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The Panama Papers (2016)
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These were 11.5 million leaked documents detailing financial and legal information in April 2016: -This incident exposed corruption and wrongdoing which was hidden by secretive offshore companies, exposing a system that enabled crime. -World leaders such as the Prime Minister of Iceland, the President of Ukraine, and the King of Saudi Arabia were exposed through this leak. -The victims were those exploited through these crimes, such as through money laundering. -This was a state crime as this exposed that leaders were breaking international financial laws in order utilise corruption. |
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Stanley Cohen (1996)
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This Functionalist sociologist identified a 'spiral of denial' that states use when accused of human rights abuses: 1. "IT DIDN'T HAPPEN" - the first reaction is often to deny that anything occurred at all - this lasts until international bodies produce evidence that it did occur. 2. "IT'S NOT HOW IT LOOKS" - once such evidence is provided, the next stage is often to question a particular version of events, instead claiming that others carried out the atrocity or the evidence pointed to something rather different occurring. 3. "IT HAD TO BE THIS WAY" - the final stage of the spiral of denial is to admit that the abuse occurred but to justify it - to suggest that it was the fault of the victims, or that there was no other way. |
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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
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This is the largest accumulation of non-biodegradable plastic waste in the North Pacific Ocean: -The patch is very harmful to marine life, who may eat plastic, get tangled in it, or have sunlight blocked. -This can lead to the food web changing, meaning populations will decrease and seafood will become less available and more expensive. -It is a green crime because people (not just governments) have contributed to adding waste to the ocean which damages the environment. -Furthermore, as it is in international waters, no nation takes responsibility or provides funding to help to clear it up. |
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Abu Zubaydah (2002)
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This refers to the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' used on this suspected terrorist by the CIA in 2002: -This suspected terrorist was captured by CIA and FBI agents in 2002. -During the raid in which he was captured, he was shot in 3 separate places - the attending doctor told the CIA lead officer that, "he had never before seen a patient survive such severe wounds". -After his capture, the CIA authorised the usage of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' - a series of 12 torture methods, many deemed illegal, which this person received all of them. -This was a state crime, as the CIA is a US federal government agency, which used torture (prohibited under international law) on a suspected terrorist, who had not even been charged with a crime, let alone given a trial. |
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Deepwater Horizon Explosion (2010)
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This was the largest marine oil spill in history: -It was caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Rig off the coast of Louisiana (USA) on 20th April 2010. -The fail-safe designed to close the channel malfunctioned. -8,000-12,000 people were temporarily unemployed. -11 people were killed. -17 people were injured. -A US Federal Judge ruled that BP had violated the Clean Water Act, as the company was primarily responsible for the oil spill due to its deliberate misconduct and gross negligence. -This was a green crime, as it directly impacted on the environment in a negative way. |
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'Partygate' (2020-2021)
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This refers to the state crimes committed by the UK Government during the COVID-19 Lockdown period from March 2020 to March 2021: -There were at least 17 parties held illegally during this lockdown period. -The UK PM at the time, Boris Johnson, attended at least 6 of these parties. -For one of these parties, on 19th June 2020, PM Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were both fined £50 each for attending the gathering, since at the time, lockdown restrictions had banned mass gatherings. -These are state crimes as laws in this time period meant it was illegal to interact with others outside your household on such a mass scale - the incumbent government had imposed these laws on the public and had broken them themselves. -This was with little consequence to other illegal gatherings from British citizens during this time period - the organisers of an illegal house party were fined £30,000 on 6th November 2020. |
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Patrick Finucane (1989)
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This is a case study about an Irish human rights lawyer who was murdered in his home in Northern Ireland on 12th February 1989: -He was murdered by two Northern Irish loyalists from the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), acting in collusion with British security services. -One of the murderers, Brian Nelson, was an agent controlled by the British Army's Force Research Unit. -This was a state crime since the British State abetted the individuals to commit murder - going against human rights laws. |
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Operation Demetrius (1971)
