This book introduces a new conceptual framework for impunity within state crime theory and uses Turkish state criminality against Kurds between 1990 and 2000 as a case study. It develops an understanding of impunity that goes beyond viewing the state solely as an actor, facilitator, or denier of crime. It argues for an expanded definition of state crime to encompass criminal acts and processes undertaken by states, including impunity. Building on field research, case analysis, and interviews, this book digs deep into the mechanics of impunity and ways in which the Turkish state has evaded punishment for its criminal acts. In doing so, Framing Impunity in the Context of State Crime uncovers a close connection between the crimes of the government and the impunity which allowed those crimes to flourish. It demonstrates that state violence and impunity are endemic in the structural design of the Turkish state and serve to further both the state goals of ethnic and religious assimilation and the subsequent persecution of those who refused to be assimilated into the new state construction. The book uses Stanley Cohen’s work on states of denial techniques to examine how states justify their illegal acts in order to deny and/or to evade responsibility for their crimes. Cohen’s work on denial at the organisational level is central to the question of impunity because, as a form of state crime, impunity involves various state institutions or actors representing the very state machinery deployed to conceal and deny state criminality. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to law students, scholars, researchers, NGOs, and civil society organisations. It will have broader applicability beyond the case study of Turkey and will be valuable to academics and policymakers worldwide who focus on the intersection of state crime and impunity.

This volume presents and critiques the distorted effects of the international human rights movement's focus on the fight against impunity.

This book assesses the role aesthetic factors play in shaping what forms of mass violence are viewed as international crimes.

Hard and soft law developed by international and regional organizations, transgovernmental networks, and international courts increasingly shape rules, procedures, and practices governing criminalization, policing, prosecution, and punishment. This dynamic calls into question traditional approaches that study criminal justice from a predominantly national perspective, or that dichotomize the study of international from national criminal law. Building on socio-legal theories of transnational legal ordering, this book develops a new approach for studying the interaction between international and domestic criminal law and practice. Distinguished scholars from different disciplines apply this approach in ten case studies of transnational legal ordering that address transnational crimes such as money laundering, corruption, and human trafficking, international crimes such as mass atrocities, and human rights abuses in law enforcement. The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the changing transnational nature of criminal justice policymaking and practice in today's globalized world.

Criminology on Trump is a criminological investigation of the world’s most successful outlaw, Donald J. Trump. Over the course of five decades, Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault, tax evasion, money laundering, non-payment of employees, and the defrauding of tenants, customers, contractors, investors, bankers, and charities. Yet, he has continued to amass wealth and power. In this book, criminologist and social historian Gregg Barak asks why and how? This book examines how the United States precariously maintains stability through conflict in which groups with competing interests and opposing visions struggle for power, negotiate rule breaking, and establish criminal justice. While primarily focused on Trump’s developing character over three quarters of a century, it is also an inquiry into the changing cultural character and social structure of American society. It explores the ways in which both crime and crime control are socially constructed in relation to a changing political economy. An accessible and compelling read, this book is essential for all those who seek a criminological understanding of Donald Trump’s rise to power.

In the twenty-first century, fighting impunity has become both the rallying cry and a metric of progress for human rights. The new emphasis on criminal prosecution represents a fundamental change in the positions and priorities of students and practitioners of human rights and transitional justice: it has become almost unquestionable common sense that criminal punishment is a legal, political, and pragmatic imperative for addressing human rights violations. This book challenges that common sense. It does so by documenting and critically analyzing the trend toward an anti-impunity norm in a variety of institutional and geographical contexts, with an eye toward the interaction between practices at the global and local levels. Together, the chapters demonstrate how this laser focus on anti-impunity has created blind spots in practice and in scholarship that result in a constricted response to human rights violations, a narrowed conception of justice, and an impoverished approach to peace.

In National Trials of International Crimes in Bangladesh, Professor Islam examines the judgments of the trials held under a domestic legislation, which is uniquely distinct from international or hybrid trials of international crimes. The book, falling under international criminal law area, is a ground-breaking original work on the first ever such trials in the ICC era. The author shows how the national law and judgments can act as a conduit to import international law to enrich and harmonise the domestic law of Bangladesh; and whether the Bangladesh experience (a) creates any precedential effect for such trials in the future; (b) offers any lessons for the ICC complementarity; and (c) contributes to the progressive development of Asian and international criminal jurisprudence.

Pre-crime aims to pre-empt ‘would-be-criminals’ and predict future crime. Although the term is borrowed from science fiction, the drive to predict and pre-empt crime is a present-day reality. This book critically explores this major twenty-first century development in crime and justice. This first in-depth study of pre-crime defines and describes different types of pre-crime and compares it to traditional post-crime and crime risk approaches. It analyses the rationales that underpin pre-crime as a response to threats, particularly terrorism, and shows how it is spreading to other areas. It also underlines the historical continuities that prefigure the emergence of pre-crime, as well as exploring the new technologies and forms of surveillance that claim the ability to predict crime and identify future criminals. Through the use of examples and case studies it provides insights into how pre-crime generates the crimes it purports to counter, providing compelling evidence of the problems that arise when we act as if we know the future and aim to control it through punishing, disrupting or incapacitating those we predict might commit future crimes. Drawing on literature from criminology, law, international relations, security and globalization studies, this book sets out a coherent framework for the continued study of pre-crime and addresses key issues such as terminology, its links to past practises, its likely future trajectories and its impact on security, crime and justice. It is essential reading for academics and students in security studies, criminology, counter-terrorism, surveillance, policing and law, as well as practitioners and professionals in these fields.

Presenting an engaging critique of current criminal justice practice in the UK and USA, this book introduces central questions of criminal law theory. It develops a forceful argument that the prevailing justifications for punishment are misguided, and have resulted in the systematic infliction of unnecessary human misery.