Human rights and state crimes | AQA A-Level Sociology
Updated: 6 days ago
For Specification 7192
AQA A-Level Sociology | Free Revision Notes
Estimated study time: 60 to 70 minutes
Human rights and state crime challenge the assumption that crime is simply something committed by individuals against the state. This Human rights and state crimes A-Level Sociology revision page examines what happens when states themselves are connected with crime or serious human-rights abuses, and why power matters when deciding what becomes criminalised. The topic develops questions about definitions first raised in crime and deviance [Crime and deviance] and connects strongly with globalisation and crime [Globalisation and crime], because state crimes and human-rights abuses may have international dimensions.
Learning Objectives 🎯
By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:
Define state crime and explain its relationship with human rights.
Explain why legal definitions may create difficulties when studying crimes involving states.
Describe forms of state-related crime recognised in AQA assessment material.
Analyse how power may affect the definition, recognition and control of state crime.
Explain the importance of globalisation and international cooperation for human-rights abuses.
Evaluate sociological explanations of state crime and human-rights violations.
Revision Notes 📚
Human rights and state crimes A-Level Sociology revision
AQA explicitly requires students to study human rights and state crimes as part of compulsory Crime and Deviance content. Students must examine both evidence and sociological explanations, while linking the topic to the core themes of social differentiation, power and stratification and socialisation, culture and identity.
Recent AQA assessment material also recognises concepts including:
state crime;
human rights;
political crime;
war crimes;
states of denial;
denial of responsibility;
techniques of neutralisation;
dehumanisation.
It identifies sociologists including Cohen, Kelman and Hamilton, McLaughlin and Schwendinger as potentially relevant sources.
These ideas place power at the centre of the topic.
What is state crime?
State crime refers to crime or seriously harmful conduct connected with the actions of a state.
This reverses the usual relationship between crime and government.
Normally, the state is associated with:
creating criminal laws;
detecting crime;
punishing offenders;
maintaining social control.
With state crime, sociologists instead ask whether the state itself may be responsible for behaviour that can be understood as criminal or as a serious violation of human rights.
The key contrast is therefore:
Conventional view of crime | State-crime perspective |
The state defines and responds to crime | The state's own conduct becomes the object of sociological analysis |
Offenders break rules created by the state | States may themselves engage in criminal or harmful conduct |
Criminal justice agencies control offenders | Questions arise about who can effectively control the state |
Law provides the main definition | Human rights may provide an additional standard for judging state conduct |
State crime therefore develops the questions of law, power and criminalisation first considered in crime and deviance [Crime and deviance].
Crime and human rights
Human rights provide a way of judging behaviour that goes beyond simply asking whether a particular state has declared an action illegal.
This is important because a state has significant influence over its own legal system.
A purely legal question asks:
Is this behaviour prohibited by the relevant criminal law?
A human-rights approach asks a broader question:
Does the behaviour violate fundamental rights, even if the state responsible does not treat it as an ordinary crime?
This makes human rights particularly significant for understanding state crime.
AQA's 2023 assessment material explicitly treats human-rights abuses as forms of international crime against which states may cooperate.
Why state crime creates a problem for legal definitions
State crime exposes a difficulty in defining crime only through national criminal law.
The state often has the authority to:
create laws;
enforce laws;
classify behaviour as criminal;
operate criminal justice agencies.
If sociologists relied entirely on what a state itself defines as illegal, this could create difficulties where the behaviour being examined involves the state.
This produces an important sociological issue:
the institution with the power to define crime may itself become the subject of criminological investigation.
This is one reason human rights become important in the topic.
They enable sociologists to consider harmful state actions without assuming that domestic criminal law provides the only possible standard.
Legal definitions and human-rights definitions
The distinction resembles the debate encountered in green crime [Green crime].
Legal approach | Human-rights approach |
Focuses on whether conduct violates criminal law | Focuses on whether conduct violates human rights |
Gives a formal legal boundary | Allows state behaviour to be judged beyond its own domestic criminal law |
Depends on existing legal definitions | Provides a broader basis for examining harmful state conduct |
May make official crime easier to identify | Raises broader questions about harm, rights and responsibility |
The sociological significance is that law and harm do not always have to be treated as identical concepts.
