welcome to this CH to Sociology topic video looking at crime in contemporary Society looking at some of the causes of State Crime as we've seen in our previous video on types of State Crime one of the biggest issues with defining State Crime is that many of these acts while harmful to individuals are often legitimized by the state even in the most liberal of democracies while Most states are guilty of some form of State Crime and particularly when you examine world history you will see plenty of examples of this the most notorious forms of State Crime are often committed in countries with authoritarian regimes for example Nazi Germany Cambodia under Paul Po pinese and Chile and the military JS in Argentina are examples of this but the more important question to ask and the basis of lots of research into State Crime is why do ordinary individuals carry out these acts on behalf of the state and this is an issue that became an important area of study in the social sciences in the Years following World War I to and the Holocaust one Theory put forward to explain this was put forward by Theodor Dono a member of the Frankfurt School and a German Exile during World War II adoro put forward a theory that ordinary people were were not forced into committing these acts but rather they were persuaded by the presence of an authoritarian personality in the instance of the Holocaust Hitler adoro suggested that it was a presence of an authoritarian leader that allowed Ordinary People to willingly obey their superiors regardless of the morality of the act one of adon's contempories Hannah arent cited the example of Adolf akikan a man responsible for timetabling the trains to the concentration camps whilst aan was aware of the consequences of his actions he willingly followed orders because that is what was expected of him this can be seen further in other mass killings in Cambodia Japan with the scorched Earth policy of Emperor hito and the mass killings under Stalin in the Soviet Union those who did The Killing were persuaded by the authoritative nature of their leader adon's ideas were later tested on Americans by Stanley mgram in his seminal piece of research into obedience with similar levels of obedience found in test subjects much to the surprise of the social science community kelman and Hamilton similarly suggested that state crimes are often called caused by obedience with large scale State crimes such as genocide there is a Reliance upon Ordinary People to obey the order of others in carrying out horrific acts they found that there were three features of obedience in the case of State crimes that they had researched firstly authorization being given the authority to do the act with no consequences such as being given orders to kill or torture people secondly routinization making the harm being inflicted on others part of a routine activity rather than a shocking one using ikan as an example sending trains to the camps would have been a routine activity for Aman carrying out the activity on a daily basis thus normalizing the activity and finally dehumanization and this idea is common in conflicts dehumanizing the victim making them seem subhuman this is a common trait amongst the military with the use of pejorative terms for that were perceived as the enemy a practice that has sadly spread into wider Society justifying actions such as racial and hobophobic violence by attaching labels of deviant or subhuman to the victim one example of routinization was put forward by Zigman Bowman he suggested that the Holocaust was only made possible by the technological advances of the modern era the indiscriminate nature of the murder of 6 million Jews Romany black disabled and victims was conducted in under four years through the use of modern technology in a methodological and planned way in comparison an earlier persecution of the Jewish Community Crystal act had seen 90 people killed in one night as a result of being blamed for a false flag attack on the Reich stag if the Nazis Adu similar tactics as used in Crystal Knight it would have taken them over 180 years to kill 6 million people people it was the routine and clinical nature of the concentration camps that allowed the Nazis to murder that many people and it was made possible through people obeying routines another reason for State Crime is that states can quite simply get away with these actions they have the resources and the power to cover up these incidences one example of this is the cover up of the Hillsborough Stadium tragedy in 1989 which initi blamed Liverpool fans for the death of 96 fans this took almost 30 years to overturn the coroners verdicts because of a cover up that was instigated by the police and the conservative government at the time however in recent years the emergence of globalized media has helped to bring to light more and more transgressions by the state and this has led to changes in the way in which states react Cohen suggested that there is a spiral of denial from St stes once found out initially the state will deny that a crime has occurred once the crime is proven to have occurred their story changes as does the reporting of the incident in the media the state will use the media to spin the story that it was not a crime but it was something more than they first admitted when confronted by further Evidence the story changes once more into justifying the actions of the state in doing so let's look at a contemporary example of this Jamal kosagi a Saudi Arabian journalist who had been critical of the Saudi ruling family and was living in Exile in Turkey went missing after visiting the Sai Embassy in Turkey in 2018 he had been to the Embassy to get a divorce certificate and was asked to return several days later and footage of him entering the embassy was uncovered however Saudi officials stated firstly that they had not seen him then that he was killed in a fight outside the embassy before finally after 2 weeks admitting that he had been killed when an attempt at forced extradition went wrong furthermore it was disclosed that a rogue operator had tried to extradite him and that the Saudi government were unaware of any attempt to capture Mr kosagi nor did they know where the person had disposed of the body this Illustrated the different stages of denial firstly outright denial then the story was changed to being a fight outside the embassy and then a rogue operator while questions were raised by many Western Nations over the matter diplomatic relations between the countries continued hence completing the spiral of denial Cohen also looked to explain how States get away with it by using the work of pses and Mata and their techniques of neutralization firstly denial of the victim or framing the state as the victim for example the death of people in custody is often reframed into the suspect attacking police and them acting in self-defense denial of injury the perpetrator Was An Enemy of the State denial of responsibility after the uncovering of ritual abuses at Abu grabe it was blamed on a few bad apples torturing and humiliating prisoners condemning the condemners turning on the Press reporting the events as being unat iotic and appealing to higher loyalties ideologies based upon religion or sacred texts demanding people act in a certain way each of these can be applied to the rationale that is offered for a wide variety of State crimes we see reported which is what makes Cohen's application of PES and Mata so useful in explaining how States get away with it that concludes this cheah to Sociology topic video looking at crime in contemporary Society focusing on causes of State Crime thanks for watching