welcome to this T to you sociology topic video looking at crime in contemporary Society focusing on types of State Crime as we know crime is a social construct as such what is defined as a crime changes from one nation to another which often makes it difficult to determine whether a state has committed a crime against its people as the state makes the law they have the power to Define what is and what isn't a crime at the time that it is committed this has led many sociologists to adopt a Zoological approach to State crimes in other words focusing on the harm that is caused rather than the legality of the actions however this approach has been criticized in some quarters for opposing a consensus of Western norms and values on the behavior of other nations so what is a State Crime well it can be defined as the actions taken by the state or its agents against its own citizens that break National or International law and this can be extended to include the rights of non-nationals as well particularly in the cases of conflict between nations if we take the approach of zology a crime being defined as harm by the state on an individual then we should use transgressions against the individual's human rights as our measurement of a State Crime regardless of whether or not a nation considers the ACT to be legal in the case of conflict breaches of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners would need to be considered as state crimes also while some argue that acting against the wishes of a supernational governmental organization such as the United Nations also constitutes a State Crime which opens up the actions of many nations to scrutiny in their conduct on the global stage and within their own Nations mlan looked to categorize the types of State Crime that were committed by using this approach H to four main categories of crimes committed by the State against individuals firstly political criminality fraud corruption and censorship as examples secondly crimes committed by the security forces the police military and other Associated forces examples of this are torture police brutality and injury or death to those in custody thirdly we have economic crimes and this is increasingly linked with State corporate crime in the era of neoliberal economics and privatization and the final form of crime social and cultural crime examples of such are discrimination and segregation and the denial of the basic freedoms offered by the universal Declaration of Human Rights let's look at each of these in more detail firstly political criminality and this includes the censorship of dissenting voices usually through the control of the media or Through The Disappearance of critics of a regime as has been the case in many authoritarian regimes a second form of political criminality is clientis this is where the government places the needs of its donors and corporations above the needs of people they are elected to serve and this can be through Grant and access to environmentally harmful practices such as fracking which has been linked to several Earth tremas and environmental damage in areas where fracking has occurred another example is the award of PPE contracts during the covid-19 pandemic with many contracts being awarded to conservative party donors despite having no prior record of producing PPE whilst other contracts for services linked to covid track and Trace are awarded without parliamentary scrutiny while this in itself may not be a crime given the powers that were exercised by the government the distribution of contracts without tender is a form of clientis and has the potential to endanger lives crimes against the public by agents of the security forces armed forces and the police are also categorized by mlau and state crimes this includes violence and deaths in custody of prisoners and suspects something which has been highlighted in the last year with the killing of George Floyd and bana Taylor amongst many others in the USA by the police it also includes unlawful imprisonment and police usually have up to 48 hours to build a case once a suspect has been arrested but this is often suspended in the suspicion of terrorist activity for example the holding a prison prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that were suspected but never proven to have taken part in any terrorist activity according to amasty International only seven of the 779 men that were held in Guantanamo Bay were ever charged with terrorist offenses similar Arrangements occurred in the UK during the conflict in Northern Ireland with many prisoners intered or held without charge the most notorious example was Operation Demetrius which was linked to the Bal Murphy Massacre the killing of 11 people by the UK military on August 9th 1971 over 300 men were arrested and held without charge and subjected to sensory deprivation torture a technique commonly used in subsequent interrogations by Western Security Forces particularly during the war on terror between 1971 and 1975 nearly 2,000 suspects were held without trial and the operation was referred to the European High Court other examples of State security crimes include genocide such as those in Rwanda the Balkans and Cambodia economic crimes were possibly the hardest form of crime to detect given the role of privatized Services performing State services with the growth of privatization in 1980s and onwards the government subcontracted services to private companies who act on behalf of the state sector however as with other forms of corporate crime these providers often deviate from the law in order to maximize profits whilst the crimes are committed by the private firms the state remains liable for the actions of their subcontractors for example a subcontracting of building firms to place cladding on the towers in grandell by Chelsea and Kensington Council while that inquest continues the government has chosen to indemnify those that testify against prosecution an example of the government acting to legitimize the actions of these companies finally mclin suggests that crime at Social and cultural levels are a form of State Crime the most obvious examples of this are discrimination against one or more groups in society recent developments in Eastern Europe have seen States actively discriminate against members of the lgbtq community as well as reversing the law governing a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy in Poland furthermore it's illegal to be gay in over 70 countries worldwide with many of those in the Middle East Asia and Africa brunai is one place where homosexuality can be punished with stoning while in Indonesia public corporal punishment is carried out for being involved in same-sex sexual activity there's also been historic segregation of ethnic groups most notably in the US under the Jim Crow laws and even after the repeal of these laws many African-Americans were limited in the property that they could buy well into the 1980s a process known as redlining in evaluating the definition of State crimes we need to consider the extent to which a State Crime can be seen as the imposition of Western values now crime is a social construct and Nations have the right to self-govern but to what extent should other nations intervene in instances of State Crime with some such as murder and genocide this can be seen as inexcusable and those particularly to political or economic crimes should be considered carefully before being branded as state crimes according to Stan cin a second evaluation is as crimes are committed by the state they are often legitimized based upon the needs of the country a common phrase used throughout the war on terror was that acts were conducted in the interest of National Security in other words suspects were locked up to protect the public until it could be proven they were of no potential harm furthermore many states have laws that are based upon the religious beliefs of the nation and that this discrimination is linked into religious beliefs and practice for example Poland's recent ban on abortion is seen to be a result of high levels of Catholicism this is also the case in Ireland but they have recently announced that they will allow abortion for the first time some more religious states pass laws or have customs that can be seen as being an appeal to a higher power and this makes it problematic for those with a westernized view of society that concludes this cheah to you sociology topic video on crime in contemporary Society focusing on types of State crimes thanks for watching