■ Crime and deviance
Many would consider it disturbing that a state, which is responsible for creating and enforcing the law, can also break It. There is considerable controversy in defining what constitutes state crime. This is because a state is the source of the law within its boundaries, defining what is, and is not, criminal. Not only do states have the power and resources to commit crimes on a scale that dwarfs conventional crime, but they also have the power to avoid defining their own act as criminal. We could go further to say that even when states commit acts that are clearly illegal under international law, they have the power to decriminalise these offences.
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