Crimes By The Capitalist State

Crimes by the Capitalist State systematically examines a broad spectrum of state criminality including state terrorism, torture and murder, drug smuggling and arms trafficking, espionage and surveillance, and violations of internationally established human rights. While exploring crimes by the state from both a national and international perspective, this book also reflects the latest scholarship in comparative political and social science, especially as these relate to current developments in the political economy, the study of crimes by the powerful, and theories on state and social control. This book stresses the importance of studying crimes by the state as a prerequisite for peacemaking worldwide. For example, state crimes such as the Iran-Contra Affair or the apartheid policies of South Africa should become the subject matter of criminologists and lay persons alike. The collective evidence gathered here demonstrates that state criminality is primarily an organizational and structural phenomenon, and only secondarily an individual phenomenon, whether committed for ideological reasons or for personal profit.

Crimes by the Capitalist State systematically examines a broad spectrum of state criminality including state terrorism, torture and murder, drug smuggling and arms trafficking, espionage and surveillance, and violations of internationally established human rights. While exploring crimes by the state from both a national and international perspective, this book also reflects the latest scholarship in comparative political and social science, especially as these relate to current developments in the political economy, the study of crimes by the powerful, and theories on state and social control. This book stresses the importance of studying crimes by the state as a prerequisite for peacemaking worldwide. For example, state crimes such as the Iran-Contra Affair or the apartheid policies of South Africa should become the subject matter of criminologists and lay persons alike. The collective evidence gathered here demonstrates that state criminality is primarily an organizational and structural phenomenon, and only secondarily an individual phenomenon, whether committed for ideological reasons or for personal profit.

Originally published thirty years ago, Critique of the Legal Order remains highly relevant for the twenty-first century. Here Richard Quinney provides a critical look at the legal order in capitalist society. Using a traditional Marxist perspective, he argues that the legal order is not intended to reduce crime and suffering, but to maintain class differences and a social order that mainly benefits the ruling class. Quinney challenges modern criminologists to examine their own positions. As "ancillary agents of power," criminologists provide information that governing elites use to manipulate and control those who threaten the system. Quinney's original and thorough analysis of "crime control bureaucracies" and the class basis of such bureaucracies anticipates subsequent research and theorizing about the "crime control industry," a system that aims at social control of marginalized populations, rather than elimination of the social conditions that give rise to crime. He forcefully argues that technology applied to a "war against crime," together with academic scholarship, is used to help maintain social order to benefit a ruling class. Quinney also suggests alternatives. Anticipating the work of Noam Chomsky, he suggests we must first overcome a powerful media that provides a "general framework" that serves as the "boundary of expression." Chomsky calls this the manufacture of consent by providing necessary illusions. Quinney calls for a critical philosophy that enables us to transcend the current order and seek an egalitarian socialist order based upon true democratic principles. This core study for criminologists should interest those with a critical perspective on contemporary society.

We know all about organized crime. Blockbuster movies and books, and thousands of news stories continually tell an eager public that organized crime is what gangsters do. Closely knit, ethnically distinct, and ruthlessly efficient, these mafias control the drugs trade, people trafficking and other serious crimes. If only states would take the threat seriously and recognize the global nature of modern organized crime, the FBI's success against the New York mafias could be replicated throughout the world. The wicked trade in addictive drugs could be halted. The trouble is, as Michael Woodiwiss demonstrates in shocking and surprising detail, what everyone knows is pretty much completely wrong. Organized crime is dominated by employees of multinational companies, politicians and bureaucrats. Gangsters are a problem, but they are minor players when compared with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that selectively enforce drugs prohibition and profit from it. The position of large corporations in the global economy provides the most mouth-watering opportunities for illegal profits. Woodiwiss shows how respectable businessmen and revered statesmen have seized these opportunities in an orgy of fraud and illegal violence that would leave the most hardened Mafioso speechless with admiration.

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Through a collection of essays by leading scholars in the field, State Crime offers a set of cases exemplifying state criminality along with various methods for controlling governmental transgressions.

Classic and contemporary viewpoints on crime.