What is state crime? This book sets out the parameters of state crime and highlights the complex issues involved. The authors provide a clear chapter-by-chapter assessment of state violence, corruption, state involvement in organised and corporate crime, avoidable ‘natural’ disasters, torture, criminal policing, war crimes and genocide.
Penny Green and Tony Ward put forward a powerful argument drawing from a range of disciplines including law, criminology, human rights, international relations and political science. They develop a theoretical approach to understanding the boundaries of state crime, employing the concepts of deviance and human rights. Making distinctive use of original research and using a variety of international case-studies, this compelling book offers a fresh and sophisticated approach to this controversial and difficult subject.
Table of Content
Preface
1. Defining States as Criminal
2. Corruption as State Crime
3. State-Corporate Crime
4. Natural Disaster as State Crime
5. Police Crime
6. Organised Crime and the ‘Deep State’
7. State Terror and Terrorism
8. Torture
9. War Crimes
10. Genocide
11. The Political Economy of State Crime
12. Every Crime in the Book: Iraq and its Liberators
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Tony Ward is a legal scholar and criminologist who became interested in state crime through his involvement in campaigns against deaths in custody in the 1980s. He is Reader in Law at the University of Hull and a Director of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI). He is co-author with Gerry Johnstone of Law and Crime (2010), as well as authoring many other books.