SCHOLAR: CRIMES AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT

Political crime can be defined as illegal acts which aim to change political order.  Crimes that are committed against the state are such examples as assassination, treason, civil disobedience and or terrorism.  Crimes can also be committed by the state and these include torture, human rights violations, and state terrorism.  When states commit political crimes, it is very likely that they may perhaps be corrupt.  A recent political crime which is still being dealt with are the residential schools for the indigenous people.  The government forced the indigenous to attend these schools wherein they were forced to assimilate into the Canadian society.  These indigenous people evidently got abused in these schools and were miss treated.  This is a dark spot in our history which to this day leaves many wounds in our society.  The sterilization and abuse of these people had led them to lose parts of their identity. Many people overlook this and or are unaware about the tribulations the indigenous underwent in order to get recognition from the state.  In current day there are still marginalized indigenous peoples, some reserves don’t even have clean drinking water.  I believe that Canada should focus on rectifying these conflicts with the indigenous people and that they should have more representation in our society.  These people have been far mistreated and we should be grateful that these people shared their lands with us.

Another contemporary example of political crime could be the event of 911, where two planes had collided with the world trade centers.  This crime was devastating and shocking.  It realized that there was a threat to the liberal values of the west.  Many people died and there is still a war on terror to this day.  This crime mobilized the government to be more aware of this type of crime.  It resulted in increased surveillance and precautions to prevent this sort of thing from happening.  Homeland security was established to prevent terrorism and today they are an integral part of American federal relations.