Causes of State Crime

What are the causes of state crime?

• State crimes can be committed for a wide variety of reasons but are more common in authoritarian regimes

• As the state is the creator of laws, many state crimes are legitimised by the actions of the state

• Why do individuals carry out these acts on behalf of the state?

What is the Authoritarian Personality?

• Adorno, researching the holocaust, suggested that state crimes were possible due to the presence of authoritarian personalities

• Willingness to obey superiors, regardless of the morality of the act

• Large-scale acts of genocide in Cambodia, Japan, Ukraine, the Soviet Union under authoritarian leaders

What is obedience?

Many large-scale state crimes, such as genocide, rely upon the obedience of those ordered to commit acts

What are the three suggested features of obedience in state crime by Kelman and Hamilton in 1989?

• Authorisation

• Routinisation

• Duhuminisation

What is authorisation?

• This is where 'acts' are ordered by someone in charge.

• Milgram famously demonstrated this principle in his 'electrical shock research - obedience to authority.

• Normal moral principles are overruled by the need/desire to obey authority.

What is routinisation?

This is where pressure from the hierarchy/organisation/ government etc… Turns the act into a routine so it can be performed again, repeated in a detached manner

What is dehumanisation?

• The enemy is made to look as non-human as possible - eg refused clothing, shaved head, id number replacing name etc…

• It makes it easier to do unpleasant things to them (eg torture)

• Bauman (1989) - argues that the features of 'modernity' (science, technology, divisions of labour etc...) all help to create conditions where such acts have become more acceptable and common.

What is the culture of denial?

• Bauman suggested that the Holocaust was possible due to modernity

• 6 million people were exterminated in concentration camps in under 4 years due to the routinisation of concentration camps

• It would have taken over 180 years to kill the same number using terrorist tactics like those used on Kristallnacht (when approx. 90 people were killed).

What is the case study of Jamal Khashoggi?

• Saudi Arabian journalist, living in exile was killed in Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tukey in 2018

• Saudi Government denied knowing his fate initially, but two weeks later stated he was killed when forced extradition went wrong

• This was then labelled as a 'rogue operation' and the Saudi government knew nothing of the attempt nor where the body was

What did Cohen say in 2006?

He adapted the work of Matza and Sykes (1957). He also suggested nations use techniques of neutralisation to manage state crime

What are the techniques of neutralisation used to manage state crime?

1. Denial of victims - they are terrorists etc...

2. Denial of injury - they started it/it's self-defence etc.

3. Denial of responsibility - We were following orders etc

4. Condemning the condemners - they are picking on/victimising us etc...

5. Appealing to higher loyalty... there is a bigger cause and sacrifices are inevitable - protecting Israel, protecting Judaism, protecting Islam etc...