Globalisation & Crime (Week 15)

Question 1

How globalisation increases global crime

Answer 1

• Globalisation means that an increasing number of social, political and economic activities are no longer attached to specific countries but a transnational.
• Neo-liberal policies - fewer government controls over business/finance
• Growing global inequalities - increasing gap between rich and poor
• New technology - increasing crime opportunies
• Spread of consumerism

Question 2

Global crimes

Answer 2

• Illegal trade in weapons and nuclear materials
• Illegal drugs trade
• Human trafficking
• Money Laundering
• Cyber crime {scams, terrorist websites, Virus attacks, hacking, identity theft}
• Corporate crimes
• Crimes against the environment

Question 3

Local crimes to Global crimes

Answer 3

• Crimes at a local level often have global links - they are ‘glocal’
• e.g. A drug deal in a British city can involve drugs originating in Columbia and shipped via West Africa.

Question 4

Criminal Networks

Answer 4

• Most global crime is controlled by 2 types of criminal network:
  1. Established Mafias: organised around familiy and ethnicity, adapting to take advantage of opportunities offered by globalisation e.g. the American-Italian mafia
  2. Newer groups: emerging in Eastern Europe and other places after the Cold War
• Criminal groups become ‘deterritorialized’ less tied to certain countries

Question 5

McMafia - Misha Glenny

Answer 5

Misha Glenny (2009) describes them as ‘McMafia’ because they behave in similar ways to legal TNCs such as McDonalds – instead of fast food, they provide drugs, sex, guns, body organs.

Question 6

Human Trafficking

Definition

Answer 6

The illegal movement of people from one country to another.
Usually for the sex trade and prostitution or for other migrant work.

Question 7

About human trafficking

Answer 7

• Human traffickers often keep people in conditions of semi-slavery.
• Women and children are the most common victims
  Human trafficking can be for a range of purposes:
• Some involve smuggling people at high cost into countries they are unable to get into legally
• People are also trafficked for the illegal removal of organs for transplants
• For prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation
• For forced labour
• Human trafficking is for profit but people smugglers help migrants cross borders illegally but for humanitarian reasons (helping refugees)

Question 8

Illegal drugs trade statistics

Answer 8

• in 2007 worth $322 billion a year
• In the UK about hald of all acquisitive crime is drug related

Question 9

What is money-laundering?

Answer 9

Global criminal networks ‘launder’ their income through complex financial transactions in deregulated global money markets.

Question 10

Corporate crime

Definition

Answer 10

Corporate crimes are crimes committed by large companies (or individuals acting on behalf of large companies) that directly benefits the company rather than individuals, and involve increased profits or the survival of the organisation.

Question 11

Corporate crime & TNCs

Answer 11

• Ideas about corporate crime are developed by Marxists
• Corporate crimes have increased due to the rise in TNCs
• TNCs are able to commit corporate crimes because of their power
• TNCs are usually protected by subsidiary companies
• In a court case the subsidiary is prosecuted and the TNC is protected
  e.g. Nike claims to be unaware of the use of child labour in the factories where their clothes are produced because they do not directly own the factories
• TNCs may break a law in their origin country but that may not be a law in the developing country
• TNCs have the power to stop laws being created
• Corporate crimes are treated very differently to other crimes and individuals are rarely prosecuted

Question 12

Crimes against the Environment

Answer 12

• Also called Green Crimes
• They may contribute to climate change
• Environmental disasters are now usually caused by human disasters
  e.g.
• Pollution of air, land, water
• Illegal dumping or disposal of hazardous waste
• Destruction of natural habitats
• Trafficking endangered animals
• illegal fishing and whaling
• Deforestation
  These crimes can be committed by; individuals, business organisations, states and government or organised crime

Question 13

Victims of Green Crime

Answer 13

• The natural world and people are victims of green crime
• The least powerful in society are most likely to be victims (working class, poor, monority groups)
• Potter (2010) environmental harms tend to reinforce exisiting social divisions
  e.g. Lots of waste from developed countries ends up in developing countries. This causes pollution damaging health.

Question 14

Green Crime - Halsey (2004)

Answer 14

• Half the world’s wetlands were lost during the 20th century
• Logging and conversion shrunk the world’s forests by 50%.
• 9% of the world’s tree species were at risk of extinction.
• Nearly 70% of the world’s major marine fish stocks over-fished or being fished to their biological limits.
• Since 1980, the global economy has tripled in size and the world’s population has grown by 30%.

