ABSTRACT
Critical criminology, by adding meso- and macro-level analyses to the traditional micro-focus that has dominated criminological inquiry, brought to the surface new objects of inquiry: the state and its legislative production. The importance of this focus on the state is easily conceived insofar as the state possesses the ‘monopoly of legitimized physical coercion’ (Weber 2002: 43–4, 1056) or, from a different perspective, ‘decides on the exception’ (Schmitt 2005: 5). In that sense, the state performs a dual function: as the principal guarantor of human rights, materializing a promise to put an end to private vendetta; and as the most serious menace to human rights, reserving for itself the prerogative to suspend or even violate them. The pivotal role of the state not only in the regulation but also in the generation of crime is corroborated by the growing literature on state crime.
