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Globalisation and crime in contemporary society (How globalisation has…
Globalisation and crime in contemporary society
Basics
Held & McGrew
- globalisation is "the widening, deepening, and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness."
Deterritorialisation - an increase in numbers of social, political, and economic activities are no longer attached to specific countries, but are transnational and stretched across the globe.
The local and global are increasingly interconnected , and activities and decisions in one place can have significant consequences for people in another part of the world.
'A single territory for both legal and illegal business.'
The nature and extent of global crime
Karofi and Mwanza (2006)
and
Castells (2010
) argue that globalisation has led to a global criminal economy.
New opportunities for crime and new types of crime
Types of crime
International illegal druge trade
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report 2007 - estimated to be worth $322 billion a year.
Raw material from developing countries, selling and profit made in the West
Higher worth than the GDP in 88% of the countries in the world
Human-trafficking
The National Crime Agency estimated 13,000 people in Britain were victims of slavery .
Money-laundering
Castell
- 'the matrix of global crime
Making money made illegally to look like it came from a legal source.
Money can be 'laundered' through complex financial transactions
Cyber crime
Many forms of crime that are committed with the help of communication and information technology
They are 'global'
Detica (2011
) - estimates that financial cyber crimes such as identity theft , online scams, fraud relating to tax, pensions and benefits, local and central government and the NHS, and intellectual property theft cost the UK £27 billion each year.
Internet-based fraud, child pornography and paedophilia, terrorist websites and networking, cyber attacks, and identity theft.
Transnational organised crime
Castells
argues that globalisation has created transnational networks or organised crime.
Employ millions of people, and often work in collusion with corrupt state officials and legitimate business.
Farr (2005)
suggested 2 main forms of global criminal networks
Established mafias - Italian - American mafia, Japanese Yakusa, and the Chinese Triads. Very long established groups, often organised around family and ethnic characteristics.
Newer organised crime groups - have emerged since the advent of globalisation and the collapse of communist regimes of russia and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. Include Russia, East Europe and Albanian criminal groups
Hobbs & Cunningham (1998
) suggests the global criminal networks within the local contexts interdependent lack units. E.g, the illegal drugs trade and human-trafficking require local networks of drug dealers, pimps and sex clubs.
How globalisation has effected crime
Disorganised capitalism
Lash & Urry (1987)
- globalisation has been accompanied by less regulation and fewer state controls over business and finance
Taylor (1997-99)
- this process has led to fewer job opportunities and more job insecurity, less formal sector and more informal.
Growing inequality
Taylor (1997)
- the winners globalisation are the rich financial investors and TNCs based in the West.
The losers are both workers in the developing and developed world, and are exposed to even more risks, inequalities, exploitation and experience growing relative deprivation. This feeds crime.
Supply and demand in a globalised world
Growing global inequality and poverty in the developing world. Plus desire (from the media) to urbanise where they think they will be better-off, as well these countries have made immigration harder. Demand for sex workers in the city, illegal immigrants will supply them as they are desperate.
More opportunities for crime
Opportunities for new types of crime
New means of carrying out crimes
Cultural globalisation and the ideology of consumerism
Mass tourism, migration, and the influence of the media has spread a similar culture and ideology of consumerism across the globe.
Young (LR)
- many people have little chance of achieving the 'good life' associated with affluent Western lifestyles, and a bulimic society encourages a turn to crime.
Growing individualisation
Bauman (2000)
argues that in a late modernity, there is growing individualisation.
Taylor
- individuals are left alone to weigh the pros and cons of their decisions, and to choose the course that brings them the best chances of gaining the highest rewards.
This ideology of consumerism promoted by a Western-based global media has led to people putting personal gain above community benefit.
Merton
- do they accept the legitimate goals and achieve them by legitimate means?
Global risk society
Globalisation adds to the insecurity and uncertainty of life in late modernity, and generates what
Beck (1992)
calls a 'global risk society'.
People become more 'risk conscious' and fearful of things like identity fraud, losing their jobs, threats from asylum seekers, and terrorism.
Evaluation
Strengths
Valuable as it focuses on some of the newest, most dramatic, and serious forms of crime, and links them to local and global contexts.
Weaknesses
Secretive and complex nature means it is a difficult area for sociologists to investigate.
Reliable statistics may not be available which affects the validity.
Research can be dangerous, as global crime involves powerful and dangerous individuals.
Some regard it as a distraction from research into more routine crimes which concern people and have a more significant impact on their daily lives.
It is easier to exaggerate globalisation, and stats show that crime is dropping in the UK.
The increase in interconnectedness of global law enforcement has also meant that the lives of offenders has been made more difficult, thus deterring people from committing crime.