Does Criminology Give Enough Attention to the Crimes of Powerful - Essay Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : does criminology give enough attention to the crimes of powerful Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction In this stage of overwhelming profusion of criminal acts, it may appear surprising to discover that not entirely all crimes and criminal across the country are treated in the same manner. In fact, different survey shows that there is a likelihood for certain crimes and criminals to be overlooked, usually, this being crimes of the powerful. It is important to understand what is meant by powerful, the extent and nature of crime committed. Powerful refers to authoritative, influential and dominant. Survey shows that crimes committed by these individuals usually go unpunished, this is usually as a result of the position they hold in the society. Crime of powerful are not only concerned with illegal activities, but also with ‘crimes’ undertaken by government, by directors, by patriarchal sex structure which limit crimes against women, by corporations and so on. Example of these crimes include; illegal narcotics, computer fraud, corporate fraud and corporate mal-practice. Crime refers to an offence committed against the state and which are punishable by the state. Criminal law refers to the legal rule which provides certain conduct which amount to a crime and attract punishment by the state. Such conducts are called crimes and are stipulated in the Pinal code, for instance, Crime of powerful, murder, rape and robbery (Cavadino 2002). There is a lot of uncomfortable reality that most of the disciplinary unit tends to ignore crimes committed by the powerful --regardless of the recurring token of acknowledgement , stating that they are dully responsible for causing harm and individual suffering. The development of demographic space has provided an additional incentive to conform paradigms surrounding higher barrier to the fabrication of "deviant" knowledge that challenges obtainable power relations. The concept of crime and criminal abets the crimes of the influential people and serves up scapegoats low on social hierarchy. For instance, Australia criminalization of Torres as well as Aboriginal people through massive disproportionate detain and confinement, along with failure to duly identify the state as executor of robbery of land and genocide “ensures that Aboriginal people are curtailed as dispossessed minority rather than individual with legitimate claims on the state (Dodd 2004). The law of agencies and legislators has brought into light the nature of these crimes. Similarly, several theories vie to scrutinize the cause of organized crime of powerful. Most of the survey carried out showed that crime of powerful was mostly carried out socially. In the late 19th century, many acts committed by the powerful individual in the society that would today be categorized as criminal were socially disapproved of; that is, they carried no criminal offence. The UK legislative advance has made the prosecution of crime of powerful much easier to enact. There are a lot of questions asked with regards to crime of powerful; for example, can crime of powerful be a physical act? Furthermore, the word 'crime' in itself is ambiguous; this is to say that, crime varies from one country to the other. A countries crime may not be termed as a crime in another country. For instance, child trafficking is illegal and criminal according to rule of law; however, we also talk of corporate crimes such as withholding medicine – as 'crimes' although they have no precise recognition in the rule of law. Therefore, there is an infinite extension of the word 'crime' when an individual uses it while referring to something that is currently illegal. Criminalization of Africa America individual in U.S is directly linked to, and assists in covering the crime of slavery which took place years back. In the notion of war, countries left unchallenged power to define their rivals (enemies) no matter how ridiculous the definition. The crime of the powerful usually goes unpunished. Most of these jails operate similarly. It is a constant fight to get individual who run these institution (jail and prison) to treat their charges compassionately-a fight that is often lost. Human cages have intensified inequalities thus provide a way for most of the powerful if not all to get around the law. For example, agenda such as "Scared Straight" are known to be more effective and are supported by powerful individuals since they are designed in such a way that they inflict fear into both young and old people, using tactics such as, telling them that they are bound to face the music if they do not adhere to straight and redefined business path, they may end up getting beaten up as well as raped in prison. By the fact that these treatment, particularly rape, is outside the bounds of acceptable punishment within the law, prison or jails operates outside the existing law. Prison warders have enormous power, and prisoners prosecuted inside these jails are hopeless and unable to protect themselves against unjust treatment. Jails are totalitarian organization which, in the name of ensuring that laws are maintained, violates the same principle of legality. Crimes of powerful are not usually dealt with by police agencies. There are different agencies instituted to handle such matters. These agencies are far more distant from middle class citizens than the local police, and are usually unknown to those individual who might wish to file a suit against the powerful. They may actually not be responsive, hence