2.2.8 Crime and Deviance: Globalisation, green crime, human rights, and state crime

Question 1

Crime and globalisation

How has globalisation affected the drugs trade?

Answer 1

Demand in the west is met with supply from lower class countries where people find drig cultivation more profitable than traditional crops.

Question 2

Crime and globalisation

How does globalisation create ‘risk consciousness’

Answer 2

Risk is now seen as global rather then tied to particular places. E.g economic migrants and asylum seekers fleeing persecution has given rise to anxieties in western countries.

Question 3

Crime and globalisation

How does Taylor (marxist) think globalisation has led to greater inequality?

Answer 3

Transnational companies can switch manufactoring to low-wage countries to gain higher profits, producing job insecurity, unemployment, and poverty.

Question 4

Crime and globalisation

How do left realists see globalisation and increasing crime?

Answer 4

The materialistic culture created from global media increase relative deprivation, undermining social cohesion and encouraging crime.

Question 5

Patterns of criminal organisation

How did Hobbs and Dunningham find that new crime is organised due to globalisation?

Answer 5

• ‘Glocal’ organisation.
• locally based crime ‘hub’ with global connections.

Question 6

Patterns of criminal organisation

Why did globalisation lead to the formation of Glenny’s ‘McMafia’ in Russia?

Answer 6

• Emerged after the fall of communism in Russia which led to an economic crisis, however prices of gas and oil remained low so well-connected citizens bought these up and sold them globally.
• Turned into ‘mafias’

Question 7

Green crime

What is green crime?

Answer 7

Crimes or harms against the environment

Question 8

Green crime

How does Beck link ‘Global risk society’ and the environment?

Answer 8

• Increase in technology has increased ‘manufactured risks’ involving harm to the environment.
• These risks are on a global scale. e.g climate change, nuclear damage.

Question 9

Green crime

What is the argument between traditional criminology and green criminology?

Answer 9

• Traditioanl criminology argues that if harm to the environment is legal, then it is not of interest to criminologists.
• Green criminology argues that legal definitions are inconsisten and base green crime on harm to the environment.

Question 10

Green crime

In what way is green criminology a form of transgressive criminology?

Answer 10

• It oversteps the boundaries of traditional criminology and laws to include new issues.

Question 11

Green crime

What are the two views of harm?

Answer 11

• Nation states apply an anthropocentric view of environmental harm (human centred), arguing that humans have a right to dominate so putting economic growth before the environment.
• Green criminology takes an ecocentric view that sees humans and their environment as interdependent so environmental harm also harms humans.

Question 12

Green crime

What are the two types of green crime identified by South?

Answer 12

• Primary green crimes - result directly from the destruction of the earth’s resources (e.g air pollution, deforestation, species decline, and water pollution)
• Secondary green crimes - involve the flouting of rules aimed at preventing or regulating environmental disasters.

Question 13

Green crime

In what way is toxic waste dumping globalised green crime?

Answer 13

• western businesses ship off their waste for processing in low income countries where it costs less and safety standards are non-existant.

Question 14

State crime

How do Green and Ward define state crime?

Answer 14

‘illegal or deivant activities perpetrated by, or with the complicity of state agencies’

Question 15

State crime

What are the four categories of state crime identified by McLaughlin?

Answer 15

• political
• economic
• social/cultural
• ## crimes by security and police forces.

Question 16

State crime

How is the scale of state crime so large?

(4)

Answer 16

• The state’s power enables it to commit large scale crimes e.g in cambodia, the gov killed up to one fifth of the countries population.
• The state’s power means it can conceal crimes more easily and evade punishment.
• The state defines what is criminal so can avoid criminalising its own actions.
• National sovereignty makes it very difficult for external authorities to intervene against genocide and war crimes.

Question 17

State crime

Explain what happened with the genocide in Rwanda

Answer 17

• Rwanda became a belgian colony in 1922 and the Belgians used Tutsi’s to rule over the Hutus, identifying them as two seperate ethnic groups when before they were more like different classes.
• Rwanda gained independence in 1962 and elections bought the Hutus to power, leading to a civil war in which 800,000 tutsis (along with some hutus) were killed.

Question 18

State crime

How is the Challenger space shuttle an example of ‘state-initiated’ crime?

Answer 18

• State initiated crime is when state approves and directs crime.
• for the challenger space shuttle, risky, negligent, cost-cutting decisions by the state agency of NASA led to the explosion that killed 7 astronauts 73 seconds after take-off.

Question 19

State crime

How is the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster an example of state-facilitated crime?

Answer 19

• State-facilitated crime is crime that emerges as a result of state negligance to regulate and control corporate behaviour, enabling crime.
• The oil rig exploded and sank, killing 11 workers and causing the largest accidental oil spill in history.
• It was caused by companies cost cutting decisions which government regulators had failed to oversee.

Question 20

State crime

What are the two types of state crime that Kramer and Michalowski distinguish?

Answer 20

• State initiated crime - where the state directs amd approves corporate crime (e.g the Challenger space shuttle)
• State-facilitated crime - where states fail to regulate and control corporate behaviour, making crime easier (e.g the deepwater horizon disaster)

Question 21

State crime

What are the two types of war crime that Kramer and Michalinowski distinguish?

Answer 21

• illegal wars - falsely claiming that a war is in self-defence.
• Crimes committed during war or its aftermath - e.g bombing civilians, illegally taking an occupied country’s assets, torture of prisoners.

Question 22

Defining state crime

How does Hillyard et al argue we should define the study of crime?

Answer 22

• We should redefine the study of crime as ‘zemiology’ meaning the study of harm.
• However, who decides what counts as harm?

Question 23

Defining state crime

How does Herman argue that we should define state crime?

Answer 23

• In terms of violation of human rights.
• transgressive approach.

Question 24

Defining state crime

How does Cohen argue state’s create a ‘culture of denial’ of human rights violations?

Answer 24

• dictatorships deny committing human rights abuses.
• Democratic states have to legitimise their actions with a three stage ‘spiral of state denial’
• Denial of victim
• Denial of injury
• Denial of responsibility
• Neutralisation theory.

Question 25

Explaining state crime

What are crimes of obedience?

Answer 25

• State crimes involve individuals obeying higher authority. e.g the holocaust
• The ‘authoritatian personality’ is someone willing to obey orders without question.

Question 26

Explaining state crime

Kelman and Hamilton identify three features of crime of obedience

Answer 26

• Authorisation by those in authority.
• routinisation of the crime.
• Dehumanisation of the enemy.