Introduction

In Chapter Three we posed a central problematique that the study of war within criminology has become synonymous with the ‘war on terrorism’. In this chapter (and those that follow) we offer this position some reinterpretation and development. This is done first by evidencing past and present criminological connections to the worst crimes conceivable under the broad rubric of ‘war’. Here we provide a general rejoinder to observations posed in William Laufer's (1999) ‘Forgotten criminology of genocide’. Following Laufer (1999) we illustrate criminology's historical relationship to genocide and, more specifically, with the Holocaust. Next, we define and critically discuss the term ‘genocide’ as an international crime. Finally, we outline some of the ways in which criminologists have addressed genocide throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. Here we consider most recent scholarship in this area focusing attention on genocidal violence occurring in South and Southeast Asia at the time of writing. This is followed by some concluding thoughts on the continued challenges facing the criminological study of genocide.

In discussing the social phenomenon of genocide in these ways we do not intend to offer an exhaustive overview of the histories or interdisciplinarity of genocide studies, nor provide detailed case studies and profiles of genocides past and present. Others have already achieved these things successfully outwith criminology (see Totten and Bartrop, 2009; Bartrop, 2015), as well as within the discipline. Instead, the discussion here is dedicated to some of the historical and conceptual challenges of studying genocide as a criminological and sociological endeavour, thereby illustrating emergent agendas for criminological studies of war to address.

The Holocaust: connecting criminology to genocide

Returning briefly to Hagan and Greer's (2002) criminological account of the Nuremberg trials (Chapter Two), despite Glueck's substantial contribution to international legal practices relating to war crimes, this involvement was short lived. As Hagan and Greer (2002: 255) note, notwithstanding his influence in foregrounding crimes against humanity within the Nuremberg trials (discussed later), Glueck ‘joined other criminologists in ignoring war crimes’ for the remainder of his career and, ‘like those who surrounded him in post-war policymaking circles, he displayed little inclination to take on the culture and social structure that allowed the Holocaust to happen’.