State Crime, Structural Violence and COVID-19

While corrupt "direct awards" under the emergency legislation began with COVID-19-related procurements, they were quickly extended to non-CO VID19-related contracts (The Good Law Project 2020b) 3 Investigative work by the Good Law Project and other groups has documented in some detail the "special pathways" by which cronyism and clientelism, hallmarks of certain forms of capitalist criminal processes, have advanced the interests of private corporations at the expense of public health (The Good Law Project 2020c) A pattern thus emerges Since the outbreak of the pandemic we have witnessed governments around the world gifting highly lucrative contracts to their corporate supporters who in turn have also failed to deliver the necessary services they were contracted to provide While journalists, researchers and human rights organisations have done outstanding work exposing the corrupt interactions between politicians and CEOs, the primary crime manifests itself in the economic and social effects of these schemes, and is predominantly propelled by the social and economic structures informing capitalist society [ ]of structural violence, millions of people fail to meet even their most basic needs