The Crime of All Crimes by Nicole Rafter

Author:Nicole Rafter [Rafter, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC004000 Social Science / Criminology
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Nature of Genocidal Organizations

Thus, six of my eight cases had a genocidal organization. Of these, four were two-tiered (five, if Katyn is included). In these two-tiered cases, members of the top tier managed and directed the genocide, while the second tier served as their instruments.

Irrespective of organizational complexity, these groups shared two characteristics: their gender composition and their confidence in impunity. They consisted almost entirely of men. There were two exceptions to this rule: the lower tier in the Nazi destruction of the disabled included nurses; and in Rwanda, the akazu included a few women. But the exceptions really prove the rule, for even these organizations were overwhelmingly male in composition. More important than the sex of the groups’ members were their gender characteristics—the emphasis of most of them on fighting and masculinity and in some cases the permission they were granted to brutalize the enemy’s women. As for impunity, even in genocides that lacked a special organization, perpetrators acted without fear of consequence. Individuals had various motives for committing genocide—the settling of scores, greed, fear, a desire to purify or defend their country, blind hatred, or (in the NKVD executioners’ case) obedience to orders. But in every case, they believed they could get away with what they did. In most instances, they were right.

Genocidal organizations are similar in several respects to organized crime. Organized crime, like genocide, is criminal activity that occurs within a centralized enterprise run by criminals in order to break the law. Like genocidal organizations, organized crime usually has a dominant, formal structure that branches out into smaller gangs. In genocidal organizations and organized crime alike, the smaller units in the network are fluid in membership, and in both cases, one aim of participants at all levels in the hierarchy is financial profit or political gain. In both, the central group tries to protect the smaller units from prosecution. Thus, there are a number of resemblances that warrant calling genocidal organizations a form of organized crime.56

The main differences between the two types of organization lie in the nature of their work, the stability of the organization through time, and their relationship to the state. Genocidal organizations, while they often attract members through the promise of financial gain, have as their main goal the eradication of a population. When that goal is accomplished, they usually disband—unlike organized crime groups, which perpetuate themselves. While genocidal organizations are in operation, they are likely to work for the state—which is seldom the case with organized crime. Genocidal organizations are a form of state-organized crime.57

Criminologists have kept genocide at arm’s length partly because it seems alien to their usual research. As this comparison shows, however, there are points of convergence. Genocide in fact bears many resemblances to other crimes insofar as it involves types of street-level offenses such as homicide, rape, and theft. It also involves the formation of genocidal organizations that are structured like organized crime. Moreover, some genocidal organizations, such as the Reich Committee and the NKVD, pursued

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