Globalisation, Green + State Crime Flashcards
What is globalisation?
Process whereby the world becomes increasingly interconnected through political, cultural, economic and technological ways
Which sociologist argues that there has been a globalisation of crime, with an increasing interconnectedness of crime across national borders?
HELD (1999)
What has globalisation created in regards to crime? (3 aspects)
• new opportunities for crime
• new means of committing crime
• new offences
Castells claims there is now a global crime economy worth over how much money a year?
Over £1 trillion a year.
Give three examples of globalised crime
•Cyber crimes
•Green crimes
•International drugs trade
•People and arms trafficking
•International terrorism
•Sex tourism
Part of the reason for transnational crime is the economy of supply and demand. What does this mean?
The rich West demands products such as drugs and sex workers, and the poor third world countries supply these services
Fill in the gaps. In Columbia, it is estimated that ___% of the population is dependent on the ________ trade for their livelihood.
20%
Cocaine
Give an example of the new fears and risk consciousness that globalisation creates, and the media exaggerates
The increased movement of people, as economic migrants seek work, or asylum seekers flee persecution. This has given rise to anxieties in western countries about the risks of crime + the need to protect borders. Negative coverage of immigrants has led to hate crime against minorities and tougher social control.
List examples of international organisations that can be used to fight crime across nation state borders
• ICC
• ICJ
• Interpol
Which sociologist suggests that globalisation has led to greater inequality + increased crime?
TAYLOR (1997)
How can it be suggested that greater global inequality leads to more crime?
It gives free reign to capitalism which works through TNCs producing in low wage countries with little thought got health&safety rules or employment laws. TNCs exploit these countries.
Globalisation has caused an increase in what types of crimes according to Taylor?
Crimes of the powerful, such as banking fraud, green crime etc
What do HOBBS AND DUNNINGHAM conclude regarding the new patterns of criminal organisations in the globalised world?
More flexible, loose knit networks of crime. People move in and out of the ‘gang’ over time. This contrasts with the hierarchical Mafia style criminal organisations of the past, like the London Kray twins. New criminal networks often have international links with criminal activity still rooted at local level.
What do Hobbs and Dunningham mean by the term: ‘glocal’ crime?
Crime that is locally based but has global connections. For example in the drugs trade, drugs are imported in from other countries but sold locally.
Summarise the McMafia case study by Glenny
What are green crimes? Short definition
Crimes against the environment
What process has increased the amount of green crimes according taking place?
Globalisation
What does Traditional criminology focus on?
Focuses on behaviour that breaks the law, and so would argue that these crimes are technically not crimes as the impacts are indirect
What does green criminology focus on?
Focuses on harm, and therefore argues that green crimes are crimes!!!
What is the anthropocentric view of crime?
Human centred view. Assumed that humans have a right to dominate nature for their own ends, and it puts economic growth before the environment
What is the ecocentric view of harm?
Sees humans + the environment as interdependent, so that environmental harm hurts humans also. Both humans and the environment are liable to exploitation - global capitalism
What are the 2 classifications of green crimes according to green criminologists?
Primary and secondary
What are primary green crimes?
Crimes that result directly from the destruction and degradation of the earth’s resources
Give 2 examples of primary green crime
-air pollution
-water pollution
-deforestation
-species decline
What are secondary green crimes?
Crimes that grow out of the flouting of rules aimed at preventing or regulating environmental disasters
Give an example of secondary green crime
• flouting health&safety laws
• dumping hazardous waste illegally
Summarise the Bhopal Disaster 1984
Over 500,000 people in the vicinity of the pesticide plant in Bhopal (India) were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isolyanate - gas leak. Killed approx 8000 people and left thousands permanently disabled.
was the Bhopal disaster an example of primary or secondary green crime?
Give a strength of green criminology
•recognises importance of environmental issues
•recognises need to address harms of environmental damage
Give a weakness of green criminology
• it is hard to define the boundaries, relies on moral + political ideas about what is right/wrong
• it is therefore a subjective area, not objective like traditional criminology
How do Green and Ward define state crime?
