Special Issue "State Crime"

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Staatskriminalität: Die Macht, das Recht und die Kriminologie (German)

State crime: Power, Law, and Criminology

 Aldo Legnaro

Criminology has taken a long time to develop a conception of state crime. In the article, I trace this process, as well as the emergence of international (criminal) law and its institutions that define state criminality in the first place. It becomes apparent that norms and institutions of international criminal law establish state law rather than international law, since their application is not possible without the consent of affected states. Law is thus largely at the mercy of state power, as evidenced by the Responsibility to Protect, the principle of international law, and the judicial handling of the Russian war against Ukraine. Beyond such criminologically relevant issues, climate policy, insofar as it is related to state crime, will be discussed as an example of a phenomenon to which criminology can contribute to the definition and analysis of state crime.

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Making an honest buck on war. A biographical understanding of a legal “lord of war”, his banality, and the aspirational society

Yarin Eski

Arms dealers are considered morally corrupt and pure evil, often referred to as ‘merchants of death’ that exploit conflict, war and overall suffering, making money by selling arms and ammunition. This article is based on a biographic study of a legal arms dealer that has revealed there are often banal reasons at play to financially benefit from warfare legally (Eski 2022). A short criminological imagination of the arms trade in relation to war and state crimes shall be provided, followed by a concise methodological explanation of why criminological biographies matter, and why it should matter more in criminology. Then the biographee’s choices and motivations to be a professional arms dealer will be discussed, which revealed deeper narratives on current society’s “biography”, specifically the aspirational society’s. Finally, the conclusion on the interplay between an arms dealer’s biography and that of the aspirational society will be given.

Open Access

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Toward a Criminology of the Holocaust? A historical overview of “states of denial” to foster a criminological analysis of the Crime of the Century

Valeria Vegh Weis

Despite its still marginal position, state crime criminology has contributed to a criminological agenda that specifically deals with harms perpetrated by states and other powerful actors. Nevertheless, many relevant areas and topics within state crime research remain unexplored, including the study of the “crime of the century”. Indeed, although the Holocaust is often invoked as the paradigmatic case of state crime, little has been produced on the subject by criminologists – an urgent, unresolved task. This article aims at fostering this pending undertaking by engaging with a core notion developed within criminological studies: states of denial (Cohen 2001). This concept is deployed to analyse not only the period where crimes were committed but also the long-durée aftermath in Germany. Concerning the aftermath and based on Olick’s periodization (2013), the study particularly explores the role of the Allies and the (Western) Federal Chancellors in dealing with the atrocities of the past.

Altogether, this contribution, which builds upon the few criminological approaches to the study of the Holocaust (Friedrichs 2000; Karstedt 2010; Morrison 2013), is presented as a limited attempt towards the development of a “Criminology of the Shoah”. Such a criminology cannot only help overcome certain criminological myopia about a breaking point in the history of atrocity crimes but can also help set a strong basis for a broader criminological understanding of atrocities and the massive suffering and challenges that stemmed from them throughout time.

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Discussion Paper

State Crime

Vincenzo Ruggiero

Definitions evolve and are often unable to catch up with the actions they attempt to describe. The following pages intend to convey the definitional uncertainty that surrounds state crime, its ever-changing nature and the permanent difficulties we encounter when trying to grasp its definite features.

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Notat

Zur Kontinuität von Lager und Gefängnis als Teil des Herrschaftsapparates (German)

On the continuity of camps and prisons as part of the apparatus of power

Helga Cremer-Schäfer

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In Discusson

Korruption und Staatskriminalität – Perspektiven der (Kritischen) Kriminologie (German)

Corruption and State Crime - Perspectives of (critical) criminology

Walter Fuchs & Dirk Lampe

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