Global crime seminar Flashcards
What are the challenges faced by policing global crime? (11)
- Hard to track
- Fragmented, multi-agency, multi-approach bodies looking at large complex crime, can get very disorganised, uncoordinated and bad communication
- High amount of pressure as very costly and global crimes cost a lot of money e.g. NFA (2012) claim that Fraud costs the UK £73 billion
- more challenging as police need far more resources and collaboration than typically
- Usually involve a large network of crimes, that feed into the whole criminal economy e.g. fraud used to fund terrorism
- Vast number of criminals involved due to high profits available, and low likelihood of being caught
- Police are not trained in dealing with global crime, so at a local level it can be difficult to deal with and identify
- Public anxiety and populist pressure adds another dimension to policing global crimes, as high stakes involved, especially after large scale attacks like the Paris attacks
- Technological advances help facilitate traditional crimes, as well as have new crimes in itself. Technology is also always one step ahead of the police. e.g. social media was used to disperse knowledge about the riots quickly, radicalisation, etc.
- Transnational issues of what is legal/illegal due to different laws in different countries
- New online realms e.g. the dark net is impossible to control
What is the problem with policing the global crime specifically to cyber crime? (3)
- Offenders have no fixed location and there is a huge amount of anonymity which makes it difficult for offenders to be found and caught
- police are not equipped to deal with technological crimes, constantly advancing ahead of the police
- new crimes are made, whilst traditional crimes are facilitated
What is the problem with policing the global crime specifically to terrorism? (4)
- Hard to police non-violent extremists as they have no broken any specific laws, they have a freedom to speech, but what they say my incite another extremist to be violent. Complex cause you cannot criminalise something that is not against the law, but their words do encourage terrorist attacks
- Not only do police need to police terrorist attacks, but also retaliation crimes, which are hard for police to deal with and can come from anywhere e.g. heightened islamphobia in the UK, post-paris attacks
- New Terrorism is harder to police as it does not have ‘prewarning’ like the IRA, it is only considered with mass death and destruction, members of the organisations are also willing to give their own life for the cause so that cannot be used as a fear technique
- In new terrorism there is no/little hierarchy, therefore taking out single leaders does not work, there will still be terrorism, especially with radicialisation online. Also due to online sources, there are also cases of ‘lone wolves’
How are global crimes responded to: FRAUD (who to cite) (4)
(Doig and Levi, 2013)
- Police tend to deal with the high value, low volume fraud crimes as their funding is aimed at ‘elite’ forms of criminal fraud, rather than widespread and low value
- Policing can come from both private and public sector bodies: private sector tend to be more proactive and take action due to their own external motivations (e.g. banks have their own fraud teams) vs. public sector are more reactive and respond to complaints
- Public police find corporate fraud cases the ‘economic burden of crime investigation’ and has low police prioritisation, therefore private sector tend to deal with this themselves
- Policing of global fraud is helped through specialisation, as there are now special bodies and experts that deal with fraud e.g. SFO
How are global crimes responded to: Cybercrime (who to cite) (6)
(Walls and Williams, 2013)
- Prioritisation of certain cybercrimes over others e.g. child pornography rather than illegally downloading music
- Borrowing neighbourhood policing ideas of looking at an online community e.g. social media community and the london riots
- Borrow notions from foucault and Garland’s new control, we need to look after ourselves and protect us from cybercrime e.g. anti-virus software
- Establishment of cybercrime units to encourage prevention e.g. National cybercrime unit in the NCA, units in Europol and Interpol, etc
- Police need to rethink their response to social media operations in light of a crisis situation e.g. riots
- Use of Algarhythems
How are global crimes responded to: Drug Trafficking (who to cite) (2)
(Sheptycki, 1996)
- attempt to increase communication across drug enforcement agencies - more liaison officers and coordination e.g Interpol and Europol
- Advances communication technology within the state as well as outside of the state
How are global crimes responded to: Terrorism (who to cite) (8)
(Innes, 2015)
- Government response is not enough, need to deal with the social side of terrorism, need a more sophisticated approach
- Need to tackle the causes, not just over legislate the problem
- Widen the scope of laws e.g. stop and search for anyone who seems suspicious (however, due to discretion of officers can lead to ‘suspect community’)
- PREVENT initiative in schools for safeguarding
- Community responses: However, retaliation crimes can cause more problems
- CT responses can create ‘folk devils’ and demonise a suspect community, which in return causes more radicalisation e.g. donald trump
- ‘Legislative reflex’ - after signal crime, politicians feel the need to do something, so create a law as more reactionary than a good response
- Intervention: authorities provided with enhanced legal powers, especially online survelliane
What policies are in place to help respond to Fraud, and what do they do? and cite
(Doig and Levi, 2013)
- 2008 intro to the Fraud Strategy: created more awareness, promoted information sharing, tackling large high profile crimes, promoted coordination, increasing focus on the cost and risks of fraud, and increasing preventative methods (e.g. target hardening)
- 2010 strategy review: Should be a unitary response as currently too fragmented, there needs to be a coordination between the public and the private sector as well as having the NFIB and Action Fraud at the centre of the investigations
What recent developments are there in each context, and how have these been implemented for Terrorism? (5)
(Innes, 2015)
- The Anti-Terrorism, crime and security Act 2001 - allowed detention without trial (later overturned by the courts)
- The Terrorism Act, 2006 - extended the detention of suspects without charge from 14 days to 28 days
- The Counter Terrorism Act, 2008 - under which police were permitted to continue questioning suspects after charge
- The Terrorist Arrest-Freezing Act 2010
- The Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill - currently being debated in the house of lords