Interrogating Crime

POWER
1. Reiamnn - avoidable deaths never enter dominnatn discourses of crime
  1. de Haan - 'crime' is ideological concept justifying inequality and distracting from more serious problems / harms / injustices
2. Quinney - law is created and applied by those with power to translate their own interests into public policy
3. EPZ
  1. Zones with little or no law
  2. Designed to attact coporations
  3. Malaysia
    1. Malaysian government suggested electonric workers set up trade union
    2. US electronics firms threatened to relocate - government backtracked
    3. Multinational corporations abusing their power creating mass social harm not held to account by national / international law
LOCAL / GLOBAL
1. Illegal fishing in Africa
  1. Decimates local food industry. POOR suffer
  2. Normal trade in London
2. Human trafficking
  1. EVA
    1. Brought against her will & escapes
    2. Sent to prison for having no paperwork
3. BANGLADESH
  1. Devastation by climate change felt more widely by worlds poor
    1. Affluent countries emit the pollution
  2. Illegal chemical dumping contaminates their water
    1. Flooding!
4. EPZ
HARM & VIOLENCE
1. Henry & Lanier - placed crime within broader social harm
2. Define harm as crime through power. Harm allows for justice to focus on governments & corporations
3. Human trafficking
  1. Being harmed yet treated like criminals
  2. Smuggling willing, trafficking against will
  3. EVA
    1. Repeatedly raped, brought against her will, escapes, sent to prison
    2. Home office want to send her back to Africa
    3. Suffered serious social harm but just seen by UK CJS as illegal immigrant / criminal
4. Export Processing Zones
  1. No law - health & safety, labour rights flouted
  2. Siapan (US Island)
    1. Can say 'Made in USa' yet US law doesn't apply there
    2. Workers in 'sweatshop' conditons but unable to do anything about it
  3. 43 million workers in 5,000 EPZs
5. Lobbying governments / policy makers
  1. Asbestos
    1. Known to kill since early 20th Century, took 60 years for use to be regulated
    2. Asbestos industry suppressed scientific findings, funded own research, cover ups, manipulated data
    3. 125 million exposed, 100,000 die a year from asbestos exposure
    4. Popular view of crime as individual act against other individuals allows corporations to continue to harm people
      1. Helped by media & policy makers
CRIME CONTESTED
1. No universal definition
2. Dependent on historical, political, social, religious, geographical positionining
  1. Eg. Homosexual acts - legal in UK (now), death penalty elsewhere
3. Harmful acts by powerful rarely brought before CJS
  1. Powerful evade CJS whilst inflicting mass social harm
  2. CJS sometimes treats victims of social harm as criminals (trafficking)
  3. Hillyard + Tombs - many types of harm such as; living in poverty / cultural exclusion not considered centrally in crime policies
  4. Salmi - violence narrowly equated to war / riots / murder, by definition any act that threatens physical OR psychological integrity
    1. Criminal law narrowly concentrates on certain types of crime.
4. Michael & Adler - most precise definition 'behaviour prohibited by criminal code'
  1. Individualises crime
    1. Allows powerful to get away with faceless crimes that cause more social harm
FOCUS ON SOCIAL HARM
1. Concept of crime influenced by powerful
  1. Corporations influence policy using lobbyists
    1. EPZs
    2. Loopholes to avoid CJS
2. Those with least power usually those socially harmed by powerful & treated by CJS as criminal
  1. Trafficking. EVA
    1. Taken against will, often treated as criminals and forced to testify for release

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Interrogating Crime

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	Created by Clare Pidgeon over 9 years ago