Human Rights in Criminology Flashcards

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering foundational concepts, critical perspectives, institutional systems, and state violence topics in Human Rights and Criminology.

Human Rights

Fundamental, universal, inherent, equal, and inalienable entitlements belonging to every human being simply because they are human.

Human Dignity

The inherent worth of every human person that is not earned or given, serving as the foundation of all human rights and equality.

Rights Holders

All individuals (including victims, suspects, prisoners, witnesses, and police officers) who inherently possess human rights at every stage of the justice process.

Duty Bearers

State actors and institutions holding authority—such as governments, police, courts, and prisons—obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights.

Obligation to Respect

A state responsibility requiring public officials and institutions to refrain from directly violating human rights.

Obligation to Protect

A state responsibility requiring authorities to take steps to prevent non-state actors or third parties from violating individuals' rights.

Obligation to Fulfil

A state responsibility requiring positive legislative, administrative, and institutional action to make rights meaningful and actionable in practice.

Universalism

The principle that human rights inherently belong to every individual worldwide, regardless of citizenship, culture, or local context.

Cultural Relativism

The position that human rights are shaped by and must respect culture, tradition, and social context rather than applying identically everywhere.

Magna Carta (1215)

A historic legal charter signed in 1215 that established early constraints on sovereign state power.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

A milestone global statement adopted on December 10, 1948, establishing a common standard of fundamental rights, dignity, and equality for all human beings.

Civil & Political Rights

A category of rights guaranteeing individual liberties, personal security, freedom of expression, and due process under law.

Economic, Social & Cultural Rights

A category of rights focusing on social conditions, work, health, education, housing, and cultural participation.

Solidarity / Collective Rights

A category of human rights encompassing collective interests such as development, peace, environmental protection, and self-determination.

Indivisibility and Interdependence

The principle that all human rights are equal in status and interconnected, meaning the enjoyment of one right depends on the protection of others.

Mandela Rules

The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which mandate that healthcare provided behind bars must be equivalent to community standards.

State Crime

Harm committed, instigated, facilitated, or tolerated by state actors or institutions, including both direct acts and omissions.

Acts vs. Omissions

The two pathways of state responsibility: direct harmful conduct (acts) or failing to protect, investigate, or provide remedies when aware of harm (omissions).

Social Harm Approach

A criminological perspective that broadens focus beyond legal definitions of crime to analyze real physical, economic, social, and environmental suffering.

Crimes of the Powerful

Harmful conduct committed by high-status actors—such as corporate, financial, and political entities—who utilize power to escape scrutiny and regulation.

Structural Violence

Harm resulting from unequal social arrangements and patterned systemic disadvantages that consistently produce worse life outcomes for marginalized groups.

Symbolic Violence

The process through which social inequality and unequal control are made to appear ordinary, natural, or deserved through labels, stereotypes, and institutional norms.

Feminist Criminology

A critical lens examining how gender, race, class, and intersecting power structures shape victimization, criminalization, and justice practices.

Postcolonial Criminology

A theoretical framework analyzing how colonial legal frameworks, racial hierarchies, and imported institutions continue to structure justice systems after formal independence.

Southern Criminology

A perspective emphasizing criminological theory and knowledge generated from the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Indigenous contexts, challenging Northern dominance.

Green Criminology

A critical branch of criminology expanding concern to environmental destruction, toxic pollution, climate harms, and ecological injustice.

Multi-Level Human Rights Standards

The framework of human rights protections operating across international, regional, and domestic levels.

UN Treaty Bodies

Committees of independent experts that monitor state party compliance with major international UN human rights treaties.

Special Procedures

Independent human rights experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor, report on, and advise on thematic issues or country-specific situations.

Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

A peer-review process wherein the UN Human Rights Council periodically evaluates the human rights records of all UN Member States.

Inter-American System

A regional human rights protection system in the Americas comprising the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Impunity

The situation where human rights violations are not properly investigated, prosecuted, punished, or remedied.

Culture of Impunity

An institutional culture sustained by silence, corruption, weak oversight, and normalization of misconduct, protecting perpetrators from consequences.

Elements of Human Rights Remedy

The five required responses following a violation: stop the violation, restore rights, repair harm, acknowledge what happened, and prevent repetition.

State Violence

Unlawful or arbitrary harm committed against individuals by public officials or institutions exercising official authority.

Torture

Under Article 1 of the Convention against Torture, severe physical or mental pain intentionally inflicted for a prohibited purpose by or with the consent/acquiescence of a public official.

Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment

Ill-treatment that causes serious suffering, fear, or humiliation but does not fulfill all technical criteria of torture, remaining strictly prohibited under human rights law.

Enforced Disappearance

The arrest or detention of a person by state agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or reveal their fate or whereabouts.

Extrajudicial Killing

An unlawful and deliberate killing attributable to state actors that bypasses standard legal procedures and judicial safeguards.

Death in Custody

A death occurring while an individual is under state control, imposing a heightened duty of care and requiring a prompt, independent investigation.

Istanbul Protocol

The United Nations manual containing standards for the effective legal and medical investigation and documentation of torture and ill-treatment.