Synopsis "Varieties of State Crime and its Control"
Crimes committed by governments and political officials are prevalent in even the most advanced industrialized democracies, according to "Varieties of State Crime and Its Control." This assertion is supported by the book's richly detailed case studies of contemporary state crime in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel, France, Italy and Japan. The crimes portrayed in these case studies include state-sponsored terrorism, criminal negligence leading to the deaths of innocent persons, cover-ups, corruption, violations of domestic and/or international law, and other practices linked to the abridgement of fundamental human rights. Contributors to this anthology also evaluate the effectiveness of mechanisms to prevent state criminality, ranging from formal sanctions such as legislation and prosecution, to informal safeguards like exposure in the news media and public protests. According to editor Jeffrey Ian Ross's introduction, state crime has been little studied by criminologists, primarily because data are often unavailable, unreliable, expensive to collect and plagued with jurisdictional and mandate vagaries among different countries. By comparing seven developed democracies, the authors seek to illuminate cross-national patterns in the causes and methods of state crime, as well as the efficacy of preventive measures.Ross's chapter on the United Kingdom centers on state crimes committed by its police, national security and military officials. Stephen C. Richards and Michael J. Avey highlight violations of U.S. citizens' rights by intelligence and police agencies, and state complicity with corporate crime, among other illegalities. The chapter on Canada, by Raymond R. Corrado and Garth Davies, details state crimes that include theft and arson, influence peddling, kickbacks and unauthorized break-ins and wiretaps. Abuses of the powers and privileges of Israel's military and security forces are the main theme in R. Reuben Miller's chapter. Among the state crimes in France surveyed by Jim Wolfreys are government-sponsored terrorism (bombings, hostage-taking, assassinations), and the infection of hemophiliacs with HIV-contaminated blood. Alberto Vannucci and Donna della Porta document the pervasive corruption in Italian political life. According to David Potter, the most visible aspect of state! crime in Japan is political corruption. In his concluding chapter, editor Jeffrey Ian Ross reviews what has been learned from the preceding chapters, and what next steps should be taken in research, theory and anti-state-crime policies.
