Crime and Globalisation

Question 1

Crime and globalisation

How does globalisation increase opportunity for crime?

Answer 1

• as world becomes more interconnected, the opportunities for cross-border crime increase (fraud, drug dealing, poaching etc.)

Question 2

Crime and globalisation

What crimes, in particular, does globalisation increase our awareness of?

Answer 2

• risks posed by the harms we do to the global environment, like global warming
• human rights abuses

Question 3

Crime and globalisation
As globalisation has provided opportunities for legitimate business activities, it has also brought about growth in transnational organised crime. What is one offence that has increased?

Answer 3

• cyber-crime

Question 4

The global criminal economy

How much does Castells estimate that the global criminal economy is worth?

Answer 4

• £1 trillion per year

Question 5

List some examples of global crime?

Answer 5

• arms trafficking
• trafficking in nuclear materials
• smuggling of illegal immigrants
• trafficking in women and children (ie. prostitution and slavery) (estimated half a million people are trafficked to Western Europe each year)
• sex tourism
• trafficking in body parts for organ transplants
• cyber-crime like identity theft and child pornography
• green crimes
• international terrorism based on ideological links
• smuggling of legal goods to evade taxes/ stolen goods
• trafficking in cultural artefacts/ art
• trafficking in endangered species and their body parts
• money laundering

Question 6

The global criminal economy
The global criminal economy has both a demand side and a supply side. What is one reason for the scale of transnational organised crime? What does the supply side provide?

Answer 6

• demand for its products and services in the rich West
• drugs, prostitution
• provides a supply of drugs, sex workers and other goods and services demanded in the West - mostly from developing world (easily bribed, police aren’t well funded to deal with crime)

Question 7

The global criminal economy

How does supply link to the globalisation process?

Answer 7

• most drugs are grown in the developing world (Afghanistan - heroin) - large populations of impoverished peasants
• for the peasants, drug cultivation is an attractive option requiring little investment in technology and commands higher prices than traditional crops
• eg. in Colombia, 20% of the population depend on cocaine production for their livelihoods (they then defend the producers so they can’t get caught)

Question 8

Global risk consciousness
What is an example of how globalisation creates new insecurities and a new mentality of risk consciousness in which risk is seen as global?

Answer 8

• increased movement of people as economic migrants seeking work/ asylum seekers fleeing persecution

Question 9

Global risk consciousness

How does the media exaggerate the risks we face?

Answer 9

• in the case of immigration, they create moral panics and supposed ‘threats’ often fuelled by politicians (eg. Nigel Farage)

Question 10

Global risk consciousness

What is an effect of the media’s negative coverage of immigration?

Answer 10

• led to hate crimes

Question 11

Global risk consciousness
One result of global risk consciousness is the intensification of social control at the national level. How is this done (4)?

Answer 11

• UK has tightened its border control regulations
• UK has no legal limit regarding the period of time in which a person can be held in immigration detention
• other European states have brought in fences, CCTV, thermal imaging to prevent crossing
• increased attempts at international cooperation and control of various crimes (esp. since 9/11)

Question 12

Globalisation, capitalism and crime
Taylor argued that globalisation has led to changes in the pattern and extent of crime. How has globalisation created greater inequality and rising crime?

Answer 12

• giving free rein to market forces
• supply and demand are both high
• polarised the rich and the poor into Western world (demand, consumers) and places such as Africa (supply drugs etc.)

Question 13

Globalisation, capitalism and crime

What factors have meant that crime has increased among the poorest people?

Answer 13

• transnational corporations have switched manufacturing to low wage countries, producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty
• deregulation means government have little control over their own economies, to create jobs or raise taxes, while spending on welfare has declined
• marketisation has encouraged people to see themselves as individual consumers (calculating personal costs and benefits of each action, undermining social cohesion)
• left realists show increasing materialism promoted by global media portrays success in terms of consumption

Question 14

Globalisation, capitalism and crime
All of the crime increasing factors have contributed to increased crime among the poor. How has the lack of legitimate job opportunities contributed to this?

