Political crime and repression in Europe and America: A review essay

Abstract

In comparison to the plethora of research on expressive deviance (e.g., sexual deviance, drug use) and non-political instrumental crime (e.g., property crime, personal crime), the academic disciplines of criminology and the sociology of deviance have given curiously little attention to the important phenomena of political crime and state repression [ 1]. Systematic examinations of political crime, like the two under review here, are therefore more than welcome. The relatively small body of previous literature treating political crime has been plagued by a number of serious conceptual difficulties. One especially glaring problem is the lack of common agreement on the very definition of political crime. Political crime tends to be conceptualized either too broadly or too narrowly. Some maintain that all crime is essentially political because it involves the potentiality of state repression or because it is a conscious or unconscious response to an oppressive social system. In similar fashion, it is claimed that all prisoners are in the final analysis political prisoners. Another all-embracing depiction sees political crime as co-extensive with crimes of domination. In this vein, one recent writer designates rape and forced prostitution as political crimes since they entail domination [2]. Other formulations circumscribe political crime too narrowly. The manner in which political crime is presented may be biased against offenders either on the left or right. It is problematic, for instance, whether Klan and neoNazi terrorism fits with the general claim that the political offender's "acts reveal a concern for human happiness and welfare" [3]. While political criminals act out of a concern for some "higher purpose" than mere self-interest, the content of those transcendent motivations exhibits considerable variation across different groups. Other incomplete treatments of political crime must likewise be rejected. Since political crime is excluded from the lexicon of the law in some nations (England, America), except for extradition law,