The International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) is a community of scholars working to further our understanding of state crime.

By state crime we mean state organisational deviance resulting in human rights violations. This includes crimes committed, instigated, or condoned by state agencies or by non-state entities that control substantial territory.

The concept of state crime includes but extends beyond legal categories of human rights abuse and international crime. Our focus is on victims as key actors in defining, exposing and challenging state violence and corruption.

ISCI is an interdisciplinary forum for research, reportage and debate. Through both empirical and theoretical enquiry we aim to connect rigorous research with emancipatory activism.

About State Crime

The most serious crimes in the modern world, on any reasonable definition, are acts that are largely committed, instigated or condoned by governments and their officials: for example, genocide, war crimes, torture and corruption. However, state crime is under-acknowledged by popular and academic authors. Calling these activities 'crimes' should be uncontroversial as they violate international and/or national criminal law. A purely legalistic definition of state crime, however, is unsatisfactory for at least three reasons:

Running the Initiative

The International State Crime Initiative is based at King's College London and partnered with University of Hull, University of Ulster and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. The website (stateccrime.org) is designed and administered by Thomas MacManus. It is funded by King's College London Futures Fund and the University of Ulster. All maps used on this website are courtesy of Wikipedia and are used under the Creative Commons License. Photographs from South-Eastern Turkey and North-Western Iraq are (c) ISCI / Yusuf Sayman. Our intellectual property policy may be viewed here. This website was built with Joomla, the Academic Repository is powered by Remository. The website is best viewed in the following browsers: Firefox; Chrome; and Safari. We welcome any and all website feedback - please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

To get involved with the International State Crime Initiative please contact Professor Penny Green at King's College London - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

For comments and suggestions on this website, please contact ISCI Fellow Thomas MacManus - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it