NCJ Number
165526
Date Published
1997
Length
219 pages
Annotation
This text on crime committed by government and crime against government is intended as a general, primary, or secondary text for upper-level and graduate courses in criminology, criminal justice, sociology, political science, and policy studies.
Abstract
The discussion focuses on war crimes, human rights violations, illegal secret police operations, genocide and ethnic cleansing, crime by police, illegal surveillance, illegal experiments, protest and dissent, espionage, assassinations, political whistle-blowing, and domestic and international terrorism. An introduction explains the concepts of crime by government and crime against government, legal aspects of political crime, and the difficulties involved in enforcing international law. Additional chapters discuss the massacre at Tiananmen Square, Pol Pot's genocide, Operation CHAOS, the Iran-Contra conspiracy, the Brett Kimberlin case, Martin Luther King's letter from the Birmingham jail, the poison gas terrorist cult in Tokyo, the Palestinian movement, the World Trade Center bombing, hate crime, and other prominent political crimes. The final chapter examines social control and political crime, with emphasis on the motivations of political criminals and the future of efforts to control terrorism. Figures, author and subject indexes, and approximately 250 references