This is particularly important when powerful actors are involved.
Human rights and the social construction of crime
Earlier in the course, you learned that crime is socially constructed because behaviour becomes criminal through social and legal definitions.
State crime adds another dimension.
If powerful institutions influence law creation, sociologists can ask:
Which actions become formally criminalised?
Which state actions remain outside ordinary criminal definitions?
Who has the authority to judge state behaviour?
Can human-rights standards provide an alternative basis for evaluating state conduct?
This turns state crime into an issue about both behaviour and the power to define behaviour.
State power
Power is central to the sociology of state crime.
Ordinary offenders are subject to laws enforced by the state.
The state, by contrast, may possess:
law-making authority;
institutions of formal social control;
political authority;
resources for enforcing its decisions.
This can make state crime sociologically distinctive.
The question is not merely:
Why might crime occur?
It is also:
How can wrongdoing be identified and controlled when those responsible possess significant political and legal power?
This connects directly with the AQA core theme of social differentiation, power and stratification.
Forms of state-related crime in AQA material
The specification itself names the broad area human rights and state crimes rather than providing a fixed list of subtypes.
However, AQA's 2023 Paper 3 mark scheme identifies several directly relevant concepts, including:
state crime;
political crimes;
war crimes;
human rights.
These indicate the breadth of behaviour that may be relevant to the state-crime topic.
War crimes
War crimes are explicitly recognised by AQA as relevant to globalisation, human rights and state crime.
Their significance is that crime may occur within the context of:
states;
political power;
armed conflict;
international rather than purely domestic concerns.
They illustrate why state crime cannot always be understood using only conventional domestic offending.
Political crimes
AQA also identifies political crimes as relevant material.
This reinforces the connection between criminal behaviour and political authority.
For revision purposes, the key point is that crimes involving states may need to be understood in relation to political power and state action, rather than simply individual motivations.
State crime and globalisation
State crime has a significant global dimension.
AQA includes state crime, war crimes and human rights among concepts relevant to globalisation and crime.
This is important because:
state actions can have consequences beyond one national boundary;
human-rights concerns may become international issues;
international cooperation may be needed to respond to abuses.
This builds directly on globalisation and crime [Globalisation and crime].
International cooperation
One of the clearest source-supported relationships concerns cooperation between states.
AQA's 2023 examination item states that globalisation may enable more effective ways of tackling international crime, giving human-rights abuses alongside green crime as an example of areas where states may cooperate.
This creates an important tension.
States may be:
potential perpetrators of crime or human-rights abuses;
but states may also be:
important actors involved in responding to international abuses.
Therefore, the relationship between the state and crime is not one-dimensional.
The state as rule-maker and potential offender
State crime creates a distinctive sociological contradiction.
The state can simultaneously be involved in:
law creation
law enforcement
crime control
and potentially:
crime or human-rights violations
This is why state crime is particularly useful for analysing the relationship between power and definitions of crime.
The same institutions that help establish social order can also be scrutinised sociologically.
This links back to social order and social control [Social order and social control].
Explaining state crime through power
A conflict-based sociological explanation focuses on unequal power.
If a state possesses substantial political and institutional power, this may affect:
whose actions are defined as criminal;
whether state behaviour is officially recorded as crime;
how easily wrongdoing can be challenged;
which agencies have the ability to respond.
The logic is:
state power → influence over law and control → difficulties holding state behaviour to account
This does not mean state power automatically produces state crime.
Rather, unequal power helps explain why identifying and controlling state crime may be particularly difficult.
Marxism and state crime
AQA's global-crime mark scheme identifies Marxism alongside state crime and human rights as potentially relevant material.
A Marxist approach directs attention towards:
power;
economic and political interests;
relationships between states and wider structures of inequality.
Within the boundaries of the supplied source material, the safest central point is that Marxism provides a conflict perspective, questioning whether laws and state action operate equally in the interests of all groups.
This can be applied to state crime by asking whether powerful institutions have greater ability to define or avoid criminalisation.
The supplied assessment material does not provide enough detail to support a more specific Marxist theory of state crime without moving beyond the provided sources.
Human rights approaches
The AQA mark scheme identifies Schwendinger as a potentially relevant source alongside human rights and state crime.
