Criminology and Massive Violation of Human Rights: The Case of Terrorism and Genocide

Abstract

The criminological dimension of crime generally does not arouse great enthusiasm from researchers in Arab countries, unlike Anglo-Saxon- or French-speaking countries. Admittedly, Western criminology is more advanced, but it is more interested in common crimes than in mass crimes such as crimes against humanity, genocide, human trafficking or terrorism. However, the rare existing studies reveal the emergence of a criminology of massive human rights violations and expose some particularities of this criminal phenomenon. These include the often transnational nature of the crimes, the geographical, socio-economic and political disparity of criminals, the high number of victims, and more. The relationship between criminal law, criminology and human rights should be examined to determine the complementarity of the law and the empirical criminal sciences in crime prevention.

The Crime of Crimes

“…This was not simply an unintentional corruption of the field because of prevailing hateful perceptions but was a calculated and sophisticated method of creating and excluding a social other in order to justify the genocidal actions of the state (Woolford, 2006, 90). This relationship between criminology and the state is partly due to the reliance on state funding to continue research, analysis, and education (Slimani, 2022). Since criminology heavily relies on the state for the means required to conduct itself, it simply makes sense that the governing party's interests dictate which areas of criminology are funded (Woolford, 2006).…”