Victoria E. Collins - State Crime, Women and Gender

First published 2016
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2016 Victoria E. Collins

The right of Victoria E. Collins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Collins, Victoria E.
State crime, women and gender / Victoria E. Collins. First Edition.

pages cm. (Routledge studies in crime and society ; 18)
1. State crimesUnited States. 2. WomenCrimes against
United States. I. Title.
HV6322.3.U6C65 2015
362.88dc23

2015015412

ISBN: 978-1-138-02355-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-77635-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Dawn Rothe

As I write the Foreword to this important book about state crime, women and gender, International Womens Day (March 8, 2015) has just passed reiterating the ongoing inequalities and lack of female representation in positions of power. Yet, females are now increasingly becoming a part of the national and international political power structures, making this volume not only timely but important in this recognition and the role women play in state crime commission and the processes of legitimating it through law and politics that surround the violence and harms perpetrated by the powerful. Consider that, historically, it was not until 1960 that Sri Lanka became the first state to have a female elected Premier Minister and in 1974 Argentina became the first country to have a female President. In all there have been 36 female heads of state since the modern state system. Today, of the 193 member states of the United Nations there are 29 female leaders including those that hold the presidency position in Argentina, Brazil, Central African Republic, Chile, Croatia, Kosovo, Liberia, Lithuania, Malta, South Korea and Switzerland and serve as prime ministers in Bangladesh, Denmark, Germany, Jamaica, Latvia, Norway, Peru, Poland, and Trinidad and Tobago. Collins has rightly noted that while still marginalized and grossly underrepresented within the broader political structures, women play a role in the broader political process and state criminality, harms, and violence, yet, scholars of state crime, myself included, have unacceptably not paid attention to or incorporated with any depth feminist perspectives or the role that females and gender play in this process, directly and indirectly. For example, in 2012 the former first lady of Cte dIvoire was indicted by the International Criminal Court though officially outside the formal hierarchies of power and government (Burke-White, 2012, p. 1). In 2007, Spain arrested the former Argentinian President Isabel Pern, based on an international arrest warrant alleging massive human rights abuses during her rule in the 1970s. On the other side, women are actively participating in and serving in high-ranking official capacity in the process of law creation and implementation of controls for state crime. For example, there are the female judges serving on the International Criminal Court and ad hoc International Tribunals that actively participate in the social control arm of international justice.