Interrogating Crime

Interrogating Crime

1. POWER

   • Reiamnn - avoidable deaths never enter dominnatn discourses of crime
     • de Haan - 'crime' is ideological concept justifying inequality and distracting from more serious problems / harms / injustices
   • Quinney - law is created and applied by those with power to translate their own interests into public policy
   • EPZ
     • Zones with little or no law
     • Designed to attact coporations
     • Malaysia
       • Malaysian government suggested electonric workers set up trade union
       • US electronics firms threatened to relocate - government backtracked
       • Multinational corporations abusing their power creating mass social harm not held to account by national / international law

2. LOCAL / GLOBAL

   • Illegal fishing in Africa
     • Decimates local food industry. POOR suffer
     • Normal trade in London
   • Human trafficking
     • EVA
       • Brought against her will & escapes
       • Sent to prison for having no paperwork
   • BANGLADESH
     • Devastation by climate change felt more widely by worlds poor
       • Affluent countries emit the pollution
     • Illegal chemical dumping contaminates their water
       • Flooding!
   • EPZ

3. HARM & VIOLENCE

   • Henry & Lanier - placed crime within broader social harm
   • Define harm as crime through power. Harm allows for justice to focus on governments & corporations
   • Human trafficking
     • Being harmed yet treated like criminals
     • Smuggling willing, trafficking against will
     • EVA
       • Repeatedly raped, brought against her will, escapes, sent to prison
       • Home office want to send her back to Africa
       • Suffered serious social harm but just seen by UK CJS as illegal immigrant / criminal
   • Export Processing Zones
     • No law - health & safety, labour rights flouted
     • Siapan (US Island)
       • Can say 'Made in USa' yet US law doesn't apply there
       • Workers in 'sweatshop' conditons but unable to do anything about it
     • 43 million workers in 5,000 EPZs
   • Lobbying governments / policy makers
     • Asbestos
       • Known to kill since early 20th Century, took 60 years for use to be regulated
       • Asbestos industry suppressed scientific findings, funded own research, cover ups, manipulated data
       • 125 million exposed, 100,000 die a year from asbestos exposure
       • Popular view of crime as individual act against other individuals allows corporations to continue to harm people
         • Helped by media & policy makers

4. CRIME CONTESTED

   • No universal definition
   • Dependent on historical, political, social, religious, geographical positionining
     • Eg. Homosexual acts - legal in UK (now), death penalty elsewhere
   • Harmful acts by powerful rarely brought before CJS
     • Powerful evade CJS whilst inflicting mass social harm
     • CJS sometimes treats victims of social harm as criminals (trafficking)
     • Hillyard + Tombs - many types of harm such as; living in poverty / cultural exclusion not considered centrally in crime policies
     • Salmi - violence narrowly equated to war / riots / murder, by definition any act that threatens physical OR psychological integrity
       • Criminal law narrowly concentrates on certain types of crime.
   • Michael & Adler - most precise definition 'behaviour prohibited by criminal code'
     • Individualises crime
       • Allows powerful to get away with faceless crimes that cause more social harm

5. FOCUS ON SOCIAL HARM

   • Concept of crime influenced by powerful
     • Corporations influence policy using lobbyists
       • EPZs
       • Loopholes to avoid CJS
   • Those with least power usually those socially harmed by powerful & treated by CJS as criminal
     • Trafficking. EVA
       • Taken against will, often treated as criminals and forced to testify for release