Political crime

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search



Thus, while the majority of those who support the current regime may consider criminalisation of politically motivated behaviour an acceptable response when the offender is driven by more extreme political, ideological, religious, or other beliefs, there may be a question of the morality of a law which simply criminalises ordinary political dissent.[2]


At one extreme, crimes such as treason, sedition, and terrorism are political because they represent a direct challenge to the government in power. Espionage is usually considered a political crime.[3] But offenders do not have to aim to overthrow the government or to depose its leaders to be acting in a way perceived as "political". A state may perceive it threatening if individuals advocate change to the established order, or argue the need for reform of long-established policies, or engage in acts signifying some degree of disloyalty, e.g. by burning the nation's flag in public. But the scope of such crimes can be rather less direct.



Marxist criminologists argue that most political crime arises from the efforts of the state to reproduce the structures of inequality: racism, sexism, ethnic preference as well as class advantages. Thus, states will protect property rights and reduce the rights of trade unions to represent the interests of the poor. Even war is likely to be grounded in the problems of local capitalists in wealthy countries in the effort to move raw materials, profits and jobs in a globalised political economy, and opposing such a war will be a political crime. Marxists do not dispute that, for a society to function efficiently, social order is necessary. But they consider that, in all societies, one class, usually characterised as the "ruling class", gains far more than other classes. Marxists agree with functionalists that socialisation plays a crucial role in promoting conformity and order. However, unlike the latter, they are highly critical of the ideas, values and norms of "capitalist ideology". Modern Marxists point to education and the media as socialising agencies, which delude or "mystify" the working class into conforming to a social order, which works against its real interests. Thus, all controls which directly or indirectly explit the criminal law to control access to the discourses are political crimes.

Authoritarian governments[edit]

Miller says that one of the defining characteristics of power in modern history has been the rationalisation and bureaucratisation of law. Legal codification, or at least debates over the merits of legal codification, became an almost global phenomenon in the nineteenth century as state power was centralised. In particular, the rationalisation of criminal law standardised not just the concept of crime, but was adopted as the means to eliminate the "deviant" as a threat to a modern, uniform, moral standard. In this, the religious establishment began to play a new role in defining "evil" in which threats to the political or social norm became as dangerous as threats to religious orthodoxy. Thus, political speech became one of the most likely activities to be criminalised. The freedom of association and to meet may also be criminalised if the purpose is to express oppositional political views.



Religious crimes[edit]

Further information: Secularism

Where there is no clear separation between the state and the prevailing religion, the edicts of the church may be codified as law and enforced by the secular policing and judicial authorities. This is a highly functionalist mechanism for enforcing conformity in all aspects of cultural life and the use of the label "crime" adds an extra layer of stigma to those convicted.


  1. ^ Ross, 2000.
  2. ^ Ross, 2004.
  3. ^ "Sweden: extradition of US spy suspect 'unlikely'". The Local. 27 April 2013. 'If it's a political offence, you can't extradite a person' to a country outside the EU, said Per Clareus, a spokesman for Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask. 'And espionage is usually considered a political crime,' he added. 
  • Anderson, K. (2006). "Hacktivism and Politically Motivated Computer Crime". Portland: Encurve, LLC. [1]
  • Barak, G. (Ed.). (1991). Crimes by the capitalist state: An introduction to state criminality. Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • Kittrie, Nicholas. (1975). "In Search of Political Crime and Political Criminals", 50 New York University Law Review 202.
  • Kooistra, P. G. (1985), "What is Political Crime?" Criminal Justice Abstracts, March, pp100–115
  • Miller, Ruth A. "Corruption, Authority, and Evil: The Invention of Political Crime in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey" [2]
  • Ross, Jeffrey Ian. (1995/2000), Controlling State Crime(Second Edition), New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
  • Ross, Jeffrey Ian. (2000), Varieties of State Crime and its Control, Monsey: Criminal Justice Press.
  • Ross, Jeffrey Ian. (2003), The Dynamics of Political Crime, Thousand Oaks: Sage.
  • Ross, Jeffrey Ian. (2012), An Introduction to Political Crime, Bristol: Policy Press.
  • Tunnell, K. D. (1993). "Political crime and pedagogy: A content analysis of criminology and criminal justice texts". Journal Of Criminal Justice Education, 4(1), 101-114.
  • Tunnell, K. D. (1993). Political crime in contemporary America: A critical approach. New York: Garland Publishing.

External links[edit]