State crime

Failures to acts that break the state's own criminal law or public international law State crimes are crimes committed on behalf of or with the connivance of governments. The investigation and prosecution of such crimes is made more difficult by a number of circumstances. Criminology In criminology, state crime is activity or failures to acts that break the state's own criminal law or public international law. For these purposes Ross (2000b) defines a "state" as the elected and appointed officials, the bureaucracy, and the institutions, bodies and organizations comprising the apparatus of the government. Initially, the state was the agency of deterrence, using the threat of punishment as a utilitarian tool to shape the behaviour of its citizens. Then, it became the mediator, interpreting society's wishes for conflict resolution. Theorists then identified the state as the "victim" in victimless crimes. Now theorists are examining the role of the state as one of the possible perpetrators of crime (Ross, 2000b) whether directly or in the context of state-corporate crime. Green & Ward (2004) adopt Max Weber's thesis of a sovereign "state" as claiming a monopoly on the legitimate use of