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Topic 8- Globalisation and Crime - Coggle Diagram
Topic 8- Globalisation and Crime
Globalisation refers to the increasing interconnectedness of societies. Globalisation has many causes which include the spread of new Infomation and communication technologies and the influence of global mass media.
Global criminal economy
Held et al: there has been a globalisation of crime. The same process that has brought about the globalisation of legitimate activities has also spread about that spread of organised crime.
Castells: there is now a global criminal economy and takes a number of forms including arms trafficking, cyber crime and green crime.
Global criminal economy has both a demands side and a supply side. Part of the reason for the scale of the organised crime is the demand of its products and services in the west. However, global criminal economy couldn't function without a supply side that provides the sources of drugs and other goods.
Global Risk consciousness
Globalisation creates new insecurities and produces a new mentality of risk consciousness in which risk is seen as global rather than tied to particular case.
Much fears are created by the media which often give exaggerated view of the dangers we face. In the case of immigration the media creates moral panics about the supposed threat which is fuelled by politicians. Negative coverage of immigrants has led to more hate crime against minorities
One result is the intensification of social control at the national level. The Uk has toughened border control regulations EG fining airlines if they bring in undocumented passengers. Similarly, the UK have no legal limit on how long a person may be held in immigration detention.
Globalisation, capitalism and crime
Taylor: globalisation has led to changes in the pattern and extent of crime. By giving free rein to market forces, globalisation has created greater inequalities and rising crime.
Globalisation has created crime at both ends of social divide. It has allowed corporations to switch manufacturing to low wage countries producing job insecurity and unemployment. Deregulation means that government has little control over their own economies. Marketisation has led to people seeing themselves as individual consumers and calculate the personal costs.
Those factors create insecurity and widening inequalities that encourage people especially the poor to turn to crime. At the same time globalisation also creates criminal opportunities on a grand scale for elite groups. EG deregulation of financial markets have created opportunities for movement of funds around the globe to avoid tax evasion
Globalisation has also led to new patterns of employment which have created more opportunities for crime. It has led to the increased use of subcontracting to recruit flexible workers often working illegally or below minimal wage .
Taylors theory is useful in linking global trends in the capitalist economy to the changes in the pattern of crime. However doesn't adequantly explain how changesmake people behave in criminal ways
Patterns of criminal organisation
Hobbs and Dunningham conducted a local study of a post- industrial town. They found that the way crime is organised is linked to the economic changes brought by globalisation. It involves individuals with contacts acting as a hub around which loose knit networks form composed of others seeking opportunities. They argue that this contrasts with the large scale hierarchal mafia style criminal organisations
Glocal Organisation
Hobbs and Dunningham argue that crime works in a glocal system. This means its locally based but with global connections. This means that the form it takes will vary from place to place according to local conditions even if its influenced by global conditions such as availability of drugs from abroad.
Hobbs and Dunningham argues that changes associated with globalisation has led to changes in patterns or crime. EG the shift from the old rigid hierarchy gang structure to loose networks of flexible, opportunistic, entrepreneurial criminals.
However its not clear that such patterns are nor or that the old patterns have disappeared. May be that the 2 have co-existed.
McMafia
Glenny: McMafia refers to the organisations that emerged in Russia and eastern Europe following the fall of communism which is a major factor in the process of globalisation. He traces the origins of transnational organised crime to the break up of the soviet union which coincided with the deregulation of global market.
Under communism the soviet state had regulated the prices of everything. However, following the fall of communism the government deregulated all sectors apart from natural resources such as oil which remained at their own prices. Anyone with access to the funds got these resources for pretty much nothing and sold them abroad for high prices which created a new capitalist class
The collapse of the communist state heralded a period of increasing disorder. To protect their wealth capitalists therefore turned to the Mafias that had sprung up. They were purely economic organisations formed to persuit self interest
With the assistance of these fluid and violent organisations the billionaires were able to find protection for their wealth and means of moving it in and out of the country. Criminal organisations were vital to the entry of the capitalist class in the world economy. At the same time the mafias were able to build connections across the world