crime and globalisation

Question 1

the global criminal economy

Answer 1

the globalisation of legitimate activities and an increasing interconnectedness have brought about the spread of transnational crime

castells - value of the global criminal economy is £1 trillion

examples:
green crime
trafficking of women and children
cyber crimes
smuggling of legal goods
smuggling of illegal immigrants
the drugs trade

the west demands the global criminal economy

in poor countries such as peru, drug cultivation is an attractive option because it requires little investment in technology and commands high prices

in colombia, an estimated 20% of the population depends on cocaine production for their livelihood, and cocaine outsells all of colombia’s other exports combined

Question 2

global risk consciousness

Answer 2

globalisation creates new insecurities and produces a new mentality of risk consciousness in which risk is seen as global rather than tied to particular places

for example, the increased movement of people as economic migrants seeking work or asylum seekers fleeing persecution, has given rise to anxieties in western countries about the risks of crime and disorder

much of our knowledge about risks comes from the media which often give an exaggerated views about the dangers we face - immigration, media creates moral panics about supposed threats, often fuelled by politicians

Question 3

globalisation, capitalism and crime

Answer 3

taylor - globalisation has led to changes in the pattern and extent of crime. by giving free reign to market forces, globalisation has created greater inequality and rising crime

globalisation has allowed transnational corporations to switch manufacturing to low wage countries, producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty

deregulation means that governments have little control over their own economies, for example to create jobs or raise taxes while state spending on welfare has declined

marketisation has encouraged people to see themselves as individual consumers, calculating the personal costs and benefits of each action, undermining social cohesion

the lack of legitimate job opportunities destroys self respect and drives the unemployed to look for illegal ones - in la, de industrialisation has led to the growth of drug gangs numbering to 10,000 members

the deregulation of financial markets has created opportunities for insider trading and the movement of funds around the globe to avoid taxation. similarly, transnational bodies such as the european union has offered opportunities for fraudulent claims for subsides estmiated at over $7 billion per year in the eu

taylor’s theory does not adequately explain how the changes make people’s behaviour change

Question 4

crimes of globalisation

Answer 4

rothe and friedrich - the imf impose pro capitalist neoliberal economic structural adjustment programs on poor countires as a condition for the loans they provide, requires government to cut spending on health and education and to privatise publicly owned services such as water supply

cain - the imf and world bank act as a global state and while they may not break laws, they cause widespread social harms directly and indirectly

Question 5

patterns of criminal organisation

Answer 5

hobbs and dunningham - the way crime is organised is linked to the economic changes brought about by globalisation - involves individuals acting as a hub around which a loose knit network forms composed of other individuals seeking opportunities, often linking legitimate and illegitimate activities

crime works as a glocal system, locally based but with global connections

it is not clear that such patterns are new nor that the old structures have disappeared. it may be that the two have co existed.

Question 6

mcmafia - glenny

Answer 6

refers to organisations which emerged in russia and eastern europe following the fall of communism

the origins of transnational crime is the break up of the soviet union in 1989, which coincided with the deregulation of global markets

under communism, the ussr had regulated the prices of everything. following the fall, the russian government deregulated most sectors of the economy except for natural resources such as oil - remained at old prices - 1/40th of the world market price

anyone with access to funds such as former communist officials could buy up oil and diamonds for next to nothing - sold them abroad at astronomical profit and became oligarchs - russia’s new capitalist class

to protect their wealth, capitalists turned to the mafias

organised to pursue self interest

Question 7

green crime

Answer 7

defined as a crime against the environment

can be linked to globalisation - atmospheric pollution from industry in one country can turn into acid rain in another, poisoning its watercourses and destroying its forests

Question 8

global risk society and the environment

Answer 8

beck - a massive increase in technology has led to us creating manufactured risks, dangers we have never faced before, such as global heating from greenhouse gases

global nature of human made risk - in 2010, russia’s global heating triggered the hottest heatwave in a century in mozambique, causing wildfires that destroyed part of the country’s grain belt. price of bread rose by 30%, casuing riots and looting of shops

Question 9

green criminology

Answer 9

traditional criminology - argues that ‘green crime’ should be defined in a narrow sense – thus ‘green crime’ is defined as any activity which breaches a law which protects the environment. situ and emmons define environmental crime as as unauthorised act or omission that violates the law

green criminology - argues that criminologists should study environmental harms whether or not there is legislation in place and whether or not criminal or other laws are actually broken.