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This refers to a British Army Operation in August 1971, involving mass arrests and imprisonment without trial on suspected members of the NRA: -At the time, the IRA was waging an armed campaign for a united Ireland, against the British State. -The British Army Royal Ulster Constabulary arrested 342 people in the first wave of raids across Northern Ireland. -Many of those arrested, reported that they and their families were assaulted, verbally abused and threatened by the soldiers. -There were claims of soldiers smashing their way into houses without warning and firing baton rounds through doors and windows. -All of those arrested were interrogated - 14 internees were then chosen for further 'deep interrogation' which included sensory deprivation. -These 'deep interrogations' took place in Shackleton Barracks - those 14 became known as 'the Hooded Men', or 'the Guineapigs'. -In 1976, the European Commission of Human Rights described the interrogation techniques used on the internees as torture. -In 1987, on appeal, the ECHR ruled that the techniques were 'inhuman and degrading' but not constituted as torture. -It was later revealed that the British Government had withheld information from the ECHR, and that the policy was authorised by British Government Ministers. -In 2014, with the new evidence, the Irish Government asked the ECHR to revise its judgement - they declined. -In 2021, the UK Supreme Court found that the original 5 techniques used amounted to torture. -This was a state crime as the interrogation tactics used by the armed forces of the British state were not compatible with human rights laws. |
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Taliban (1996-2001)
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Between 1996 and 2001, this militant Pashtun nationalist organisation ruled Afghanistan: -It was illegal for women to have an education or work. -Women were heavily restricted in how they could dress and look - the burqa was mandated. -These were various state crimes as they went against many international human rights laws, due to their discriminatory nature. |
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State Crime
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This is crime committed by governments: -It was defined by Green and Ward (2005) as 'illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by, or with, the complicity of state agencies'. -States generally create the laws of their countries and while governments may break their own laws, it is more likely the case that they are breaking international law; or their actions should be seen in terms of transgressive criminology (causing harm rather than breaking the law). -This can include corruption, e.g. kleptocratic regimes robbing their populations, or human rights abuses, including very extreme acts such as the Rwandan genocide or ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. -These crimes are often very difficult to find out about and/or deal with. -Those who may seek to find out about or investigate this type of crime can face challenges from lack of funding, to potentially death.
These crimes include (but are not restricted to): -Corruption -Discrimination -Funding terrorism -Funding organised crime -War crimes -Torture -Assassination -Genocide
Eugene McLaughlin (2001) divided these into 4 types of this type of crime: -Crimes by the security and police forces -Economic crimes -Social and cultural crimes (like institutional racism) -Practical crimes (like corruption)
The UN Declaration on Human Rights (1948) applies to everyone in the world - this type of crime has a transgressive, as well as a legal element.
Evaluations: -While Marxists look at all manner of harmful activity as being this type of crime, some question what the parameters are. This is the same issue raised elsewhere in relation to transgressive approaches to crime. For all the problems of limiting considerations of crime to transgressions of specific laws, opening it up to all harm becomes very unwieldy. -While everyone would agree that torture or genocide are these types of crimes, some might question whether the absence of health and safety and equality legislation should be considered as such; yet Marxists and Feminists might describe such measures as states causing harm. -Some worry that the discourses of human rights can be ethnocentric, seeking to apply Western norms to all societies. While the argument is often used to oppose international intervention in countries (such as Iraq, for example), it would be difficult to justify the argument when presented with specific examples: it does not seem acceptable to argue that women should have fewer rights in Saudi Arabia than in the UK just because those happen to be the local norms and values. The whole point of a discourse on human rights is to challenge and change such values. |
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Nigel South (2008)
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This green criminologist talks about primary and secondary green crime. Primary Green Crime: these are crimes committed directly against the environment or acts that cause harm to the enivronment, for example: -Pollution -Animal cruelty -Deforestation Secondary Green Crime: this is further crime that grows out of flouting rules relating to the environment, for example: -Violence against environmental groups (e.g. the French attack on the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior) -Bribery/organised crime to avoid environmental regulations |
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Green Crime
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This refers to crimes committed against the environment - the investigation of this crime is the focus of 'green criminologists': -Green criminologists are transgressive criminologists in that not all the activities they are interested in would necessarily be of interest to traditional criminology: activities that cause harm, not necessarily only those that break current laws. -There is plenty of this type of crime that is unquestionably criminal; illegal pollution; breaking laws relating to animal cruelty or protection of wildlife, etc; but there are other activities that are within current laws, but significantly damage the environment: e.g. legal logging activity in the rain forests. -Governments are responsible for making laws that protect the environment but are often reluctant to restrict the activities of businesses - Marxism links this to the power of capitalism. -Environmental crime is linked to 'crimes of the powerful' who are more interested in making money than considering the environmental cost. -It could be argued that the criminogenic nature of capitalism causes environmental crime. -The term 'green criminology' was first coined by M J Lynch (1990). -Some sociologists argue that globalisation is also an important factor in this type of crime. -While some environmental crimes are local in character (such as fly-tipping), many cross national borders (such as pollution).
