State Crime Governments, Violence and Corruption

Jul 17, 2026

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State Crime Governments, Violence and Corruption examines serious crimes committed by governments or with their complicity, framing modern political life through corruption, coercion, and organized violence. The work develops core concepts such as state-corporate crime, natural disasters as state crime, police misconduct, the “deep state,” state terror and terrorism, torture, war crimes, and genocide. It connects these categories to the political economy of state crime and applies the framework to Iraq and its “liberators,” supported by extensive notes, references, and an index.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages262

Reading Time11 h 0 min

AccessFree to download

STATE CRIME Governments, Violence and Corruption Penny Green and Tony Ward Pluto P Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA First published 2004 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA [www.plutobooks.com](www.plutobooks.com) Copyright © Penny Green and Tony Ward 2004 The right of Penny Green and Tony Ward to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7453 1785 5 hardback ISBN 0 7453 1784 7 paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England Contents Preface vii 1. Defining the State as Criminal 1 2. Corruption as State Crime 11 3. State-Corporate Crime 28 4. Natural Disaster as State Crime 52 5. Police Crime 68 6. Organised Crime and the ‘Deep State’ 86 7. State Terror and Terrorism 105 8. Torture 124 9. War Crimes 147 10. Genocide 165 11. The Political Economy of State Crime 185 12. Every Crime in the Book: Iraq and its Liberators 194 Notes 210 References 219 Index 251 For Grace Preface This is a book about crimes committed by, or with the complicity of, governments and government agents. That is to say, it is a book about most of the serious crime, and the most serious of crimes, in the modern world. Given the paucity of relevant material within criminology, this has often seemed a daunting project, and the phrase about rushing in where angels fear to tread has occurred to us more than once. Much of this terrain, however, proved to have been well trodden by scholars from other disciplines, without whose work this journey would indeed have been impossible. We would also like to acknowledge the pioneering work within criminology of Greg Barak, Stan Cohen, David Friedrichs, Paddy Hillyard, Herman and Julia Schwendinger, Phil Scraton, and Joe Sim; and Ron Kramer and his colleagues whose work we discuss in Chapter 3. There are other more immediate debts to be acknowledged. An important part of the research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant no. R000223401) and the University of Westminster. The Law Schools at both Westminster and De Montfort Universities provided periods of study leave and congenial environments in which to work. We also feel indebted to the much-maligned architect of the British Library, Colin St John Wilson, for creating such a tranquil and scholarly space in which to work and meet. We doubt whether this book could have been written without the internet reso

Jul 17, 2026

Upload by Riley