Abstract
This article provides a reflexive account on criminological engagement with crimes of states, with special attention to the case of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and Berlin and Germany today. The emergence of a criminology of crimes of states is reviewed, along with arguments for and against criminological engagement with such crime. In particular, a response to Carrier and Park’s (2013) critique of ‘entrepreneurial criminology’ is provided in this context. Distinctions are drawn between monumental and mundane crimes of states, and mislabeled and miscalculated crimes of states, with special attention to mundane and miscalculated crimes. A brief concluding section identifies some issues that might be included in an agenda for a criminology of crimes of states, going forward.
Highlights
On monumental and mundane crimes of statesThe criminological literature on crimes of the state disproportionally attends to the largest‐ scale crimes, especially genocide, war‐related crimes, state terror, torture, and fundamental denials of basic human rights (for example, Chambliss, Michalowski and Kramer 2010; Green and Ward 2004; Rothe 2009)
Dedication This article is dedicated to the memory of William J Chambliss, who died in 2014, and A Kathryn (Kate) Stout, who died in 2015
I proposed that we come at criminological topics experientially and ideologically, prior to encountering a scholarly literature on crime and its control
Summary
The criminological literature on crimes of the state disproportionally attends to the largest‐ scale crimes, especially genocide, war‐related crimes, state terror, torture, and fundamental denials of basic human rights (for example, Chambliss, Michalowski and Kramer 2010; Green and Ward 2004; Rothe 2009). The mundane crimes of the state refers to the routine exercise of power by relatively low‐level agents of the state – civil service or justice system bureaucrats and enforcement personnel – in ways that impose significant costs on vast numbers of people, especially in developing countries. Mundane crimes of states are far more likely to be on‐going and never‐ending That such mundane crime in developing countries is significantly part of the legacy of colonialism – wherein colonial power imposed hugely oppressed bureaucratic regimes on indigenous peoples – is one more dimension of the tragic consequences of colonialism (Haque 1997; Sumner 1982). I have suggested here that mundane crimes of states may be unjustly neglected and warrant some significant attention – as long as such crimes don’t become the primary focus of a criminology of crimes of states
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