white - argues that the proper subject of criminology is any action that harms the physical environment and humans/animals within it, even if no law has been broken

transgressive criminology - oversteping the boundaries of traditional criminology to include new issues

zemiology - the study of harms

the problem of using a legal definition when studying green crime is that they can’t provide a consistent standard of harm since they are the product of individual nation states and their political processes

marxists argue that the capitalist class are able to shape laws and define crime so that their own exploitative activities are not criminalised. powerful interests are able to define their own interests what counts as harm

Question 10

two views of harm

Answer 10

anthropocentric - human centred view of environmental harm, assumes humans have the power to dominate nature

ecocentric - sees humans and their environments as interdependent, so that environmental harm hurts humans as well

Question 11

types of green crime:

primary green crime

Answer 11

crimes of air pollution - burning fossil fuels from industry and transport adds 6 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year

crimes of deforestation - between 1960 and 1990, 1/5th of the world’s tropical rainforests was destroyed through illegal logging

crimes of species decline and animal abuse - 50 species a day are becoming extinct and 46% of mammal and 11% of bird species are at risk. for example, trafficking of animal parts

crimes of water pollution - 500 million lack access to clean water and 25 million die annually from drinking contaminated water

Question 12

types of green crime:

secondary crime

Answer 12

state violence against oppositional groups - states condemn terrorism, but they have been prepared to resort to similar illegal methods themselves. for example, in 1985, the french secret service blew up the greenpeace rainbow warrior in auckland harbour, killing one crew member

hazardous waste and organised crime - disposal of toxic waste from the chemical, nuclear and other industries is highly profitable. because of the high costs of legal and safe disposal, businesses may seek to dispose of such waste illegal. in italy, eco mafias profit from illegal dumping of it at sea

environmental discrimination - is how south describes the fact that poorer groups are worse affected by pollution. black communities in the usa often find their houses next to rubbish dumps or polluting industries

Question 13

evaluation of green criminology

Answer 13

recognises the growing importance of environmental issues and the need to address the harms and risks of them

by focusing on the much broader concept of harms rather than simply on legally defined crimes, it is hard to define the boundaries of its field of study clearly

Question 14

state crimes

Answer 14

green and ward - ‘illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agencies’

262 million people were murdered by governments during the 20th century

the role of the state in law making means it can conceal crimes because it can avoid defining its own actions as a crime

Question 15

mclaughlin’s categories of state crime

Answer 15

political crimes - corruption and censorship

crimes by security and police forces - genocide, torture, and disappearance of dissidents

economic crimes - official violations of health and safety laws

social and cultural crimes - institutional racism

Question 16

rwanda genocide

Answer 16

caused by the shooting down of hutu’s president plane

mass slaughter of tutsi and moderate hutu in rwanda by members of the hutu majority.

from april to july 1994, an estimated 500,000–1,000,000 rwandans were killed, constituting as much as 70% of the tutsi and 20% of rwanda’s total population.

planned by members of the core political elite known as the akazu, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government.

perpetrators came from the ranks of the rwandan army, the national police, government-backed militias and the hutu civilian population.

Question 17

state corporate crimes

Answer 17

the challenger space shuttle disaster - is an example of state initated crime .risky, negligent and cost cutting decisions made by nasa and the corporation morton thiokol led to the explosion that killed 7 astronauts 73 seconds after blast off

deepwater horizon oil rig disaster - an example of state facilitated corporate crime. the rig, leased by bp, exploded and sank, killing 11 workers and causing the largest accidental oil spill in history. the official enquiry found that companies involved government regulators had failed to oversea the industry adequately or or to notice the companies cost cutting decisions

Question 18

war crimes

Answer 18

kramer and michalowski - argue that to justify the invasion of iraq in 2003 as self defence, the usa and uk knowingly made the false claim that the iraqis possessed weapons of mass destruction

whyte - describes the usa’s neoliberal colonisation of iraq, in which the constitution was illegally changed so that the economy could be privatised. iraqi oil revenues were seized to pay for ‘reconstruction’. in 2004 alone, $48 billion went to the usa alone

kramer and michalowski - during the iraq war, other crimes were committed such as the torture of prisoners. a us enquiry into abu ghraib prison found numerous instances of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses

Question 19

defining state crime

Answer 19

chambliss - defines state crime as acts defined by the law as criminal and committed by state officials in pursuit of their jobs as representatives of the state

however, using this definition is inadequate since it ignores the fact that states have the power to make laws so they can avoid criminalising their actions. furthermore, they can make laws allowing them to carry out harmful acts. nazis sterilising disabled

michalsowski - defines state crime as including not just illegal acts but also legally permissible acts whose consequences are similar to those of illegal acts in the harm they cause

Question 20

zemiology

Answer 20

hillyard - we should replace the study of crimes with zemiology, the study of harms, whether or not they are against the law . this prevents states from ruling themselves out of court, by making laws that allow them to misbehave, and also creates a single standard that can be applied

problems:
- what level of harm must occur before an act is defined as a crime?
- who decides what counts as harm?

