Globalisation And Crime Flashcards
CASTELLS (1998)
There is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum. It takes a number of forms:
Arms trafficking to illegal regimes, guerrilla groups and terrorists.
Trafficking in nuclear materials, especially from the former communist countries.
Smuggling of illegal immigrants, for example, the Chinese Triads make an estimated $2.5 billion annuals.
Trafficking in women and children, often linked to prostitution or slavery. Up to half a million people are trafficked to Western Europe annually.
Sex tourism, where Westerners travel to Third World countries for sex, sometimes involving minors.
Supply and demand
Part of the reason for the scale of transnational organised crime is the demand for its products and services in the rich West.
However, the global criminal economy could not function without a supply side that provides the source of the drugs, sex workers and other goods and services demanded in the West.
This supply is linked to the globalisation process. E.G: Third World drugs-producing countries such as Peru and Afghanistan have large populations of impoverished peasants to whom drug cultivation is an attractive option for survival. These crops generate more revenue than traditional ones!
E.G: In Columbia, an estimated 20% of the population depends on cocaine production for their livelihood, and cocaine outsells Columbia’s other exports combined.
Global risk consciousness
Globalisation creates ‘risk consciousness’ in which risk is seen as global rather than tied to particular places.
E.G: The increased movement of people has given rise to anxieties among populations in Western countries about the risks of crime and disorder and the need to protect their borders.
Whether such fears are rational or not is a different matter.
Increased social control
Negative coverage of immigrants- portrayed as terrorists or scroungers has led to hate crimes against minorities in several European countries including the UK.
The result: Intensification of social control at the national level. The UK has toughened its border control regulations, E.G fining airlines if they bring in undocumented passengers. The UK also now has no legal limits on how long a person can be held in immigration detention. Other European states with land borders have introduced fences, CCTV etc.
Another result of globalised risk is the increased attempts at international cooperation and control in the various ‘wars’ on terror, drugs and crime- particularly since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
Taylor (1997) GLOBALISATION, CAPITALISM & CRIME:
Globalisation has allowed transnational corporations to switch manufacturing to low wage countries, causing job insecurity, unemployment & poverty.
Has meant that governments have little control over their own economies. E.G: to create jobs or raise taxes. State spending on welfare has declined.
Marketisation encourages people to see themselves as individual consumers, undermining social cohesion. Left realists note that this portrays success in terms of consumption!
Taylor (1997) GLOBALISATION, CAPITALISM & CRIME:
HOW DOES THIS CAUSE CRIME?
All these factors cause insecurity and widening inequalities that encourage people, especially the poor, to turn to crime. Lack of legitimate job opportunities destroys self-respect and drives the unemployed to seek illegitimate opportunities such as the drugs trade.
E.G: In LA, de-industrialisation has led to the growth of drugs gangs numbering 10,000 members.
How does this cause crime( Taylor’s theory)
Globalisation also created criminal opportunities on a grand scale for elite groups. E.G: The deregulation of financial markets has created opportunities for insider trading and movement of funds around the globe to avoid taxation.
It has led to the increased used of subcontracting to recruit ‘flexible’ workers, often working illegally or employed for less than the minimum wage or working in breach of health and safety laws.
Taylor’s theory does not adequately explain how the changes make people behave in criminal ways. E.G not all people turn to crime!
Creating conditions for crime
Rothe & Friedrichs argue that these bodies (international financial organisations) impose pro-capitalist, economic ‘structural adjustment programmes’ on poor countries as a condition for the loans they provide.
These programmes often require governments to cut spending on health and education, and to privatise publicly owned services (such as water supply).
While this allows Western corporations to expand into these countries, it creates the conditions for crime.
Patterns of criminal organisation
Hobbs & Dunningham conduct a local study of a similar town:
The way crime is organised is linked to economic changes caused by globalisation.
It involves individuals with contacts acting as a ‘hub’ around which a loose-knit network forms, linking legitimate and illegitimate activities.
They contrast it with the mafia-style Kray twins in the East End of London!
‘GLOCAL’ ORGANISATION (HOBBS & DUNNINGHAM)
Global and local links for new forms of organisation.
Therefore, the form crime takes will vary from place to place, according to local conditions, even if influenced by global factors such as the availability of drugs from abroad.
Shift from old, rigid and hierarchical organisations to flexible, entrepreneurial criminals.
However, it is not clear if this is new or if the two always co-existed. Also, conclusions may not be generalisable elsewhere!
GLOBAL ‘RISK SOCIETY’ & THE ENVIRONMENT:
Beck (1992): The massive increase in productivity and technology that sustains us has created new, ‘manufactured risks’- dangers we have never faced before.
E.G: Global warming caused be greenhouse gases from industry.
Green crime
Green crime can be defined as crime against the environment.
Regardless of the division of the world into separate nation states, the planet is a single eco-system and threats to it are increasingly global!
Example of green crime
In Russia, global warming triggered the hottest heat-wave in a century, causing wildfires that destroyed parts of the country’s grain belt. The resulting shortage led Russia to introduce export bans and pushed up the world price of grain.
The knock-on effect in Mozambique, which is heavily dependent on food imports, was a 30% rise in the price of bread. This sparked looting and rioting that left a dozen dead. Mozambique’s own harvest had been hit by drought also.
At the same time, international speculators were engaging in what the World Development Movement called ‘gambling on hunger in financial markets. (Patel, 2010)
