AGE, GENDER, AND THE CRIME OF CRIMES: TOWARD A LIFE‐COURSE THEORY OF GENOCIDE PARTICIPATION*

• Author: HOLLIE NYSETH BREHM,JEAN‐DAMASCÈNE GASANABO,CHRISTOPHER UGGEN
• Published date: 01 November 2016
• Date: 01 November 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12122

AGE, GENDER, AND THE CRIME OF CRIMES:

TOWARD A LIFE-COURSE THEORY OF GENOCIDE

PARTICIPATION∗

HOLLIE NYSETH BREHM,1CHRISTOPHER UGGEN,2

and JEAN-DAMASC `

ENE GASANABO3

1Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University

2Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota

3Research and Documentation Center on Genocide, Rwandan National

Commission for the Fight Against Genocide

KEYWORDS: life course, genocide, gender, Rwanda

This article asks whether genocide follows the age and gender distributions common

to other crime. We develop and test a life-course model of genocide participation to

address this question using a new dataset of 1,068,192 cases tried in Rwanda’s gacaca

courts. Three types of prosecutions are considered: 1) inciting, organizing, or supervis-

ing violence; 2) killings and other physical assaults; and 3) offenses against property.

By relying on systematic graphic comparisons, we find that the peak age of those tried

in the gacaca courts was 34 years at the time of the genocide, which is older than the

peak age for most other types of crime. We likewise find that women were more likely

to participate in crimes against property and comparatively unlikely to commit genoci-

dal murder. Symbolic–interactionist explanations of crime suggest people desist from

crime as a result of shared understandings of the expectations of adulthood. We argue

that this process may be turned on its head during genocide as participants may believe

they are defending their communities against a perceived threat. Thus, in contrast to

other criminological theories suggesting that people must desist from crime to be ac-

corded adult status, some adults may participate in genocide to fulfill their duties as

adult men.

During the twentieth century, more people died as a result of genocide than as a re-

sult of all other crimes (Brannigan and Hardwick, 2003; Savelsberg, 2010). Despite the

scale of this violence, few criminologists have systematically examined genocide partici-

pation. As Savelsberg (2010) and Hagan and Rymond-Richmond (2009) demonstrated,

however, explanations of crime and genocide are closely connected, from state-level stud-

ies of preconditions to individual-level analyses of perpetrators. In line with this reason-

ing, we develop a life-course model to test how the two strongest correlates of crime—age

and gender—are linked to genocide.

∗Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online

Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2016.54.issue-4/issuetoc.

Direct correspondence to Hollie Nyseth Brehm, Department of Sociology, The Ohio State Uni-

versity, 238 Townshend Hall, 1885 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210 (email: brehm.84@osu.edu).

C2016 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12122

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 54 Number 4 713–743 2016 713

714 NYSETH BREHM, UGGEN, & GASANABO

We focus on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, where up to one mil-

lion people were killed within several months. By using new data on more than one

million cases tried in Rwanda’s gacaca courts, we examine the age and gender distribu-

tions of defendants and compare them against age and gender distributions typical of

other crimes. Our analysis reveals that participation in genocide declines with age and

that more men than women participated. Yet, unlike classic research on age and crime—

which suggests that participation in crime peaks in adolescence and early adulthood—

we find that the peak age of Rwandan defendants was 34.7 years during the genocide.

This surprising finding also contradicts much scholarship on Rwanda that has empha-

sized the preponderance of young men among the perpetrators (e.g., Des Forges, 1999;

Jones, 2002) as well as general scholarship on “youth bulges” and armed conflict (e.g.,

Urdal, 2006).

To explain this finding, we turn to life-course theories of crime. According to most ex-

planations of crime and the life course, people desist from crime as a result of shared

understandings of the expectations of adult citizens—for people to “grow up,” there is

typically a cultural expectation that they must inevitably “settle down” (Massoglia and

Uggen, 2010). During genocide, however, this process may be turned on its head. Geno-

cides are frequently framed through the lenses of duty and honor, and perpetrators often

report that they act to protect their family or country from dangerous outsiders. In this

sense, crimes of genocide can be aligned with the gendered expectations of responsible

adult citizenship. Thus, in contrast to criminological theories suggesting that people must

“age out” and desist from crime to be accorded adult status, we argue that some adults

may participate in genocide to fulfill their duties as adult men.

In what follows, we first explain why genocide is a crime and address its similarities with

other crimes. We then review scholarship on the relationships among age, gender, and

crime as well as related research on genocide perpetrators. Next, we draw on this schol-

arship to develop and test a life-course theory of genocide with our database of gacaca

court trials. Finally, we discuss the implications of a life-course theory of participation in

genocide.

GENOCIDE AS CRIME

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime

of Genocide deemed genocide a crime of international law in the wake of the Nazi

Holocaust. This new crime was defined as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in

whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Although this definition

remains heavily criticized—with many scholars suggesting that any group could be

targeted—the treaty nonetheless established genocide as a crime of international law.

Several international tribunals have since solidified the idea of genocide as a crime (see

Sutherland, Cressey, and Luckenbill, 1992: 4), and today genocide is one of several

crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Despite its devastating social impact, genocide has been more commonly studied by

historians, political scientists, and legal scholars than by criminologists (but see Hagan

and Rymond-Richmond, 2009; Karstedt, 2013; Rafter, 2016). This is surprising as geno-

cide has much in common with other forms of crime. Like hate crimes (Grattet and Jen-

ness, 2001), for example, genocide is defined by the targeting of particular groups. Like