Question 21

labelling and societal reaction

Answer 21

labelling theory argues that whether an act constitutes as a crime depends on whether the social audience for that act defines it as a crime. recognises state crime as socially constructed

kauzlarich - study of anti iraq war protestors found that while they saw the war as harmful and illegtimate, they were unwilling to label it as criminal

the media may persuade people to see war as legitimate

rothe and mullins - define state crime as any action by or on behalf of a state that violates international law and/ or a states own domestic law - does not depend on the sociologist’s own personal definitions of harm, or who the social audience is

strand and truman - found that japan has sought to overturn the international ban on whaling by concentrating its foreign aid on impoverishing microstates, including 6 small caribbean islands to bribe them to vote against the ban. shows that international law is a social contraction

Question 22

human rights

Answer 22

natural rights - people have by virtue of existing, such as life, liberty and free speech
civil rights - the right to vote, to privacy, to a fair trial, or to education

schwendinger - state crime should be defined as the violation of people’s basic human rights by the state or its agents. states that practice imperialism, racism, exploitation, and sexism are committing crimes because they are denying people their basic human rights

risse - one advantage of this definition is that virtually all states care about their human rights image, because these rights are now global social norms

schwendinger’s approach is an example of transgressive criminology, since it goes beyond the traditional boundaries of crime which are defined by criminal law

cohen - criticises scwendinger’s view. while gross violations of human rights such as torture are clearly crimes, other acts such as economic exploitation are exploitation are not self evidently criminal even if we find them morally unacceptable

why are human rights hard to define?

Question 23

explaining state crime - the authoritarian personality

Answer 23

adorno - an authoritarian personality includes a willingness to obey the orders of superiors without question. in nazi germany, many germans had authoritarian personality types due to the punitive, disciplinarian socialisation patterns which were common at the time

state crimes are crimes of conformity since they require obedience to a higher authority. in a corrupt police unit, the officer who accepts bribes is conforming to the units norms whilst breaking the law

green and ward - in order to overcome norms against the use of cruelty, individuals who become torturers often need to be re-socialised, trained and exposed to propaganda about the enemy. torture is frequently practised at military bases, allowing the torturer to regard it as a 9 to 5

kelman and hamilton - features of crimes of obedience:
- authorisation - when acts are ordered or approved by those in authority, normal moral principles are replaced by the duty to obey
- routinisation - once the crime has been committed, there is strong pressure to turn the act into a routine that individuals can perform in a detached manner
- dehumanisation - when the enemy is portrayed as subhuman, normal principles of morality do not apply

Question 24

modernity

Answer 24

bauman - the following feature made the holocaust possible
- a division of labour - each person was responsible for just one small task, so no one felt personally responsible for the atrocity
- bureaucratisation - normalised the killing by making it a repetitive, rule governed and routine job. it also meant victims could be dehumanised as mere units
- instrumental rationality - rational, efficient methods were used to achieve a goal, regardless of what the goal is

Question 25

evaluation of state crime

Answer 25

not all genocides occur through a highly organised division of labour that allows participants to distance themselves from the killing. the rwandan genocide was carried out by large marauding groups

ideological factors are also important - nazi ideology stressed a single, monolithic german racial identity that excluded minorities. this meant they did not need to be treated according to normal standards of morality

racist ideology motivated the holocaust rather than actually murdering people

Question 26

the culture of denial

Answer 26

alvarez - the impact of international human rights movements has put pressure on states

cohen’s 3 stages of denial:
- stage 1- it didn’t happen - the state claims there was no massacre, but the media show it did happen
- stage 2 - if it did happen, it is something else - the state says it was self defence
- stage 3 - even if it is what you said it was, it is justified - eg to fight the war on terror

cohen - techniques of neutralisation
- denial of victim - they exaggerate; they are terrorists’
- denial of injury - we are the real victims
- denial of responsibility - i was only obeying orders, doing my duty
- condemning the condemners - they are condemning us only becuse of their anti semitism
- appeal to higher loyalty - self righteous justificationst hat claim to be serving a higher cause