Answer 14

• destroys self-respect
• drives unemployed to look for illegitimate jobs eg. drug dealing
• in LA, deindustrialisation has led to growth in drugs gangs

Question 15

Globalisation, capitalism and crime

How has globalisation led to greater criminal opportunities on a grand scale for elite groups?

Answer 15

• deregulation of financial markets have created opportunities for insider trading and transferring money to avoid taxes
• creation of transnational bodies had offered opportunities for fraudulent claims for subsidies (ie. groups promising to do work and then not carrying it through after being paid)

Question 16

Globalisation, capitalism and crime

Globalisation had led to new patterns of employment. How has this contributed to crime?

Answer 16

• increased use of subcontracting to recruit ‘flexible’ workers - leads to illegal workers/ exploited
• suppliers can be switched easily
• they’re illegal so cannot go to the authorities and so accept exploitation

Question 17

Globalisation, capitalism and crime

What is a criticism of Taylor’s theory that globalisation has led to changes in the pattern and extent of crime?

Answer 17

• does not explain how the changes make people behave in criminal ways - not all poor people turn to crime

Question 18

Crimes of globalisation
Rothe and Friedrichs examine the role of international financial organisations such as the World Bank in what they call ‘crimes of globalisation’. Who are these organisation dominated by and what is the result?

Answer 18

• dominated by major capitalist states

- 5 (US, Japan, UK, Germany, France) have 1/3 of voting rights

Question 19

Crimes of globalisation

What is a result of these 5 countries having 1/3 of the voting rights within international financial organisations?

Answer 19

• these organisations impose pro-capitalist, neoliberal economic ‘structural adjustment programmes’ on poor countries
• ie. in your country build 3 airports (for tourism eg.) then we’ll give you money for healthcare, most of loan is spent employing those from the West to build them, profits go back to West
• programmes often require governments to cut on healthcare and education and privatise things like water supply

Question 20

Crimes of globalisation
Rothe et al showed how the programme imposed on Rwanda in the 1980s caused mass unemployment and economic basis of genocide of 1994. Give a brief overview

Answer 20

• 1960s: Belgians didn’t want two different tribes to unite and overthrow their rule
• so they favoured one tribe and isolated the other
• when Belgians left, resentment grew and genocide began

Question 21

Crimes of globalisation

What does Cain conclude about the IMF and World Bank?

Answer 21

• they act as a global state

- while they might not break any laws, their actions can cause direct and indirect social harms

Question 22

Patterns of criminal organisation
Hobbs and Dunningham comment that the way crime is organised is linked to economic changes brought about by globalisation - in what way?

Answer 22

• increasingly involves individuals with contacts acting as a ‘hub’ around which a loose network forms, composed of other individuals seeking opportunities linked to illegitimate activities
• no fixed workforce
• incredibly difficult for the police to investigate (global, so many people, so informal)

Question 23

‘Glocal’ organisations

Although organisations can have international links, where is crime still rooted? Why is this?

Answer 23

• in the local context

- individuals still need local contacts and networks to find opportunities to sell drugs

Question 24

‘Glocal’ organisations

How can crime now be described as ‘glocal’?

Answer 24

• crime is locally based but has global connections
• form it takes will vary from place to place according to local conditions even if influenced by global factors like the availability of drugs from abroad

Question 25

‘Glocal’ organisations
Hobbs and Dunningham conclude that changes associated with globalisation have led to changes in patterns of crime (shift from old hierarchical gang subcultures to loose opportunistic entrepreneurial criminals.) What is unclear though?

Answer 25

• if these patterns are new (new gangs cropping up then disappearing)
• whether the older structures have disappeared
• may be that both have always co-existed
• may overestimate how these loose structures are for criminal activities everywhere (in some parts, old structures will exist)