The important source-supported debate is between:
restricting crime to existing legal definitions;
using human rights as a broader standard for evaluating harmful conduct.
This is useful because it challenges a state-centred definition of crime.
If the state itself influences law-making, a human-rights perspective allows sociologists to ask whether harmful state behaviour should be examined even where it is not straightforwardly classified as domestic crime.
Why definitions matter
Definitions influence both:
what sociologists study;
how much state crime appears to exist.
If only behaviour already defined as criminal is counted, some harmful state conduct may fall outside the category.
If a wider human-rights definition is used, more conduct may be examined, but disagreement may arise over the boundary of crime.
This is similar to the question raised in green criminology:
legal definition versus broader definition of harm
The topic therefore reinforces the importance of definition throughout Crime and Deviance.
State crime and denial
AQA's 2023 mark scheme identifies several concepts associated with the study of global and state crime:
denial of responsibility;
states of denial;
techniques of neutralisation;
dehumanisation.
At the level supported by the provided source material, these concepts indicate that sociologists may examine how responsibility for harmful actions is interpreted, denied or neutralised, rather than considering only the behaviour itself.
AQA also identifies Cohen as a relevant sociologist in this area.
For this revision page, the secure examination point is therefore that denial and neutralisation are recognised sociological concepts relevant to explaining or interpreting state crime.
Denial of responsibility
Denial of responsibility is explicitly listed in AQA's indicative state-crime material.
The concept focuses attention on how responsibility for harmful conduct may be rejected or minimised.
This matters sociologically because explaining state crime involves more than asking whether harmful behaviour took place.
Researchers may also examine:
how those involved understand their actions;
whether responsibility is accepted;
how harmful conduct is presented or justified.
This introduces a social-action dimension alongside structural explanations based on power.
Techniques of neutralisation
AQA also recognises techniques of neutralisation as potentially relevant.
The significance of the concept is that those involved in wrongdoing may use forms of reasoning that lessen or neutralise the perceived wrongness of their behaviour.
For this topic, the important connection is:
harmful conduct → interpretation or justification → reduced recognition of personal or organisational wrongdoing
Dehumanisation
Dehumanisation is another concept explicitly recognised by AQA in this area.
It concerns ways in which people may cease to be regarded or treated as fully human.
Its relevance to state crime is that treatment of others can be connected to the way they are socially categorised or understood.
AQA identifies Kelman and Hamilton among potentially relevant sociological sources in the same area.
The secure point for revision is that AQA recognises dehumanisation and the interpretation of responsibility as relevant to sociological discussions of state crime and human-rights violations.
Structural and social-action explanations
The state-crime topic can therefore involve two broad levels of explanation.
Structural explanations
Focus on:
state power;
political structures;
law-making;
inequality;
conflict.
These ask how social structures create conditions in which state crime may be difficult to define or control.
Social-action explanations
Focus on:
meanings;
responsibility;
denial;
neutralisation;
the way victims or actions are interpreted.
These ask how individuals or organisations understand and account for harmful conduct.
AQA requires students more generally to understand both structural and social action theories, making this a useful synoptic connection.
Comparing explanations of state crime
Explanation or approach | Main focus | Contribution to understanding state crime |
Legal approach | Existing criminal law | Identifies formally criminal state conduct but may depend heavily on state-created definitions |
Human-rights approach | Violations of rights | Provides a broader basis for evaluating state behaviour |
Conflict approach | Power and inequality | Highlights the state's ability to influence law, enforcement and criminalisation |
Marxist approach | Structural power and conflict | Questions whether state action and legal definitions reflect unequal social interests |
Denial and neutralisation | Interpretation of wrongdoing | Examines how responsibility for harmful conduct may be rejected or minimised |
Globalisation approach | International connections | Explains why state crime and human-rights abuses may require responses beyond one state |
International cooperation | Collective crime control | Shows that states can cooperate in responding to international abuses |
The best answers compare these explanations around the same issue, rather than treating them as separate lists of knowledge.
Problems measuring state crime
State crime may be particularly difficult to measure.
