Political Crime

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Political Crime
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Defining Political Crime

• Barkan, ...any illegal or socially injurious act
  aimed at preserving or changing the existing
  political and social order
• Crimes of the Government
• Crimes against the Government

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Crimes by the Government

• Genocide
• Nazis
• Cambodia (Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot, 1970s)
• Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992)
• Torture/Assassination
• Widespread, but short of genocide (Russia Under
  Stalin)
• In United States?

4
Crimes By Government II

• Surveillance/Infiltration
• COINTELPRO (1950s-1970s)
• The Patriot Act (October, 2001)
• Legal Repression
• Show trials, Imprisoning dissidents
• U.S.?
• Labor Radicals
• The Palmer Raids
• Communists (McCarthy)

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Crimes by Government III

• Illegal Experiments
• Tuskegee experiment
• Nazi experiments
• State-Corporate Crime
• Challenger explosion
• Political Corruption
• Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran-Contra

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Crimes Against the Government

• Mass Political Violence
• Rebellion Riots
• Political Assassinations

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Crimes Against the Government II

• Civil Disobedience
• Direct vs. Indirect
• Socrates, St. Thomas Aquinas, U.S. Quakers, Susan
  B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, MLKs Letter from
  Birmingham City Jail.
• Current U.S.?
• Espionage/Treason

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TerrorismA Typology

• Vigilante Terrorism
• Insurgent Terrorism
• Transnational Terrorism
• State Terrorism
• How to Combat Terrorism?

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Explaining Political Crime

• Political Crime as heterogeneous
• Much P.C. revolves around Power
• Totalitarian vs. Democratic governments