Interactive Case-Studies

The State Crime Testimony Project (SCTP) aims to enrich understandings of elite deviance through the provision of data and materials that is often marginalised, hidden or destroyed by those in power.

During the course of the 20^th century newly emerging, and well established, states killed and plundered on a grand scale. However, these acts of barbarity have not met silence. Indeed, diverse communities of resistance around the world have, and continue to, censure domestic and foreign governments for trammelling fundamental human rights norms.

Although criminology has traditionally ignored the complex dialectic between state crime and resistance, this trend is now in remission owing to successive generations of state crime research.  On this website, state crime scholars – with particular regional expertise – present case studies on their research, in language that is free of disciplinary jargon. Each case study gives users access to a rich a range of annotated primary materials and multi-media resources that palpably brings the particular state crime event into focus.

The SCTP is administered by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI). ISCI is a multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional and international initiative designed to gather, collate, analyse and disseminate research based knowledge about criminal state practices, and resistance to these practices.

The SCTP has received generous support from the King’s College London Teaching Fund and the Pluto Education Trust.

The State Crime Testimony Project can be accessed here. Below are a list of selected case-studies and educational teaching materials:

 

Learning materials to aid the project’s use in class are provided below.

Teaching materials

The following exercises are designed so the SCTP case studies can be employed as tools for promoting critical inquiry and engagement during seminars.

Case Study	Themes	Exercise Type	Exercise
Draw and Tell: Street Children in Apartheid South Africa	State crimes against children, race crimes, state terror, draw and tell methodology	Class assignment, group work, seminar discussion	Exercise – Analysing Children’s Drawings
		Group work	Exercise – Developing new research methods with vulnerable children
The Demolition of Paga Hill	Forced eviction, corruption, state terror, state-corporate crime	Seminar presentation, seminar discussion	Exercise – Forced Eviction Presentation
		Group work	Exercise – Paga Hill Restorative Justice Conference
Torture at the Rio Blanco Mine – A State Corporate Crime?	Resource grabbing, resistance, state-corporate crime, torture, state terror	Seminar presentation, seminar discussion	Exercise – Resource Grabbing Presentation
		Group work	Exercise – Resisting Resource Grabbing
Toxic Dumping in Abidjan	Environmental crimes, state-corporate crime, corruption	Class assignment, group work	Exercise – Researching the Trafigura Dumping
		Class assignment, seminar discussion	Exercise – Analysisng Toxic Dumping using Kramer et al
War Crimes and the Bougainville Conflict	State terrorism, war crimes, state-corporate crime	Class assignment, group work	Exercise – Prepare a Probation Report on Bougainville Copper Limited
		Class assignment, seminar discussion	Exercise – The Bougainville Conflict and Kramer et al

Feedback

ISCI welcomes feedback and suggestions from teachers and students. SCTP’s editor, Dr Kristian Lasslett, can be contacted via email: kak.lasslett@ulster.ac.uk