The supplied AQA materials do not provide a specific state-crime measurement question, but the 2023 globalisation mark scheme explicitly recognises difficulties in defining crime and measuring its extent in a global context, while also listing state crime, war crimes and human rights as relevant global-crime material.
Relevant problems that follow directly from this source-supported relationship include:
different definitions of crime;
international rather than purely domestic dimensions;
the political power of states;
difficulties determining which authority should define or respond to the behaviour.
You should therefore be cautious about assuming that official crime statistics provide a complete measure of state crime.
State crime and official statistics
Traditional official crime statistics are strongly associated with offences detected and processed through criminal justice systems.
State crime creates a problem because the organisation producing or controlling such systems may itself be under investigation.
This can limit the usefulness of a purely official definition.
The important sociological insight is:
Absence from ordinary crime statistics does not automatically establish an absence of harmful state conduct.
This mirrors the wider distinction between official criminalisation and harm encountered throughout Crime and Deviance.
State crime and the criminal justice system
The next stages of the course examine crime control [Crime control] and the criminal justice system and other agencies [The criminal justice system and other agencies].
State crime provides an important contrast.
With conventional crime, the state and criminal justice agencies usually act as controllers.
With state crime, the key question becomes:
Who controls or holds accountable the institutions normally responsible for controlling others?
Globalisation provides one possible answer by creating opportunities for international cooperation.
However, AQA's material also shows that defining and measuring international crime remains difficult.
Human rights and global crime
AQA's 2023 assessment places human-rights abuses alongside green crime as an example of international crime that may be addressed through cooperation between states.
This indicates that human rights should not be treated as an isolated ethical topic.
Within Crime and Deviance, they are relevant because they affect:
definitions of crime;
the study of state behaviour;
international responses to harm;
debates about global crime.
This connects the topic directly to globalisation and crime [Globalisation and crime].
Evaluating the legal approach
Strength
A legal definition gives a relatively clear boundary around behaviour formally recognised as criminal.
This makes it possible to distinguish criminal conduct from other controversial state actions.
Limitation
The state itself is heavily involved in creating and enforcing law.
This creates a difficulty where the state's own behaviour is being evaluated.
A purely legal definition may therefore provide an incomplete basis for examining state harm.
Evaluating the human-rights approach
Strength
A human-rights perspective provides a broader standard for evaluating state behaviour.
It allows sociologists to analyse conduct that might not be straightforwardly treated as ordinary domestic crime.
Limitation
Broadening the definition beyond existing criminal law creates questions about exactly where the boundaries of crime should be drawn.
This is a recurring problem whenever sociology moves from crime defined by law towards a wider concept of harm.
Evaluating explanations based on power
Power-based approaches have a major advantage because state crime is difficult to understand without considering the unusual position occupied by states.
States possess significant authority over:
law;
criminalisation;
social control.
However, power alone does not explain the individual meanings or justifications involved in particular harmful actions.
This is where concepts such as denial, neutralisation and dehumanisation may contribute an additional level of explanation.
A developed answer can therefore combine:
structural power + social interpretation
rather than assuming one level of analysis explains everything.
Evaluating denial and neutralisation
Denial and neutralisation direct attention towards how harmful state conduct may be interpreted by those involved.
This adds an important dimension because structural explanations can show where power lies without necessarily explaining how individuals understand or justify their actions.
However, explanations focused on individual interpretation may underestimate broader political and institutional structures.
This creates a useful evaluation:
social-action explanations illuminate meanings and responsibility, while structural explanations illuminate power and institutional context.
State crime and responsibility
Responsibility is especially complex where harmful conduct occurs through organisations or state institutions.
AQA's inclusion of concepts such as:
denial of responsibility;
techniques of neutralisation;
states of denial
shows that sociologists may examine not only whether a harmful act occurs but also how responsibility is understood or represented.
This allows an examination answer to move beyond description.
Instead of simply writing:
"States may violate human rights,"
you can analyse:
why state power makes such behaviour difficult to criminalise and how responsibility for harmful conduct may be denied or neutralised.
Human rights, state crime and sociological definitions
The central issue can be summarised through three competing questions.
Legal question
Was the behaviour formally illegal?
Human-rights question
Did the behaviour violate human rights?
Sociological power question
Who had the power to define, conceal, deny or respond to the behaviour?
