Globalisation and crime Globalisation: the world is becoming increasingly interconnected and barriers are disappearing

Globalisation has many causes Spread of new information and ict Influence of a global mass media Cheap air travel Deregulation of financial and other markets

How does crime relate to globalisation Crime has also been globalised: crime has become more interconnected across boarders Globalisation has brought about the spread of transnational organised crime Globalisation has created new opportunities for crime, new means of committing crime and new offences eg cyber crime, people trafficking

Castells As a result of globalisation, there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion Castells states that one of the reasons for globalised crime is the idea of supply and demand The demand for products and services comes from rich countries in the west and the supply from usually developing countries / third world countries Eg developing drug producing countries have large populations of impoverished people and drug civilisation is an attractive option that requires little investment in technology and commands higher prices compared with traditional crops

Beck: global risk consciousness Globalisation creates a new risk consciousness- risk is seen as global rather than tied to particular places/ locally Media often have an involvement Eg may create a moral panic about immigration- coming over taking jobs and trafficking people, prostitution Can lead to public support for increased attempts at international cooperation and control over various areas eg 9/11 justified the war on terror

Taylor (left realist): Globalisation, capitalism and crime Taylor argues globalisation has created crime at both ends of the social spectrum It has allowed transnational corporations to no longer be regulated as tightly by governments- don’t have to comply to strict conditions Free markets and deregulation mean that governments have little control over their own economies, has led to greater inequality and rising crime as state spending on welfare has declined Transnational corporations switch manufacturing to low wage countries to gain higher profits, producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty Has also led to the marketisation of society by creating self-seeking individuals concerned only with material wealth undermining social cohesion Left realists claim the increasing materialistic culture promoted by the global media portrays success in terms of a lifestyle of consumption which leads to individuals committing utilitarian crime to achieve goals of society A03: not all poor people turn to crime

Patterns of criminal organisations

Hobbes Argues that crime is no longer just local but ‘glocal’, as it involves networks of people across the globe Rather than being based on old mafia-style fixed hierarchies, criminal networks are increasingly more fluid as well as drugs other examples of glocal trade are trafficking women and children for prostitution and slavery and smuggling legal and stolen goods to sell on foreign markets Process: forms of globalised organisations sometimes have international links, especially with the drugs trade, but crime is still rooted in its local context Eg individuals still need local contacts and networks to find opportunities and to sell their drugs, but they also need the product

Gleeny Tracks the spread of modern transnational crime to the breakup of the soviet union and the berlin blockade and the simultaneous deregulation of global markets In Russia this created opportunities for a new capitalist class (often ex communist officials) to make vast sums of money selling the countrys natural resources, such as gas, on global markets To protect their wealth these ‘oligarch’ turned to new ‘macmafias’, comprised of ex-communist secret service employees, police etc and former criminals Again, these criminal networks were not organised like the traditional mafia, and groups such as the chechens would even franchise their businesses to other parts of the globe

Green crime Is any crime against the environment linked to globalisation as the planet is a single eco-system that is being threatened

Two types of crimes (south) Primary crimes Secondary crimes Green crimes that are the direct result of the destruction and degradation of the earths resources- deliberately doing it Air pollution by burring fossil fuels, deforestation, water pollution leading to lack of clean drinking water or lack of access to it Green crimes involve the flouting of existing laws and regulating eg dumping toxic waste and breaking health and safety rules, hazardous waste, bohpal and Chernobyl

Beck: global risk society and the environment Beck claims that we live in a global risk society since the increase of technology and productivity has created new ‘manufactured risks’ dangers that we have never faced before Many of these risks involve harm to the environment and its consequences for humanity, such as global warming caused by green house gas emission from industry

Criminology Only studies patterns and causes of law breaking Traditional criminology Gren criminology Only studies patterns and causes of law breaking Transgresses (oversteps) the boundaries of traditional criminology White argues that current laws are inadequate and that green crime should be defined as any crime that causes harm even if it is not illegal He argues that green crimes such as deforestation of the rainforests are not being adequately dealt with by internal laws, due to the influence of transnational corporations like mconalds

Harm White argues that green criminology takes an ecocentric view, which sees environmental harm as being interconnected with the future of human well being and the world This contrasts with the anthropocentric view favoured by transnational corporations the view that believes humans have a right to exploit the resources of the planet, including animals, for their own benefit

Evaluation of green crime Draws attention the increase in manufactured global risks and global environmental concerns It identified the need to address the impact of environmental damage to both humans and the other species on the planet Green crimes emphasis on harm means that it is based on subjective opinions. There are no clear boundaries in terms of defining or studying green crime