discouraging complaints. And those individual victimized by crime of the powerful often do not know of it- careless products that results either to injury or sometimes death, fixing prices, sophisticated banking tricks etc. are not the kind of things that an individual is likely to discover, much less be proficient enough to pinpoint individuals who are responsible for causing such harm. That responsibility at times is murky where violations of law are pretty clear. Additionally in such an event, since there are no ideal place to contact- as in the case of rape (street crime) – it is much more difficult to find a convenient place to make a complaint (Maguire 2002). Assuming an individual who is a victim of crime actually finds the right place to make his/her complaint, funding is usually inadequate to robustly investigate as well as impeach if needed. Investigation as well as prosecution of these crimes can be tremendously difficult, requiring expertise knowledge, access areas where access is actually denied, and the fortitude to face that entire powerful opponent can bring to light. As a result of climate nurtured by the influential that are mostly protective of their interests, the notion or the will to prosecute the powerful is often weak and sometimes absent. This climate tends to make many people reluctant to assign major responsibility to the powerful. In some situations it is known that prosecutors are not willing to go after the local businesses that are known to have or have committed a crime due to concern about the economic situation of the country. Vigorous prosecution has the ability to induce such businesses to vacate an area, which means a reduction or loss of jobs thus subjecting the economy into a cyclic unemployment. Prosecutors usually avoid seeking harsh penalties or sanctions, but instead pursue "mollifying and invigorative interventions". Judges most of the time tends to avoid jail time or rather minimize it. Sometimes major economic crimes of powerful include; military agreement, where it takes advantage of hundreds billions of dollars from an insurance cover in the late 1970s for credit card fraud. Another area of crime of powerful where there has been no attention since decades ago is the feminist evaluation of domestic violence against women by males. Most of the feminist in the earlier decades have argued that 'crimes of the powerful' should incorporate domestic violence as a result of the patriarchal structure in the society that promotes these abuses. These exploration flows from the fact that domestic violence against women are not considered as crime in the past and modern society (Fattah 1991). Businesses have had uneven influence over the law with regards to the powerful individuals. There are often paradoxical cases where the government may commit crime of power against its citizens. This can be recognized mainly if it passes legislation without any consideration from the citizens. That is obviously unlikely to occur and a lot of such crime existing in a society goes unnoticed. This occurs where the government does all it takes and uses its power to prevent itself from being noticed by citizens within the society. However, if citizens by any chance get to notice of the government crime, nobody is usually willing to prosecute it. It is directly against self interest of a group to recognize and identify the existence of such crimes since they will be required to fully identify the prevailing theory of the legal existence. Recent survey shows that, criminal analysis of the powerful came from international laws which allows the international law to identify crimes committed by dictators when they would not at any moment do this in their own country. For example, the case of Sadam Hussein, he was thought to have used his power to commit crime against the citizens, such events or scenarios were never recognized as 'crimes' until an international body such as UN (United Nations) declared it illegal. The same scenario applies with the late Iddi Amin Dada of Uganda, who used his power to oppress individual living the country (Tombs 2009). Conclusion In my opinion, criminology does not bring the attention of crime of the powerful to light. There are still a lot of influential individual who get away with the crime committed in the name of ‘power’. Crime of power can only be dealt with if the entire populations are more than willing to bring all perpetrators of crime to justice, regardless of the position they have in the society. From the above information, it is clearly evident that this crime of the powerful is not a recent scenario which started yesterday but it is something that has been living with us, way before the formulation of UN. So to speak, crime of the powerful has not been brought to light up to this minute. Different powerful people are known to have committed criminal offence against its people and clear evidence provided but still no one is willing to prosecute them, simply because of fear. Some powerful individuals in the society even goes an extra mile of threatening anyone who will try anything ‘foolish’ that’s what they call, thereby inflicting fear to those who were courageous to speak up. References Cavadino, M. The Penal System: an introduction, London: Sage, 2002. Dodd, T. Crime in England and Wales 2003/2004.London, Development and Statistics Directorate: UK 2004. Fattah, E, Understanding Criminal Victimization. Scarborough: Prentice Hall, 1991. Maguire, M. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Tombs, S. unmasking the crimes of the powerful: scrutinizing states & corporations, Peter Lang, 2009. Read More