A strong answer considers all three.
This is why human rights and state crime is one of the clearest examples of the relationship between crime, harm and power in the specification.
Applying state crime in an exam
The supplied recent Paper 3 materials do not contain a direct standalone state-crime question.
However, AQA's 2023 globalisation mark scheme explicitly recognises state crime, human rights, political crime, war crimes, denial and related sociologists as relevant knowledge.
This means state crime can be used where the question genuinely invites it, particularly in relation to:
globalisation;
human rights;
definitions of crime;
power;
international crime.
⚠️ Do not force state crime into an unrelated crime question simply because you have revised it.
Application must remain focused on the question set.
Building an evaluative essay
If asked to evaluate sociological explanations of state crime and human-rights violations, a strong structure could be:
Define state crime and the problem of state-created law.
Develop the human-rights approach as an alternative way to judge state conduct.
Evaluate definitions: legal clarity versus the possibility of harmful conduct remaining outside ordinary criminal law.
Develop a conflict or power explanation: states possess exceptional political and institutional authority.
Develop denial and neutralisation: harmful actions may also be understood through interpretations of responsibility.
Evaluate structure versus action: neither state power nor individual meaning necessarily provides a complete explanation alone.
Develop globalisation: state crime and human-rights violations may have international dimensions.
Evaluate with international cooperation: states may cooperate in responding to abuses.
Reach a judgement about the importance of law, human rights and power.
This produces sustained analysis rather than a descriptive list of state crimes.
Key Words 🔑
Key word | Student-friendly definition | How it may be used in an exam |
State crime | Crime or seriously harmful conduct connected with the actions of a state. | Use when examining the state as a possible perpetrator rather than only as a controller of crime. |
Human rights | Rights used as a broader standard for judging the treatment of people. | Use when evaluating whether criminal law alone provides an adequate definition of state wrongdoing. |
War crime | A form of crime associated with armed conflict and recognised in AQA's state/global crime material. | Use as a form of state-related crime where relevant to the question. |
Political crime | Crime connected with political activity or power. | Use when showing the relationship between state crime and political authority. |
Denial of responsibility | The rejection or minimisation of responsibility for harmful conduct. | Use when explaining how state wrongdoing may be interpreted or justified. |
Techniques of neutralisation | Ways in which the perceived wrongness of harmful behaviour may be reduced or neutralised. | Use when examining meanings and justifications surrounding state crime. |
Dehumanisation | Treating or representing people as less than fully human. | Use where analysing processes associated with human-rights violations. |
Criminalisation | The process through which behaviour becomes legally defined and treated as criminal. | Use when analysing whether state power affects what becomes officially recognised as crime. |
International cooperation | States or agencies working together across national boundaries. | Use when evaluating the claim that state and global crimes are impossible to control. |
Common Mistakes ⚠️
Mistake: Assuming the state can only prevent crime
Why this is incorrect: AQA explicitly includes state crimes within Crime and Deviance.
How to improve: Remember the reversal:
conventional crime: state as rule-maker and controller
state crime: state behaviour itself becomes the subject of criminological analysis.
Mistake: Defining state crime only through domestic law without considering human rights
Why this is incorrect: The specification deliberately places human rights and state crimes together, while AQA assessment material recognises human rights as relevant to global and state crime.
How to improve: Discuss the tension between legal definitions and broader human-rights standards.
Mistake: Treating all harmful state behaviour as automatically recorded crime
Why this is incorrect: Whether conduct appears as official crime depends on definitions, criminalisation and processes of control.
How to improve: Distinguish between:
harmful state conduct
and
conduct formally recognised and recorded as crime.
Mistake: Forgetting the importance of power
Why this is incorrect: The state has considerable influence over law and social control, making state crime fundamentally connected to questions of power.
How to improve: Ask:
Who defines the behaviour? Who has the power to investigate or respond to it?
Mistake: Listing war crime or political crime without explaining state crime
Why this is incorrect: Naming a form of crime does not explain why it is sociologically significant.
How to improve: Link it to state power, human rights, criminalisation or international control.
Mistake: Naming Cohen, Kelman and Hamilton or Schwendinger without knowing the argument
Why this is incorrect: A sociologist's name gains little value without accurate sociological development.
