On Resisting State Crime: Conceptual and Contextual Issues

In: Social justice: a journal of crime, conflict and world order, Band 36, Heft 3, S. 4-27

Abstract

The core purpose of this article is to make a contribution to an ongoing dialogue on the development of a truly influential criminology of crimes of states. It is deliberately interrelated with papers presented by the author at conferences on transnational crime (Prato, 2006), supranational criminology (Maastricht, 2007), social harm and crime (London, 2007), state crime (Onati, 2008), and global criminology in relation to comparative criminology (Utrecht, 2008). Each paper was subsequently published, or is to be published, in special issues of journals or books emanating out of the conferences (Friedrichs, 2007a, 2007b, 2008, 2010a, 2010b). The journal Social Justice, from its inception, has been at the forefront of the endeavor of challenging criminological parochialism. This endeavor has been one of the principal raison d'etres of critical criminology, originally radical criminology. A special issue of Social Justice devoted to "Resisting State Crime" challenges criminological parochialism in multiple ways. Beyond its focus on crimes of states, not on conventional crimes, it also challenges a common premise of mainstream criminology: a stance of dispassionate and disinterested analysis. Is it possible to merely identify empirically the forms of resistance to state crime that appear to be most effective without actively promoting the adoption of such forms of resistance, given what is at stake? The project of 'resisting state crime' generates challenges and conundrums on many different levels. Adapted from the source document.