Question 15

Long-lasting effects of Environmental crimes

Answer 15

• Environmental crimes are normally cumulative
• They have long-lasting effects
• Some of the victims will only become victims in the future
• Giddens (2001) suggests that people, and governments, are better at taking action to deal with immediate problems than those which will threaten them in the future. He calls this ‘future discounting’.
• It has taken a long time for environmental harms to be seen as crimes

Question 16

Fines for Environmental crimes

Answer 16

• Law enforment agencies may be reluctant to prosecute
• Laws/regulations may not be fully enforces and are likely to be dealt by government departments e.g. Uk’s Environment Agency
• They tend to give fines rather than criminal prosecution
• Less developed countries don’t have the resources to combat green crimes
• Laws relating to the environment vary between countries
• Evidence of environmental crimes may be hidden
• Lynch & Sretsky (2003) suggested moving from thinking of environmental crime as the breaking of laws protecting the environment to a wider approach that sees any human acts that damage the environment as crimes, regardless of whether a law is being broken or not.
• This raises difficulties as cases are open to interpretation.

Question 17

Key reasons for Environmental crimes

Answer 17

• According to White (2008) environmental crimes are caused by an anthropocentric (human centred) world view. People are seen as more important than the environment and have the right to use the environment as they wish. This applies mainly to actions of corporations and governments but also in the behaviour of individuals.
• The main concern of a corporation is profit - it is seen as acceptable to exploit natural resources
• For Marxists, the capitalist economic system is criminogenic. So some crimes generated will be environmental crimes.
• This is inevitable in a system based on maximising profits and minimising costs.

Question 18

Marxists view - who benefits from global crime?

Answer 18

• For Marxists, global crime benefitsg the ruling class and maintains the unequal capitalist system.
• Law and the ways that they are enforced, reinforce inequalities.
• Most of those guilty in the criminal justice system are working class and powerless.
• Marxists see this as the system being used to remind the working class of their position and how their rulers have the power to punish them.

Question 19

Laws against Global crime - Marxism

Answer 19

• In some countries, laws exist which prevent workers from joining trade unions, from striking, preventing people from protesting.
• These are examples of the criminalisation of actions that might threaten the interests of the powerful.
• Some laws exist which protect workers e.g. health and safety laws
• These are not always enforced and their existence can be seen as a way of trying to persuade workers that the system is fair.

Question 20

Who Benefits from Global Crime? Feminist View

Answer 20

• Global crime is seen as serving the interests of men and reinforcing a patriarchal system.
  E.g. violence against women
• Governments are reluctant to interfere in domestic/family life and to challenge the patriarchal culture which accepts or excuses violence and abuse.
• This means abuse is often not reported because victims do not think offenders will be dealt with and may fear personal consequences.

Question 21

“Honour” Killings

Answer 21

• ‘Honour killings’ are found in South Asia
• The state does not act against the offender and condones the crime.
• When a woman offends family “honour” her punishment can be viewed as deserved

Question 22

Policing & Prosecuting Global Crime

Answer 22

• The rise in global crime has led to more co-operation between states to act against crime
  e.g. 192 states belong to the International Police Organisation Interpol
• Through police forces they work together on a wide range of crimes
• Co-operation between police forces includes sharing technology and intelligence gathering
• New technology can aid police in tackling crime

Question 23

Cybercrime

Answer 23

• These crimes can be carried out by individuals but also by groups or organisations.
  2 types of cyber crime:
  1. Advanced cybercrime - sophisticated attacks against computer hardware and software.
  2. Cyber enabled crime – more traditional types of crime e.g. fraud or sale of fake goods
  Examples of cybercrime:
• Spreading viruses/malware
• Fraud and identity theft
• Theft of intellectual property rights
• Trade in illegal drugs and other illegal goods via the internet
• Cyberterrorism e.g. an attack on a government website
• Scams and phishing
• Obscene or offensive content

Question 24

Problems Policing Cybercrime

Answer 24

• Cybercrimes raise difficulties for policing because the crimes cross national boundaries
• Victims and offenders may live in different parts of the world
• Countries have different laws and may not agree on what is a crime

Question 25

Evidence of Cybercrime

Answer 25

* Hopkins Burke (2009) argues that “ cybercrime has become the phenomenon of the early 21st century and this has been created by the vase expansion of computers in the global economy, the rapid increase of their use in households an, in particular, the Internet.” * Eduardo (2002) explains how transnational crimes may be linked. e.g. A banker in Vienna might launder the profits from cocaine production in Columbia.

Question 26

The Dark web

Answer 26

* Cybercrimes are constantly evolving so police and other agencies struggle to keep up. * e.g. they have to monitor the ‘dark web’ * The Dark Web is where criminals try to act undetected, using specialised software to remain hidden. * The Dark web is parts of the internet not reached by search engines * Activities include: selling drugs and weapons, distribution of counterfeit identities, child abuse material.

Question 27

Analysis of Global crime

Answer 27

* Hopkins Burke: claims that organised crime, which operates across national boundaries, grosses around £41.5 billion a year. * He also says that UN figures estimated that in 1995, the illegal drug trade represented about 8% of world trade. * Michael Levi (2012): is more cautious about the extent of global organised crime, arguing it is impossible to estimate its extent with any accuracy. * He says “what we know is that there has been a boom in illicit trade in recent decades"