rights by the state or its agents states that practice imperialism, racism, sexism and economic exploitation are committing crimes because they are denying people their basic rights

Risse et al (1998) argue that the strength of this perspective – all states share the same ethos, of shared human rights.

A03: Cohen criticises Schwendinger arguing that crimes like torture are explicitly open crimes, whilst economic exploitation is more hidden and is not a self-evident crime.

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Explaining state crime

The Authoritarian Personality:

• Adorno et al (1950) identifies an 'authoritarian personality' – includes civilians willing to obey the orders of superiors without question.
• They argue that at the time of WWII, many Germans had punitive personality types because of their disciplined socialisation.
• Some argue those who commit torture / genocide must be psychopaths – but research shows they are no different to normal human brings.
  A02: Adolf Eichmann was an SS officer in Nazi Germany. He was placed in charge of the logistics of Hitler's final solution--the mass extermination of Jews -so Eichmann was responsible for the murder of millions of people.

Crimes of obedience

State crimes are crimes of conformity, because they require obedience from a higher authority – the state or its representative.Researchers suggests that many people are willing to obey authority even when this involves harming others – sociologists argue that such actions are part of a role into which individuals are socialised. Kelman & Hamilton (1989) identify 3 general features that produce crimes of obedience:

1. Authorisation = when acts are ordered or approved by those in authority, normal moral principles are replaced by the duty to obey.

2. Routinisation = once the crime has been committed, there is a strong pressure to turn the act into a routine that individuals can perform in a detached manner.

3. Dehumanisation = when the enemy is portrayed as sub-human, normal principles of morality do not apply.

Bauman - the Holocaust was made possible by these processes. My Lai Massacre in Vietnam: 400 civilians were killed by American soldiers, 26 soldiers charged and 1 convicted.

Culture of Denial:

• Alvarez (2010) = recent years have shown the growing impact of the international human rights movement e.g. Amnesty International = puts pressure on states
• Cohen argues that while dictatorships generally simply deny committing human rights abuses, democratic states have to legitimate their actions in more complex ways. In doing so, their justifications follow a three-stage 'spiral of state denial':

  • Stage 1 - 'It didn't happen' e.g. the state claims there was no massacre but then human rights organisations, victims and the media show it did happen.

  • Stage 2 - 'If it did happen, "it" is something else'. The state says it is not what it looks like- it's 'collateral damage' or 'self-defence'.

  • Stage 3 - 'Even if it is what you say it is, it's justified'- e.g. 'to protect national security' or 'fight the war on terror' e.g. US entering Iraq. A02 - Stage 1 example

  • US government's active collusion in the cover-up of the 1981 El Mozote massacre in El Salvador.

  • The Salvadoran Army killed more than 800 civilians in the civil war

  • At the same time as claiming that its El Salvadoran ally was making every effort to improve its human rights record (and therefore was eligible for aid to be certified by Congress), US Embassy officials in El Salvador and the State Department were involved in baroque manoeuvres to deny what they knew about the massacre

  • Salvadoran army and government leaders denied the reports and officials of the Reagan administration called them "gross exaggerations". The Associated Press reported that "the U.S. Embassy disputed the reports, saying its investigation had found that no more than 300 people had lived in El Mozote Culture of denial - Neutralisation theory:

Cohen examines the ways in which states and their officials deny or justify their crimes. He draws on the work of Sykes and Matza, who identify 5 neutralisation techniques that delinquents use to justify their deviant behaviour.

31. Denial of victim - they exaggerate; they are terrorists; they are used to violence; look what they do to each other.
32. Denial of injury - they started it; we are the real victims, not them.
33. Denial of responsibility- I was only obeying orders, doing my duty.
34. Condemning the condemnersThe whole world is picking on us; it's worse elsewhere; they are condemning us only because of their anti-Semitism.
35. Appeal to higher loyaltySelf-righteous justifications- the appeal to the higher cause, whether the nation, the revolution, the defence of the 'free world', state security etc. -These techniques do not seek to deny that the event has even occurred. Rather, as Cohen says, 'they seek to negotiate or impose a different construction of the even from what might appear to be the case. = trying to sway the public's opinion of their actions Why is state crime hard to research:

• Governments adopt strategies of denial to either deny or justify their actions or reclassify them as something else
• They have unlimited power – can cover up their crimes So there are no official statistics! There are no victim surveys!
• Therefore we do not know the true figure of state crime. The dark figure of hidden state crimes is probably much greater than that of unreported conventional crime
• Researchers rely on media reports – but again, this is secondary data – can we trust it?!
• Researchers are likely to face strong official resistance – states can use their power to prevent and hinder sociologists doing research - threats, refusal to provide funding, denying access
• In dictatorships, researchers risk imprisonment, torture and death as enemies of the state
• There is no fixed definition – how can it be researched properly?
• No universal definition
• Data will be unrepresentative!