Globalisation, Green Crime , Human Rights And State Crime

Question 1

Globalisation of crime

Answer 1

Held et al Suggest there has been a globalisation of crime. Globalisation creates new opportunities for Crime/new offences. There is a spread of Transnational organised crime due to demand for products in rich west.

Castell argues there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum

1) Arms trafficking To illegal regimes/Guerrilla groups and terrorists
2) Trafficking nuclear materials
3) smuggling of illegal immigrants (Chinese trade make estimated 2.5 billion annually

Question 2

Global risk consciousness

Answer 2

Globalisation creates new insecurities and produce new mentality of risk consciousness.

Main risks that we know of come from the media which often exaggerated of the dangers we face e.g. immigration = media creates more panics about supposed threat. Negative coverage of immigrants that to hate crimes against minorities in the UK.

UK has toughened border control regulations e.g. finding airlines if they bringing undocumented passengers.

Another globalised risk is increased attempts At international corporations + control various war on terror, drugs and crime particularly since terrorist attack 9/11

Question 3

Globalisation capitalism and crime - Taylor

Answer 3

Taylor argues globalisation lead to changes in patterns and extent of crime. Globalisation increased inequality and rising crime due to market forces.

Globalisation allowed transnational corporations to switch manufacturing to low-wage countries = creates job insecurity.

Lack of legitimate job opportunities destroy self-respect drives unemployed to look for a illegitimate ones.

Globalisation increase use of subcontracting to recruit flexible workers, often working illegally.

Taylors theory useful linking global trends in capitalist economy changing patterns of crime

Question 4

Hobbs and Dunningham- Patterns of criminal organisation

Answer 4

Crime organised in correlation to economic changes brought by globalisation.

Individuals with contacts acting as a hub around network forms composed of other individual seeking opportunities and often linking due to legitimate and illegitimate activities

Glocal system- based locally but with global connections eg Availability of drugs from abroad

Question 5

Mcmafia

Answer 5

Crime organisation emerged in Russia and Eastern Europe following fall of communism itself a major actor in the process of globalisation.

In order to protect their wealth, capitalists therefore turned into ‘mafias’. These new Russian mafias were purely economic organisation formed to pursue self interest.

With this billionaires able to find protection for wealth and a means of moving it out the country.

Question 6

Green crime

Answer 6

Defined as crime against the environment.

Question 7

Situ and Emmons - green crime

Answer 7

define environmental crime as “an unauthorised act or omission that violates the law”. (Positivist)

This means that as the law changes from one country to another, green crimes also change.

Question 8

Rob white - green crime

Answer 8

Believes, green crime should be defined as:
‘any action that harms the physical environment and any creatures that live within it, even if no law has technically been broken’. (Interpretivist)

Question 9

Giddens and beck - green crime

Answer 9

external forces, eg earthquakes, drought.

In modern society there are now manufactured risks, ie risks that humans produce themselves, through pollution, new illnesses and crime.

Question 10

Biopiracy

Answer 10

When companies illegally take control of plants/animals/resources being used by indigenous people. Often resulting in the loss of lives/culture due to the people not being able to live e.g. deforestation.

Question 11

corporate engineering of nature

Answer 11

– This undermines sustainability and diversity bringing harm to local populations e.g. GM crops, building dams, mining and fracking.

Question 12

Primary green crimes

Answer 12

Air pollution - burning fossil fuels from industry - bophal incident

Deforestation -

Species decline and animal right/ poaching - 50 species becoming extinct a day.

Water pollution - contaminated water/lack of clean drinking water eg nestle company pollution water in India people died

Question 13

State crime

Answer 13

And illegal or deviant activity perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agencies

Question 14

State crimes examples

Answer 14

State crimes are committed by or on behalf of states and governments in order to further their policies

Genocide/war crimes/torture/imprisonment without trial/assassination

Question 15

McLaughlin - 4 categories of State crime

Answer 15

1) Political crimes – to gain or hold power
2) Crimes by security/police forces – to suppress opposition
3) Economic crimes – to do with money/working conditions
4) Social and cultural crimes – to do with racism/sexism/homophobia and other forms of prejudice

Question 16

Ross - 3 Categories of State crime

Answer 16

1) Crimes in a country and crimes between countries
2) Direct and indirect actions of state
3) Commission (deliberately) and omission (not doing something)

Question 17

Human right & state crime

Answer 17

One way of exploring state crime is though looking at human rights.

Human rights are:

• natural rights = These are what people are regarded as having simply by virtue of existence e.g. right to life/liberty and Free Speech
• Civil rights = these are rights from the state, like the right to vote/privacy/housing/education

Question 18

Neutralisation theory- Cohen

Answer 18

Cohan shows how governments use the same techniques as people to explain/excuse their actions.

1) Denial of victim – they are terrorists
2) Denial of injury – they started it/its self defence
3) Denial of responsibility – we are following orders
4) Condemning the condemners – they are picking on/victimising us
5) Appealing to higher loyalty – there is a bigger cause/sacrifice which are inevitable

Question 19

features that produce crimes of obedience - Kelman and Hamilton

Answer 19

Argued people will go along with human rights abuse in certain circumstances which make it easier for neutralisation.

1) Authorisation – when acts are ordered/approved by those in authority, normal principles are replaced by the duty to obey
2) Routinisation – once crime committed, there is strong pressure to turn act into a routine which individuals can perform in a detached manner
3) Dehumanisation – when enemy portrayed as subhuman rather than human described as animals, monsters, the usual principles of morality do not apply

Question 20

Green and ward 2 main approaches

Answer 20

1) Integrated theory – in order for crime to happen there must be a motive. Opportunity to commit and failure of control to stop the crime e.g. NASA
2) Obedience approach

Green and Road argue that needs to be a dialectical approach where to ideas formed together and the structure of society and individuals factors are combined. Eg Gaddafi Regime in Libya

-clientism- Corrupt government granting favours in return for financial/political support to keep power. Common in Italy/UK. Viber call this patrimonial states

Question 21

Spiral of denial

Answer 21

Cohan argues dictatorship is generally denied committing human rights abuses, democratic states have to legitimise Actions And follow three stage spiral of state denial

1) it didn’t happen… E.g. state claims there was no massacre but then human rights organisations victims and the media show it did
2) If it did happen, it is something else – the state says it is not what it looks like ,it’s collateral damage or self defence.
3) Even if it is what you say is, it’s justified – e.g. to protect national security or fight the war on terror