3.3 globalisation and crime

Question 1

How is globalisation defined?

Answer 1

the widening, deepening, and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness

Question 2

What does Castells(2010) argue about globalisation?

Answer 2

• it has led to a global criminal economy, in which new opportunities for crime and new types of crime have emerged

Question 3

What new types of crime has globalisation led to?

Answer 3

• the illegal trade in weapons
• nuclear materials, body parts and drugs
• human trafficking of women and children for prostitution
• cybercrimes
• international terrorism
• money laundering

Question 4

How does the international drug trade work?

Answer 4

• the international drugs trade provides the drugs that are available in local communities in the UK
• Home Office = up to half of acquisitive crime, such as theft and burglary, is drug-related as people steal to support their drug habits

Question 5

What is human trafficking?

Answer 5

• the illegal movement and smuggling of people, for a variety of reasons ranging from the illegal removal of organs for transplants, the exploitation of women and children for prostitution

Question 6

What is money laundering?

Answer 6

• concerned with making money obtained illegally look like it came from legal sources

Question 7

How does Castells refer to money laundering?

Answer 7

• the matrix of global crime = criminals deal with large amounts of cash, which they need to ‘launder’ to avoid their criminal activities from coming to the attention of law-enforcement agencies - the deregulation of global financial markets like the internet make it possible to launder ‘dirty money’ through complex financial transactions involving almost instantaneous repeated electronic movement of vast sums around the world

Question 8

What is meant by cybercrime?

Answer 8

• a wide range of criminal acts committed with the help of communication and information technology, predominantly the internet
• one of the fastest growing criminal activities
• they are ‘glocal’

Question 9

What does Detica estimate about financial cybercrimes?

Answer 9

• crimes like identity theft, online scams, etc. cost the UK £27 billion each year

Question 10

What are some examples of cyber crime?

Answer 10

• internet based fraud e.g. financial scams (Nigerian letters), credit card fraud and money laundering
• child pornography and paedophilia
• terrorist websites and networking, involving recruitment, illegal acquisition of weaponry and planning of attacks
• cyber-attacks e.g. virus attacks and hacking
• identity theft

Question 11

What is an example of terrorist cybercrime?

Answer 11

• 2015 = major concerns about how ISIS was using social media like Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr to conduct a high-tech media jihad to advertise and spread its message globally

Question 12

What is an example of a cyber-attack?

Answer 12

• the cyber-attack of TalkTalk in 2015 = cybercriminals targeted its website in an attempt to steal details of customer identities and financial information

Question 13

What is meant by identity theft?

Answer 13

• criminals trawl the web or other public databases, as well as discarded documents, for people’s personal details, which they then use to take on another person’s identity to apply for credit cards and loans, running up large bills that are then sent to the person whose identity they have stolen

Question 14

What is meant by transnational organised crime?

Answer 14

• Castells = argues that globalisation has created transnational networks of organised crime, which operate in many countries
• these employ millions of people, and often work in collusion with corrupt state officials and legitimate businesses

Question 15

What two main forms of global criminal networks are there according to Farr?

Answer 15

1. established mafias
2. newer organised crime groups

Question 16

What is meant by established mafias?

Answer 16

• like the Italian-American mafia, the Japanese Yakusa, and the Chinese Triads
• very long-established groups, often organised around family and ethnic characteristics
• have adapted thier activities and organisation to take advantage of the various new opportunities opened up by globalisation

Question 17

What is meant by newer organised crime groups?

Answer 17

• have emerged since globalisation, and the collapse of the communist regimes of Russia, Eastern European and Albanian criminal groups, and the Colombian drug cartels, which connect with both one another and the established mafias to form part of the network of transnational organised crime

Question 18

Who uses the term ‘McMafia’?

Answer 18

Glenny (2009)

Question 19

What is meant by McMafia?

Answer 19

• used to describe the way transnational organised crime mirrors the activities of legal transnational corporations like McDonalds, who seek to provide and sell the same products across the world
• they are operating as purely self-interested economic organisations which, instead of fast food, provide drugs, sex, guns, body organs, pornography and opportunities for illegal immigration

Question 20

Who argues for glocalisation?

Answer 20

Hobbs and Dunningham

Question 21

What is meant by glocalism?

Answer 21

• global criminal networks work within local contexts as interdependent local units
• describes the interconnectivity between the local and the global, with transnational crime really rooted in glocalities
• the precise forms of criminal organisation and actual crimes will be shaped by the cultural, political and economic circumstances of the local and global contexts in which they occur

Question 22

What is an example of glocalism?

Answer 22

• the international druugs trade and human-trafficking require local networks of drug-dealers, pimps and sex cclubs to organise supply at a local level
• existing local criminals need to connect to the global networks to continue their activities e.g. accessing drugs

Question 23

In what ways has globalisation affected crime?

Answer 23

1. disorganised capitalism
2. growing inequality
3. supply and demand in a globalised world
4. more opportunities for crime
5. cultural globalisation and the ideology of consumerism
6. growing individualisation
7. global risk society