How to improve: Only use a named sociologist when you can link them securely to the argument being made. The supplied source material identifies these names as relevant but does not contain enough detail to justify inventing their specific arguments.
Mistake: Treating denial as proof that a state crime did not occur
Why this is incorrect: Denial concerns how responsibility or wrongdoing is interpreted, not whether harmful conduct necessarily happened.
How to improve: Keep separate:
the conduct itself
and
how responsibility for it is understood or presented.
Mistake: Assuming globalisation only makes state crime harder to control
Why this is incorrect: AQA explicitly recognises that states may cooperate internationally in tackling human-rights abuses.
How to improve: Evaluate both cross-border difficulties and opportunities for international cooperation.
Exam-Style Questions ✍️
Question 1
Define state crime. [1 mark]
Question 2
Explain one reason why human rights may be useful when sociologists study state crime. [2 marks]
Question 3
Outline two reasons why defining state crime only through existing criminal law may be problematic. [4 marks]
Question 4
Outline three sociological issues that may make state crime difficult to identify or control. [6 marks]
Question 5
Explain two ways in which power may be significant for understanding state crime. [4 marks]
Question 6
Read Item A and answer the question that follows.
Item A
States normally create laws and operate agencies that enforce them. However, sociologists may also investigate harmful actions involving states themselves. Human-rights standards may provide a way of judging conduct that goes beyond domestic criminal law.
Applying material from Item A, analyse two reasons why state crime creates problems for conventional definitions of crime. [10 marks]
Question 7
Read Item B and answer the question that follows.
Item B
States possess considerable political and institutional power. Harmful actions may also be accompanied by attempts to deny or reduce responsibility for what has happened.
Applying material from Item B, analyse two sociological explanations relevant to state crime and human-rights violations. [10 marks]
Question 8
Read Item C and answer the question that follows.
Item C
Some approaches define crime according to existing criminal law. However, state crime raises questions because states themselves influence the creation and enforcement of law. Human-rights approaches provide a broader way of judging harmful state conduct. State crimes may also have international dimensions and may require cooperation between countries.
Applying material from Item C and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of state crime and human-rights violations. [30 marks]
Answers and mark scheme
Question 1
1 mark for an appropriate definition identifying crime or serious harmful conduct connected with the state.
Example answer: State crime is crime or seriously harmful conduct connected with the actions of a state.
Question 2
Award up to 2 marks.
Example answer: Human rights provide a broader standard for judging state conduct than domestic criminal law alone. This is important because the state itself may influence which actions are formally defined as criminal.
One mark for identifying a relevant reason and one further mark for development.
Question 3
Award 2 marks for each of two developed reasons.
Possible answers include:
State influence over law: the institution whose behaviour is being examined may also have substantial influence over what is formally defined as criminal.
Human-rights violations may be broader than domestic criminal definitions: harmful state conduct may therefore require consideration beyond ordinary criminal law.
International dimension: state actions may become issues beyond one domestic legal system.
One mark identifies the problem. The second develops its significance.
Question 4
Award 2 marks for each of three different issues.
Possible answers include:
State power: states possess considerable political and institutional authority, potentially making their conduct difficult to challenge.
Definitions: legal definitions may not capture all conduct considered a human-rights violation.
International dimensions: state or war crimes may involve more than one national jurisdiction.
Denial of responsibility: responsibility for harmful action may be rejected or minimised.
Criminalisation: the process through which state conduct becomes formally recognised as criminal may itself be shaped by power.
Control: responding to international human-rights abuses may require cooperation between states.
Three genuinely distinct points are required.
Question 5
Award 2 marks for each of two clearly explained ways.
Possible answers include:
Law-making power: States have considerable influence over criminal law. This may affect whether harmful state conduct becomes formally criminalised.
Control of institutions: States operate important institutions of social control, creating the sociological problem of how wrongdoing is controlled when state institutions themselves are involved.
International political power: State conduct may extend beyond domestic legal boundaries, creating difficulties for accountability and control.
Question 6
Students should develop both major hooks from Item A.
Hook 1: states create and enforce laws
A conventional legal definition treats crime as behaviour prohibited by law. However, state crime creates a problem because states themselves possess law-making and enforcement power. Harmful state behaviour may therefore not always be straightforwardly classified through the state's own criminal law.
