Elizabeth Stanley and Jude McCulloch (eds), State crime and resistance
| Author | Scott Poynting |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0004865816675237 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2017, Vol. 50(4) 623–634
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865816675237
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Book Reviews
Elizabeth Stanley and Jude McCulloch (eds), State crime and resistance. Routledge: London and
New York, 2013; 238 + xiv pp. ISBN 9780415691932, £95.00 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Scott Poynting, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, and
School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
This valuable collection meets a vital need: to inform critically and with manifold and
global instances, ‘‘a sense of agency or hope that things could be different’’ (p. 6) in the
face of widespread and often overwhelming state crime. ‘‘What matters is not to know
the world, but to change it,’’ wrote Fanon in 1952. David Friedrichs’ chapter 2, about
resisting state crime in the context of the ‘‘Arab Spring,’’ may well remind us that this
was as true for Tunisia in 2011 as for Algeria in the 1950s. Of course, Fanon was echoing
Marx from 1845, and indeed the 11th thesis on Feuerbach is quoted by McCullloch and
Stanley in their concluding chapter of this volume (p. 226). Criminologists may have
criticised state crime, and some have administered it; the point, however, is to eradicate it
– to change the world that produces it. The ‘‘Arab Spring’’ may have turned to winter,
yet another such spring may not be far behind. Many of the gains in civil society, and the
experiences and consciousness of collective struggle, will live on and grow anew. Such
political hopefulness is sadly not an approach that has characterised my own teaching in
the social sciences, not least in the doleful field of criminology and especially state crime,
and this is something which the more engaged students have always raised as a challenge.
State Crime and Resistance meets that challenge admirably. Elizabeth Stanley and
Jude McCulloch, in their acknowledgements (p. xii), credit the inspiration of their ‘‘stu-
dents in state crime courses who were eager to find hope in the face of the reality of state
crime.’’ The authors of this volume have collectively offered this hope, and since its
publication, my students and I have been grateful for the corrective. Over those last
three years, I have used several chapters of this book as readings in an honours (that is,
graduate) course on state crime and another on the contemporary criminology of global
crises. These, and indeed all the chapters, are eminently accessible in style, succinct in
presentation, and contemporary in content and relevance; each is erudite in its specialist
knowledge. Every chapter offers a springboard into the study of an area of state crime,
and particularly of resistance to it.
The crimes concerned are various, starting with ‘‘repressiveness, massive corruption
and grossly unresponsive or stagnant social policies’’ of states across the Middle East –
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Morocco, (Friedrichs, p. 15). Green and
Ward (chapter 3) bring a Gramscian perspective and an emphasis on resistance in
civil society, since ‘‘it is largely through civil society that state crime is identified, labelled,
and resisted’’ (p. 38). They showcase the work of the International State Crime Initiative
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