While green criminologists are all interested in harms to the environment, there are 2 different green perceptions of harm - Anthropocentric Harm and Ecocentric Harm (covered by White, 2008).
Evaluations: -One problem with all forms of transgressive criminology is the difficulty of categorisation. While Marxists and Feminists have correctly exposed problems in perceiving crime purely in terms of breaking the laws, it at least provides a limit to what can and should be studied. By focusing 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 moral judgment rather than empirical and value-free research. For example, while all green criminologists might decide to include animal cruelty within their definition of crime, some would include all meat production or even the consumption of meat, while others would consider that entirely normal and acceptable behaviour. -If sociologists cannot agree on what is and is not this type of crime, then they are unlikely to find each other's conclusions useful. |
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Ulrich Beck (1992)
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In this postmodernist sociologist's work on a global risk society, 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. |
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Volkswagen Diesel Dupe (2015)
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Many Volkswagen cars were fitted with a 'defeat device' in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results: -This included over 480,000 cars in the US, 8 million in Europe, and 11 million worldwide. -The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that when the cars were operating under controlled laboratory conditions - which typically involve putting them on a stationary test rig - the device appeared to have put the vehicle into a sort of safety mode in which the engine ran below normal power and performance. -Once on the road, the engines switched out of this test mode. -This resulted in the engines emitting nitrogen oxide pollutants up to 40 times above what was allowed in the US. -This was a green crime, as these engines creating illegal amounts of pollution. |
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Rob White (2008)
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This green criminologist defines these 2 different green perceptions of harm: 1. Anthropocentric Harm: this considers harm to the environment from the perspective of humanity. Pollution is a problem because it damages human water supply or causes diseases that are expensive to overcome; climate change is a problem because of its impact on people and the economic cost of dealing with it.
2. Ecocentric Harm: this does not distinguish between humans and the rest of the ecosystem; sees harm to any aspect of the environment as harm to all of it. Therefore, crimes like animal cruelty or the destruction of habitats are green crimes, regardless of whether or not there is any specific human cost. |
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Chernobyl Disaster (1986)
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This is about the explosion of a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukrainian SSR in April 1986: -A test was being carried out on the No. 4 Reactor. -Technicians attempted a poorly designed experiment; they withdrew most of the control rods, and shut down the emergency safety systems and the regulating system. -This led to the reactor going out of control, with a resulting explosion and a fire that destroyed the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. -It is estimated that between 100-9000 deaths occurred due to this disaster. -This was a green crime as the environment was extremely damaged due to the event - there is still an exclusion zone around where the disaster occurred. |
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Evaluations
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This refers to the sociological perspectives on globalisation and crime: -Postmodernists accept globalisation as a feature of society today. -The increased interconnectedness and new technologies can help solutions to crime happening globally, as well as crime happening globally. -We live in a 'global village' - according to Marshall McLuhan. -However, postmodern society is also unstructured and fragmented and this can make it harder for working together on a global scale. |
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