Topic 8 - Globalisation, green crime, human rights and state crime

crime and globalisation

·         globalisation - interconnectedness of societies (one society copies another)

·         Many causes - spread of new ICT, mass media, cheap air travel, deregulation of financial/other markets

the global criminal economy

Held - globalisation of crime: increasing interconnectedness = spread of transnational organised crime.

Castells - global criminal economy = £1 trillion

·         many forms e.g. trafficking arms/nuclear materials, smuggling immigrants, trafficking women/children, sex tourism, cybercrime, green crime and terrorism.

·         drugs trade = $300-400 billion. Profits from organised crime = $1.5 trillion

global risk consciousness

·         new insecurities or ‘risk consciousness’. Risk = global e.g. migrants/asylum seekers = anxieties in Western countries

·         result = intensification of social control at national level e.g. tighter boarder control

globalisation, capitalism and crime

Marxist Taylor – globalisation has led to greater inequality

·         transnational corporations switch to low-wage countries gaining higher profits, job insecurity, unemployment and poverty

·         deregulation = little control over own economies/state spending on welfare has declined

this has produced rising crime/new patterns of crime:

·         poor = insecurity encouraging a turn to crime e.g. drug trade.

·         Elite = large scale criminal opportunities e.g. deregulation of financial markets creates opportunities for insider trading/tax evasion

·         New employment patterns = new opportunities for crime e.g. using ‘flexible’ workers/working illegally

Patterns of criminal organisation

Globalisation = new criminal opportunities also giving rise to new forms of criminal organisation

1)    ‘Glocal’ organisation

Hobbs/Dunningham – involvement of individuals acting as a ‘hub’ around which a loose knit network forms, linking legi/illegit activities

·         This is different from the rigid, hierarchal ‘Mafia’ style criminal organisations of the past.

·         These new forms have global links but crime is still rooted in local context. Crime works as a ‘glocal’ system – local based w/ global connections

 2)    McMafia

Glenny examined McMafia – emerged in Russia/Eastern Europe after fall of communism (89)

·         Russian government deregulated economy, leading to rises in food prices/rents

·         But, commodity prices (oil, gas, metals) kept at old Soviet…