Crime and Deviance - Globalisation of Crime Flashcards
1
Q
What is globalisation and crime?
A
Globalisation - Giddens; social change has made distance and national borders far less important as barriers between social groups
- Whatever happens in one society can quickly affect another - anywhere in the world
- Examples - terrorism, political turmoil, elections, financial crisis’ and a health pandemic
Held et al -
- Globalisation is the greater interconnectedness of social life and the social relationships throughout the world
2
Q
How does globalisation help tackle and cause crime?
A
- Causing crime; Technology - crime syndicates can spread, making fraud crimes harder to track (global crime networks with huge numbers of people)
- Causing crime; Transport - drug trades allow borders to be ignored and trafficking to happen much more efficiently and allows human trafficking
- Causing crime; chat rooms spread criminal ideologies and exposure to new ideas e.g. terrorism
- Causing crime; Trade - things are allowed to go anywhere at any time, helping criminals
- Causing crime - new crimes enabled by the development of media e.g. grooming, hacking and other cybercrimes, paedophilia
- Causing crime - financial crimes such as tax havens, money laundering
- Tackling crime; Technology - easier for interpol to track crimes
- Tackling crime - shared intelligence
- Tackling crime - extradition agreements to allow cooperation to let the countries bring her back to where she needed to be charged
- Tackling crime - LEDC countries can be supported through in the face of disasters of criminality such as drugs and riots and fraud
- Tackling crime - establishment of Europol
- Tackling crime - since 9/11, sharing of info between the UK and US has greatly increased to protect us
- Tackling crime - Better chance to prevent money laundering
3
Q
Amnesty International - Why is global crime and issue?
A
- Found that a minimum of 111 countries practised torture and ill treatment in 2009
- A calculation by Rummel estimated that 262 million people were killed by various forms of state action in the 20th century
- It is estimated that over 120,000 civilians have been violently killed since the invasion of Iraq in 2003
- Many of them have been victims of actions by the military forces of the states involved
- An example of grand corruption is the activities of Mubarak, the former leader of Egypt, whose estimated wealth was $70 billion in 2011
- The total value of transnational organised crime is estimated by the United Nations to be approximately £1 trillion per year
4
Q
Castells on the globalisation of crime - supply and demand
A
- Part of the reason for transnational crime is the economy of demand and supply
- The rich west demands products e.g. sex workers, drugs
- The poor third world countries supply these services
- For example, in Columbia, 20% of the population is dependent on the cocaine trade for their livelihood - economy would crash without it
- As a result of globalisation, there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum - takes a number of forms:
> Arms trafficking to illegal regimes, guerilla groups and terrorists
> Trafficking of nuclear materials
> Smuggling illegal immigrants
> Trafficking women and children
> Sex tourism - sometimes involves minors
> Trafficking in body parts for organ transplants - 2,000 organs taken from condemned or executed criminals in China
> Cyber-crimes
> Green crimes
> International terrorism
> Smuggling of legal goods
> Trafficking in cultural artefacts
> Trafficking in endangered species
> The drugs trade
> Money laundering
What are the barriers in preventing crimes such as these?
Corrupt security services, some countries do not care about some as much as others
5
Q
Castells - the drug trade
A
- Colombia, Brazil and Argentina grow / produce cocaine which is shipped via Western Africa to Europe
- Afghanistan, Pakistan and India produce opium which is turned into heroin which transfers through Africa to the US and UK
6
Q
Castells - Criminal networks and the effects of global crime
A
- Globalisation involves the development of networks that cut across national boundaries
- Self-contained societies no longer exist - crime crosses borders
- Criminal networks might exist in places like Colombia and Afghanistan because government systems are more corrupt and benefit more directly from criminal actions (Colombia struggle with the FARC group, Afghanistan has the Taliban) - vast countries and sparse populations are difficult to regulate, and some companies use them to overthrow governments
3 global crime businesses -
- Taliban, Mafia, Triads, Kray Twins
- They are not victimless crimes, as those who are exploited to grow illegal goods have no ability to do anything about it, those who are high risk for getting caught with drugs, and those who fall into addictions who are victims
7
Q
Glocal crime - Hobbs and Dunningham
A
- Hobbs and Dunningham - the way crime is organised is linked to economic changes through globalisation - individuals with contacts act as a hub around which a loose-knit network forms, composed of other individuals seeking opportunities and often linking legitimate and illegitimate activities
- Argue that this contrasts with the large scale, hierarchical ‘Mafia’-style criminal organisations of the past, such as the Kray Twin gang of East London
- These new forms of organisation sometimes have international links, especially with the drugs trade, but crime is still rooted in its local context - individuals still need local contacts and networks find opportunities and to sell drugs, and crime therefore is a glocal system - it is locally based with global connections (county lines and drugs)
- This means that the forms it takes will vary from place to place, according to local conditions, even if it is influenced by global factors such as the availability of drugs from abroad
- Led to changes in patterns of crime, with a shift from rigidly hierarchical gang structures to loose networks of flexible, opportunistic and entrepreneurial criminals, but it is unclear if the older structures have disappeared but have simply become less prominent
8
Q
Newburn and Beck
A
Risk society: Beck
Globalisation increases the crime and increases risks of victimisation, but equally it means that we do not understand the full volume of crime and diluted our awareness of risk
Newburn (2013): Effects of globalisation
The following consequences:
1) Reduce the power of the nation state - who takes responsibility?
