Topic 8 - Globalisation, Green Crime, Human Rights and State Crime

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  • Created by: 09eatonb
  • Created on: 02-01-16 16:36

Crime and Globalisation -

  • Globalisation = the increasing interconnectedness of societies: what happens in one locality is shaped by distinct events and vice versa
  • Causes of Globalisation:
    • The wide spread of new ICT
    • The influence of the global mass media
    • Cheap air travel
    • The deregulation of financial and other markets
  • The global criminal economy -
    • HELD ET AL - there has been a globalisation of crime: the increasing interconnectedness of crime across national borders, and the spread of transnational organised crime.
    • CASTELLS (1998) - there is a global criminal eonomy worth over £1 trillion per annum
      • this takes many forms:
        • trafficking arms and nuclear materials
        • smuggling illegal immegrants
        • trafficking in women and children
        • sex-tourism
        • cyber crime
        • green crime
        • terrorism
      • The drugs trade is worth an estimated 300-400 billion annually at street prices. Money laundering of the profits from organised crime is estimated at $1.5 trilion anually
  • Global risk consciousness -
    • globalisation creates new insecurities or 'risk consciousness'. risk is now seen as global rather than tied to particular places; economic migrants and asylum seekers fleeing persecution have given rise to anxieties in Western countries.
    • One result in the intensification of social control at the national level e.g. the UK had toghtened border control regulations.
  • Globalisation, capitalism and crime - 
    • marxist - TAYLOR (1997) - globalisation has led to greater inequality
      • Transnational corporations (TNCs) can now switch manufacturing to low wage countries to gain higher profits, producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty.
      • Deregulation means governments have little control over their own economies and state spending on welfare has declined
    • this has produced rising crime and new patterns of crime:
      • among the poor, greater insecurity encourages people to turn to crime, e.g. in the lucrative drugs trade.
      • for the elite, globalisation creates large-scale criminal opportunities, e.g. deregulation of financial markets creates opportunities for insider trading and tax evasion
      • New employment patterns create new opportunities for crime, e.g. using subcontracting to recruit 'flexible' workers, often working illegally.

Patterns of Criminal organisations -

  • as globalisation cretates new criminal opportunities, it also gives rise to new criminal organisations.
  • 'Glocal' organisation -
    • HOBBS AND DUNNINGHAM - crime is organised and linked to globalisation. It increasingliy involves individuals acting as a 'hub' around which a loose-knit network forms, often linking legitimate and illegitimate activities.
      • This is different from the rigid, hierarchical 'Mafia'- style criminal organisation of the past.
      • although these new forms of organisations have global links (e.g. through drug smuggling), crime is still rooted in its local context. crime works as a 'glocal' system - locally based, but with global connections.
  • McMafia - 
    • GLENNY (2008) examined McMafia - organisations that emerged in Russia and Eastern Europe after the fall of communism (1989).
      • The new Russian government deregulated much of the economy, leading to huge rises in food prices and rents.
      • However, commodity prices (for oil, gas, metals etc) were kept at their old soviet prices - way below the world market price. Thus, well-connected citizenswith access to large funds could buy these up very cheaply and…

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