Criminology Ch. 11

Political Crime

illegal acts designed to undermine, challenge or damage an existing government and threaten its survival

Goals of Political Crime

Intimidation, revolution, profit, conviction, pseudo-conviction

intimidation

-political criminals that want to threaten an opponent who does not share their political orientation or view

Revolution

political criminals plot to overthrow the existing government and replace it with one that holds views they find more acceptable

Profit

-political criminals that sell state secrets for personal enrichment or trafficking in stolen arms and munitions

Conviction

-political criminals are motivated by altruism, truly believe crimes will benefit society and willing to violate law and risk punishment to achieve what they see as social improvement

conviction

for the greater good

pseudo-conviction

religion justifies their actions

Categories of political crimes

organizational, occupational and independent

organizational

-crimes are committed on behalf of or for the benefit of a collection of people who are part of a particular unit

Occupational

-crimes committed by individuals in the course of their jobs or professions for their own personal gain, both financial and nonfinancial

Independent

-crimes benefit only the perpetrators participating in the misdeeds

Types of Political Crime

Election Fraud, Treason, Espionage, state political crime, and torture

Goals of Election Fraud

intimidation, disruption, misinformation, vote buying and registration fraud

Treason

anyone who owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies giving them aid and comfort within the US or elsewhere

Espionage

obtaining and disseminating information considered secret or confidential without permission of the original holder

Industrial Espionage

involves attack carried out by foreign agents on American corporations in an effort to steal trade secrets, acquire tech, interrupt manufacturing or otherwise interfere with operations

State Political Crime

illegal efforts by the state to maintain power

Torture

acts that cause severe pain and suffering that is intentionally inflicted on a person to obtain information, punish, intimidate or coerce

Ticking Time Bomb Scenario

-a scenario that views torture as an acceptable option such as when the government discovers that captured terrorist know the whereabouts of a dangerous explosive device ready to kill thousands of innocent people

terrorism

-illegal use of force against innocent pople to achieve a political objective

terror cells

divisions of terrorist groups affiliates, each of which may be functionally independent so that each member has little knowledge of other cells, their members, locations, an so on...number of cells and their composition depend on the size of the terrorist

Guerila

armed military bands, typically located in rural areas, that use hit and run terror tactics to destabilize the existing government

Insurgent

typical goal is to confront existing government for control of all or portion of its territory or force political concessions in sharing political power

Revolutionary

-groups who engage in civil war against a sovereign power that holds control of the land

Revolutionary Terrorists

use violence to frighten those in power and their supporters in order to replace the existing government with a regime that holds acceptable political or religious views

political terrorists

political terrorism directed at people or groups who oppose the terrorists political ideology or whom the terrorists define as outsiders who must be destroyed

eco-terrorism

political terror groups involved in violent actions to protect the environment

Nationalist terrorism

goups whose actions promote interests of a minority ethnic or religious groups that has persecuted under majority rule and orvwishes to carve out its own independent homeland

Retributive terrorism

groups that use violence as a method of influence, persuasion, or intimidation in oder to achieve a paticular aim or objective

State sponsored terrorism

carried out by a repressive government regime in order to force its citizens into obedience, oppress minorities and stifle political dissidents

Motivations of Terrorism

-psychological view
-economic view
-alienation view
-socialization view
-ideological view

psychological view

-emotionally disturbed individuals who acts out his/her psychoses within the confines of a violent groups

Economic view

lack of economic opportunity and recessionary economies are positively correlated with terrorism

Alienation view

-if terrorists suffer psychological deficiencies it is because they suffer alienation from friends, family and society, raised to hate opponents at an early age (oppressor)

socialization view

-terrorists are not poor or lacking education most educated members of the upper class

ideological view

-potential terrorists recognizise that these caniditonscanbe changed by an active governmental reform effort that has not occured yet, they conclude they must resort to violence to encourage change

Response to Terrorism (national)

-DIrector of national intelligence
-National Counterterrorism center
-FBI (main goal protect US from terrorist attacks)
-Department of Homeland Securtiy
-JTTFs

Response to Terrorism (local)

law enforcement agencies increased personnel engaged in emergency response planning, updating response plans for chemical, biological and radio logical attack

Director of national intelligence

-government offical charged with coordinating data from the nation's primary intelligence-gathering agencies

National Counterterrorism

primary organization in the US government for analyzing and intregrating all intelligence possessed or acquired by the government pretaining to terrorism and counter terrorism

Department of Homeland Security

an agency of the federal government charged with preventing terrorist attacks within the US, reducing America's vulnerability to terrorism, and minimizing the damage and aiding recovery from attacks that do occur
combines
-border and transportation securi

Patriot Act

legislation giving US law enforcement agencies a freer hand to investigate and apprehend suspected terrorists