2) New opportunities to commit crime - variations in laws between countries and move between countries to avoid arrest
3) Creates new awareness of risk from foreign countries eg: cyber terrorism, global warming and international terrorism - links to Beck’s ‘Risk Society’
4) Can lead to international systems of justice eg: treaties and international courts. But also amplifies fear of outsiders and may increase efforts of social control to exclude groups like immigrants
9
Q
McMafia - Glenny
A
- Glenny refers to the organisations which emerged in the old Soviet bloc countries after the fall of communism as McMafia
- The fall of communism in 1989 coincided with the deregulation of the global financial markets
- Under communism, the government regulated the price of everything and after the fall they deregulated prices apart from natural resources which stayed at the old price - a forteith of the world market price
10
Q
Glenny’s research - the McMafia
A
What does Misha Glenny identify as the commercial success story of the last 20 years?
Organised crime - this has seen a rapid growth and expansion
- What percentage of the world’s GDP did organised crime account for in 2009 (the year that the film was made)?
15% - What is the other name Glenny gives to McMafia?
Global shadow economy - What event does Glenny identify as key to the increase in cross-border crime?
The collapse of communism across Eastern Europe; Glenny himself smuggled books across the border to those in these countries
Paired with globalisation and the fall of the Berlin Wall - What were some of the problems of the changes that occurred after 1989?
Ethnic nationalism in Yugoslavia, and those who continued to hold power despite people winning back their rights - KGB (Putin) and left a power vacuum which the richest of the communist world filled. - Who are the ‘midwives of capitalism’?
Key communist figures and celebrities, particularly weightlifters, propped up the free market in the East - they were the rich people who filled the power void - midwives of capitalism as they are the ones that raised capitalism in previously communist countries, and they were more versed and experienced in capitalist countries and democracy in the West. - What happened after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe?
The state also collapsed, including the CJS and the police; businessmen therefore turned to privatised law enforcement agencies in order to protect their contracts. - Who were the privatised law enforcement agencies?
The mafia who were soon joined by 14,000 people who had lost their state security jobs. Without a government and police, they pay the mafia to protect them, and the security people joined organised crime.
11
Q
Glenny’s research on the McMafia - pt2
A
9) Why did Glenny start his research into organised crime in the Balkans?
He was covering the conflict in Yugoslavia - he noticed that the paramilitary organisations were those running the syndicates, and noticed that the global criminal underworld was underneath all of this conflict. The Balkans had a collapse of law and order, and it was the best location for the drug trade transit from all around the world.
- What crimes were emerging from this area?
Drug trafficking, human trafficking, mining / precious mineral trade, illicit good imports, sexual exploitation crimes - How many people were involved in global crime?
500 million. Zones of production, zones of distribution and zones of consumption. - Where were the zones of distribution?
The developing world - Mexico and the Balkans - Where were the zones of consumption?
The European Union, the West, Japan and other richer countries, the US. - Where do the zones of production tend to be and what threats do they face?
They tend to be in poorer areas, and the first two zones tend to be in the developing world and are threatened by violence and bloodshed. 6,000 people were killed in 2009 due to the cocaine trade, and since 1998, over 5 million people have died in Congo over minerals. - What is the primary driver of international organised crime?
The Western desire to consume. - How do smugglers make money on cigarettes?
By selling them duty free and avoiding the tax of the EU; without having to register the cigarettes for tax, they are able to make huge amounts of profits. - How much money was lost by Britain as a result of the work of the smugglers?
$8 billion - How were the gangsters able to get away with their trade?
They had 20 high speed boats that would cross the Adriatic Sea every night; sometimes, they would bring women being trafficked in order to redirect the police by throwing them overboard.
12
Q
Glenny’s research into the McMafia - pt3
A
- What do the international criminals do with their money and how is this made easier by globalisation?
Liberal financial markets - money laundering; financial centres were competing for their business and nothing could be done to prevent money laundering (UWOs - unexplained wealth orders, which ask that they explain where the money is from, and if they cannot, assets would be seized). The laundering of the money through financial markets to sell and buy other goods, and it is made easier by the globalisation of banks in which regulation has decreased. Offshore banking is also a massive part of this. - How much money did Bernie Madoff steal?
$65 billion; he did it from the heart of Wall Street, fleecing ordinary people for their money. - Why has the production of drugs moved location? Why is this going to present a problem?
This has been moved to British Columbia, which has led to the spread of production areas; the problem however is that the United Nations has noted how Canada has become a major producer of synthetic drugs and it shifts production from the developing world and into the Western world. The lack of need for natural resources means that the drugs can be sourced anywhere, which may dilute the wealth of the gangs and create a business model of drugs, and drugs no longer rely on the natural source, making it harder for police to locate the source of the drugs. - How have the organised criminals changed their interests to adjust to the economic recession?
Without rules and with opportunity, they have shifted their operations away from using their own crimes and using financial markets, counterfeit groups and cybercrime in order to mask their operations. They sell what people can afford, as people cannot buy drugs and sex in a recession, and so they sell goods etc, and they can simply change their supply as there is no cost regulation. - According to Glenny, why is cyber-crime so easy to carry out?
Social engineering - it is easy to persuade people to do things with their devices that is not beneficial to people, and the best way to access people’s wallets is through love and relationships. - How have the internet and organised global crime contributed to the spread of malaria?
It is assisting the spread of malaria - Cambodian individuals are buying the drugs needed to stop the infection on the internet where it is cheaper, but the drugs brought on the internet are not as strong, which allowed the parasite to develop a resistance to the drug. This allows malaria to spread.
