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82 Crime L. & Soc. Change 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/crmlsc82 and id is 1 raw text is: Crime, Law and Social Change (2024) 82:1-15 https:Ildoi.org/l0.1007/s10611-023-10129-3 Incitement of insurrection: Criminogenic antecedents and potential policy responses Clayton D. Peoples1 James E. Sutton2 Accepted: 16 November 2023 / Published online: 23 November 2023 ŠThe Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023 Abstract On January 6t, 2021, a mob of more than 2,000 Trump supporters stormed the Cap- ital-at his urging-in an effort to halt counting of electoral college votes from the 2020 Presidential Election. Vandalism, injury, and loss of life ensued. Although the actions of Trump and the insurrectionists were alarming, the structural factors that gave rise to this offense are arguably even more troubling. In this paper, we out- line three criminogenic antecedents that provided individual actors an opportu- nity to incite insurrection: (1) a lack of clarity and consensus in conceptualizations of crime, which has resulted in an ambiguous, contentious, and limited foundation from which to respond to crimes of the powerful; (2) a resultant pattern of sym- bolic punishments that fails to control these offenses; and (3) Congressional devi- ance, which virtually ensures that this environment of nonfeasance will continue. We conclude the analysis by proposing policy ideas that will hopefully strengthen our democracy and reduce the risk of something similar happening in the future. Keywords Crimes of the powerful - Congressional deviance - Impeachment- Incitement of insurrection - Organizational deviance - State crime On January 13, 2021, then-President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House under the charge of incitement of insurrection for his role in the storming of the Capitol that occurred a week earlier on January 6t, 2021. Trump's incite- ment of insurrection-and the ensuring actions of his supporters-would seem to be political crimes perpetrated against the state according to Ross's (2003) defini- tion. In the aftermath of these acts, much of the attention has been directed toward critically assessing the behavior of President Trump and those who participated in the insurrection. At the same time, however, there were also deeper forces operating E Clayton D. Peoples peoplesc @unr.edu Department of Sociology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA 2 Department of Sociology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 14456, USA I_) Springer