State crime These are crimes or deviant activities that have been state endorsed, or perpetrated by the state or its agencies with permission State crimes are committed by, or on behalf of the states and government in order to further their policies Eg: genocide (holocaust), executions (bin laden), war crimes (blair, bush), torture etc

Mclaughlin: categorising state crimes (4) 1: political crimes: eg corruption and censorship 2: crimes by security and armed forces: eg genocide, torture 3: economic crime: eg official violations of health and safety laws 4: social and cultural crimes: eg institutional racism

Why is state crime a serious crime As it reflects the scale/magnitude of state crime: it shows how the state is able to commit large scale crimes with widespread victimisation. Shows how states are able to inflict massive harm and has the power and means to conceal its crime and evade punishment. The media focuses on state crimes in third world countries but avoids reporting on such crimes in the west The state is a source of law, so no one can challenge it: it shows how the state defines a criminal and manages the cjs by picking and choosing what types of crimes to prosecute. Its power to make the law also means it can deny its own crimes. State control of the cjs also means it can persecute its enemies. The state is ‘above the law’

The state and human rights State crime can be examined through the notion of human rights

Here is no agreed list of human rights but most definitions include Natural rights: these are what people are regarded as having simply by the virtue of existing eg right to life, liberty and free speech Civil rights: these are rights, like the right to vote, to a fair trial and to education A right is an entitlement and acts as protection against the power of the state over an individual Examples of the state violating human rights: nazi party making it legal to persecute jews and sterilising disabled people

Crime as a violation of human rights Critical criminologists, schwendinger argue that we should define crime in terms of the violation of basic human rights, rather than the breaking of legal rules Schwendiger studies semiology as they study social harms rather than crime that is defined by the criminal law With this definition, states that deny individuals human rights must be regarded as criminal. So states that practice imperialism, racism or sexism, or inflict economic exploitation on their citizens are committing crimes The state should be seen as a perpetrator of crime and not simply as the authority that defines and punishes crime Zemiology: the study of harms. It is concerned with why some harms are to be defined as crimes while others do not, even when they cause more damage than do many crimes. Often such harm are committed by groups such as big businesses and the state, who have the power to define their actions as legal

Evaluation of scwendiger Cohen: while ‘gross’ violations of human rights, such as genocide, torture are clearly crimes, other acts like economic exploitation are not self evidently criminal, even if we find them morally unacceptable Other critics argue that there is only limited agreement on what counts as a human right eg some would argue that freedom from poverty is not a human right

Cohen: spiral of denial (3 stages) Cohen is particularly interested in the ways in which state conceal and legitimate their human right crimes While dictatorships deny committing human rights abuses, states have to legitimise their actions in more complex ways Stage 1: ‘it didn’t happen’: for example, the state claims that there was no massacre but the human rights organisations, victims and the media show it did happen Stage 2: ‘its not what it looks like’ Stage 3: justify stage: it was self defence, to protect national security etc

Cohen: neutralisation theory (from matza) Cohen examines the way in which states and their officials deny or justify their crimes Draws on the work of matza who identified 5 neutralisation techniques that delinquents use to justify their deviant behaviours Cohen shows how states use the same techniques when they are attempting to justify human rights violations 1: denial of victims: they exaggerate eg they are terrorists, they used violence, look at what they do to each other 2: denial of injury: they started it, we are the real victims not them 3: denial of responsibility: only obeying orders, doing duty 4: condemning the condemners: the whole world is picking on us, its worse elsewhere, they are condemning us because of their anti-Semitism/hostility/racism 5: Appeal to higher loyalty: still righteous justification- the appeal to the higher cause, whether the nation, the revolution, islam the defence of the ‘free world’, sate security etc, isis = god These techniques do not seek to deny that the event has occurred. Rather, as cohen says – they seek to negotiate or impose a different construction of the event from what might appear to be the case

The social conditions needed for state crime Sociologists argue that some state crimes are part of a role individuals are socialised into Hamilton et al termed this ‘crimes of obedience’ 1: authorisation: this is when acts are ordered or approved of by those in higher authority. This is where moral principles are replaced by a ‘duty to obey’ 2: routinisation: the crime become routine- a common practice that can be done in a clinical, detached manner 3: dehumanisation: this is where the ‘enemy of the state’ is portrayed as subhuman. Not to be treated as normal/ here the usual principles of morality do not apply eg holocaust – jews, nazi Germany

Evaluation of state crime and human rights Human rights are interpreted differently by different states- there is no global policing on this Critics of this view would argue that so-called state crimes are not in fact criminal. They would reject the notion of ‘state crime’ and would argue that acts such as increased censorship and the restricting of the human rights of suspected terrorists are necessary in the case of national interest