Scientific Articles
The Life Course of Pol Pot: How his Early Life Influenced the Crimes he Committed
Authors:
Myra de Vries ,
About Myra
Myra de Vries graduated her BSc Criminologie at Leiden University in 2012, and is currently a student in the MSc International Crimes and Criminology programme.
Maartje Weerdesteijn
VU University Amsterdam; Center for International Criminal Justice; Utrecht University, NL
About Maartje
Maartje Weerdesteijn is an assistant professor at the department of criminology and researcher. Her PhD research “The Rationality of Dictators” was published with Intersentia and defended at Tilburg University in 2016. She previously worked as a lecturer at the History of International Relations department.
Abstract
International criminology focuses mostly on the lower level perpetrators even though it finds the leader is crucial for orchestrating the circumstances in which these people kill. While numerous theories from ordinary criminology have been usefully applied to these lower level perpetrators, the applicability of these theories to the leaders has remained underexplored. In order to fill this gap, the life course theory of Sampson and Laub will be applied to Pol Pot whose brutal communist regime cost the lives of approximately 1.7 million people. A unusual childhood, the influence of peers while he studied in Paris, and his marriage to a woman who shared his revolutionary mind-set, were all negative turning-points for Pol Pot.
How to Cite:
de Vries, M. and Weerdesteijn, M., 2018. The Life Course of Pol Pot: How his Early Life Influenced the Crimes he Committed. Amsterdam Law Forum, 10(2), pp.3–19. DOI: http://doi.org/10.37974/ALF.318
Published on
01 Mar 2018.
Peer Reviewed
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