Hook 2: human-rights standards
Human rights provide a broader basis for evaluating state conduct. This allows sociologists to consider serious harms even where domestic criminal law does not provide the only or most adequate standard.
8 to 10 marks: Good knowledge and understanding of two issues, two developed applications of Item A and clear analysis of the relationship between state power, law and human rights.
4 to 7 marks: Reasonable knowledge and some successful item application, but one point may be more developed.
1 to 3 marks: Limited knowledge, weak application or general discussion of state behaviour without addressing definitions.
0 marks: No relevant material.
Question 7
Students should use both ideas in Item B.
Hook 1: political and institutional power
A conflict or structural explanation can emphasise the state's unusual power over law and social control. This may make state wrongdoing difficult to define, criminalise or respond to through ordinary criminal justice processes.
Hook 2: denial of responsibility
AQA recognises denial of responsibility, states of denial and techniques of neutralisation as relevant concepts. These direct attention towards how those involved may reject or minimise responsibility for harmful conduct.
Students may also use dehumanisation where accurately developed.
8 to 10 marks: Two developed applications of Item B, with clear sociological analysis of structural power and interpretations of responsibility.
4 to 7 marks: Some appropriate knowledge and item application with uneven development.
1 to 3 marks: Limited knowledge or little effective use of the item.
0 marks: No relevant material.
Question 8
This question requires knowledge and understanding, application, analysis and evaluation.
Indicative content may include:
State crime
the state as a possible perpetrator rather than only a controller of crime;
political crime;
war crime;
human-rights abuses;
problems of criminalisation.
Legal definitions
state influence over law creation;
formal definitions of crime;
limitations of relying entirely on domestic law.
Students may evaluate the clarity of legal definitions against their possible inability to capture all harmful state conduct.
Human-rights approaches
human rights as a broader standard;
relationship between rights, harm and crime;
Schwendinger may be relevant where accurately used.
Power and conflict
state power;
law creation;
social control;
structural inequalities;
Marxism as a conflict approach where accurately applied.
Students may argue that the power of states affects what becomes criminalised and how wrongdoing is controlled.
Denial and responsibility
denial of responsibility;
states of denial;
techniques of neutralisation;
dehumanisation;
Cohen;
Kelman and Hamilton where accurately known.
These can be used to add a social-action or interpretive dimension to structural explanations of state power.
Globalisation
international crime;
human-rights abuses;
war crimes;
problems defining and measuring crime across national contexts.
International cooperation
states cooperating in response to international human-rights abuses;
globalisation as potentially improving crime control rather than simply creating problems.
Evaluation
Strong responses may consider:
whether legal or human-rights definitions provide the more useful basis for studying state crime;
the extent to which state power explains the existence of crime versus its under-recognition;
whether structural explanations neglect individual meanings and responsibility;
whether denial-based explanations neglect wider political structures;
whether international cooperation can overcome difficulties created by state sovereignty and cross-border crime.
25 to 30 marks: Sound, conceptually detailed knowledge of a range of relevant material. Item material is applied accurately. Analysis and evaluation explicitly address definitions, human rights, state power, interpretations of responsibility and international dimensions. A reasoned judgement is reached.
19 to 24 marks: Accurate and reasonably broad or deep knowledge. Application is largely focused and there is some explicit evaluation, although parts may be incomplete.
13 to 18 marks: Largely accurate but narrower knowledge. Application may be limited and evaluation may rely mainly on juxtaposing different approaches.
7 to 12 marks: Limited and undeveloped knowledge, with weak application and little evaluation.
1 to 6 marks: Very limited relevant material or a general discussion of states and crime without clear sociological focus.
0 marks: No relevant material.
A strong conclusion should recognise that state crime creates a fundamental problem for conventional criminology because states possess unusual power over both law and social control. Legal definitions provide clarity, but human-rights approaches allow harmful state conduct to be examined beyond domestic criminal law. Structural explanations highlight state power, while denial and neutralisation draw attention to the interpretation of responsibility. The most developed judgement therefore treats state crime as an interaction between harm, human rights, political power, legal definition and social meaning.
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