Crimes of the State: The Persecution and Protection of Refugees

Abstract

When refugees arrive at the borders and on the shores of the Global North they are increasingly criminalised and subject to a range of law and order type rhetoric and practices. This paper outlines an alternative criminological engagement with the condition of refugeehood that shifts the focus from the refugee to the practices of the state. First, it splices definitions of state crime with the highly legalistic refugee definition to offer alternative conceptualisations of persecution in the determination of who is accorded the legal status of refugee. Second, it applies state crime frameworks to the increasingly restrictive and punitive refugee policies of countries in the Global North. It concludes by locating theorisations of state crime within the broader project of reconceptualising notions of sovereignty.

Controlling irregular migration: International human rights standards and the Hungarian legal framework

“…It is all directly tailored to asylum seekers. The Hungarian asylum system, which shows a close resemblance to the Australian framework, has become a grotesque caricature of the 1951 Convention (Pickering, 2005a(Pickering, , 2005b(Pickering, , 2008. Legal protections are undermined because persecution has become the organizing principle.…”

The state’s mishandling of immigration to Sweden – how bodies controlling the state frame the problem

“…However, the problem representations formulated by the formal international control organs are understood in relation to the framework of human rights, a framework that is supported by states, and not least by the Swedish state. In this sense, holding states accountable for violations of human rights may not only strengthen the legitimacy of the human rights framework but may also contribute to the legitimacy of states themselves [37,50]. In other words, turning to law may serve a stabilizing and conservative function in relation to the existing the political order, to use Arendt's [3] terminology.…”

The Biopolitics of Asylum Law in Texas: The Case of Mexicans Fleeing Drug Violence in Juárez

“…In order to demonstrate persecution, a person's experience must be more than simple unpleasantness, harassment, or even basic suffering. According to the un Asylum Handbook, persecution could be an action by the state or the result of the state's inability to control the criminality of non-state actors (García, 2011;Pickering, 2005). Two interpretations exist of persecution by non-state agents in the face of which the state is willing but unable to provide protection.…”

“…Immutability refers to people who share an innate or unalterable characteristics such as their past, defined by something as basic as their identity that they should not be required to abandon (Buchanan, 2010;Pickering, 2005). For example, police officers and law enforcement officers in general could be granted asylum on account of their membership in particular group because they have a "shared past experience"…”