Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- One Introduction
- Two Defining the state and its institutions, allies and protagonists
- Three The state, corporations and organised crime
- Four Drugs and thugs: examples of organised crime, state collusion and limited responses
- Five The media as both an influential and a supportive arm of the state
- Six Beyond the borders: state terrorism from without and against the ‘other’
- Seven Without and within: state crime in Northern Ireland (violence, collusion and the paramilitaries)
- Eight Fighting ‘the enemy within’: internal state terrorism,Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’ (1976-83) and the UK miners’ strike (1984-85)
- Nine Conclusion: the role, nature and control of state crime
- References
- Index
Nine - Conclusion: the role, nature and control of state crime
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- One Introduction
- Two Defining the state and its institutions, allies and protagonists
- Three The state, corporations and organised crime
- Four Drugs and thugs: examples of organised crime, state collusion and limited responses
- Five The media as both an influential and a supportive arm of the state
- Six Beyond the borders: state terrorism from without and against the ‘other’
- Seven Without and within: state crime in Northern Ireland (violence, collusion and the paramilitaries)
- Eight Fighting ‘the enemy within’: internal state terrorism,Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’ (1976-83) and the UK miners’ strike (1984-85)
- Nine Conclusion: the role, nature and control of state crime
- References
- Index
Summary
The impossibility of uncovering unconventional criminality
We have been at pains throughout this book to show that uncovering the nature and extent of unconventional criminality is an almost impossible task. State crime is no different. While there is undoubtedly much known about it, the gaps in the knowledge base can still be described as ‘substantial’. That which is known of state crime usually involves high-profile cases with far-reaching consequences, yet the more workaday practices of state administration can also foster elements of criminality that are almost impossible to detect and, therefore, to know about.
Doig (2011, p97-8) sums this up, by quoting at length the work of Huberts and colleagues. It is worth repeating the key issues here:
Most researchers are more interested in the cases that attract a lot of attention such as large scale corruption, political murder, prison torture, et cetera. Even though that focus is understandable because of the seriousness of the cases, it clearly hinders the developments of a body of knowledge on the amount and character of rule and law breaking by government bodies. As a consequence, there is little or no contemporary empirical research available on rule breaking in a broader sense. (Huberts et al, 2006, p16 cited in Doig, 2011, p97-8)
Huberts and colleagues list a series of ‘unknown knowns’:
We do not know … how often government organisations and officials break environmental and safety laws, nor do we know how their quality or rate of compliance compares to private citizens and companies … This lack of knowledge is problematic for theories of political and administrative crime, as well as for the body of knowledge of political and administrative ethics and integrity … This also illustrates the practical importance of the phenomenon. Governmental rule and law breaking is potentially very damaging for the integrity and credibility of the state in general and law and rule enforcement by the state in particular. (Huberts et al, 2006, p16 cited in Doig, 2011, p97-8)
Fundamentally, it is unclear how often states do not adhere to the laws that they make. As indicated, in Western democratic states we only get an inkling that this happens at all as we have a relatively free press.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- State Crime and ImmoralityThe Corrupting Influence of the Powerful, pp. 211 - 216Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016