Illegal/deviant activities perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agencies - includes genocides, war crimes, torture, assassination etc
IDENTIFY the 4 categories of state crime by sociologist McLaughlin
• POLITICAL
• ECONOMIC
• SOCIAL & CULTURAL
• SECURITY/POLICE FORCES
NAME 2 state crime case studies
1) the Holocaust
2) Guantanamo Bay
Summarise the Guantanamo Bay scandal
- detention camp used by American state to hold hundreds of terrorism suspects - ‘war on terror’
- held them without trial and torture was commonly used
- huge human rights violations
NAME the 5 ways to define state crime
• domestic law
• international law
• human rights
• social harms / ZEMIOLOGY
• labelling & societal reaction
Explain how we can define state crime using domestic law
Chambliss - state crime is ‘acts defined by law as criminal + committed by state officials in pursuits of their jobs as representatives of the state’
What is the issue with defining state crime using domestic law?
it ignores the fact that states have power to make laws avoiding criminalising their own actions
Explain how we can define state crime using international law
state crime is any action by or on behalf of a state that violates international law and/or a state’s domestic law. (International law = created through treaties + agreements between states)
What is the issue with defining state crime using international law?
international law is a social construction involving the use of power. Plus, international law largely focuses on crimes like war crimes / crimes against humanity rather than state corruption.
Explain how we can define state crime using human rights
Herman & Julia Schwendinger - state crime is the violation of peoples basic human rights by the state or its agents.
What is the issue with defining state crime using human rights?
there are disagreements regarding what counts as a human right.
Explain how we can define state crime using social harms/zemiology
acknowledgement that much of the harm done by states isn’t against the law. Therefore, Michalowski - state crime includes not just illegal acts, but also ‘legally permissible’ acts whose consequences are similar to those of illegal acts in the harm they cause. We should replace the study of crimes with ‘zemiology’ - the study of harms, whether or not they are against the law
What is the issue with defining state crime using social harms/zemiology?
‘harm’ - very vague and thus subjective
Explain how we can define state crime using labelling & societal reaction
whether the social audience for an act defines it as a crime is important. The audience may witness the act directly/indirectly. Recognises that state crime is socially constructed.
What is the issue with defining state crime using labelling & societal reaction?
- vague
- it is unclear who is supposed to be the relevant social audience that decides whether a state crime has been committed.
Although state crimes are obviously organised by leaders of the state, they cannot take place without cooperation from who?
‘ordinary’ people - soldiers, police, civilians
what does Adorno et al mean by ‘AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY’ ? Can you also give a famous example?
a willingness to obey the orders of superiors without question. At the time of WW2, many Germans had authoritarian personality types due to the punitive, disciplinarian socialisation patterns that were common.
explain the fact that states often create ‘enclaves of barbarism’
these are where torture is practiced, segregated from outside society, often at military bases. This allows the torturers to regard these acts as a ‘9-5’ job from which they can return to normal everyday life.
what do GREEN & WARD argue about socialisation and cruelty, regarding ordinary people being complicit in state crimes
In order to overcome norms against the use of cruelty, individuals who become torturers often need to be re-socialised, trained + exposed to propaganda about ‘the enemy’.
NAME the 3 features which produce crimes of obedience, identified by Kelman & Hamilton
1) AUTHORISATION
2) ROUTINISATION
3) DEHUMANISATION
explain authorisation as a feature of crimes of obedience
when acts are ordered/approved by those in authority, normal moral principles are replaced by the duty to obey
explain routinisation as a feature of crimes of obedience
once the crime has been committed, there is a strong pressure to turn the act into a routine that individuals can perform in a detached manner
explain dehumanisation as a feature of crimes of obedience
when the enemy is portrayed as sub-human, normal principles of morality do not apply
what features of modern society does Bauman suggest made the Holocaust possible?
- a division of labour
- bureaucratisation
- instrumental rationality
- science & technology
Fill the gap. When states are trying to legitimate their actions and cover up crimes, their justifications often follow a three stage ‘spiral of ________’.
spiral of DENIAL
Summarise step 1 of the spiral of denial where states attempt to conceal / justify their crimes
- ‘it didn’t happen’
- the state claims there was no massacre
- but then human rights organisations start to show the evidence that it did happen
Summarise step 2 of the spiral of denial where states attempt to conceal / justify their crimes
- ‘if it did happen, it was something else’
- the state says it was self defence, not murder
Summarise step 3 of the spiral of denial where states attempt to conceal / justify their crimes
- ‘even if it was what you say it is, it is justified’
- example: by claiming we need to fight the war on terror
Identify the 5 techniques of neutralisation that states use to justify their crimes - COHEN
- denial of victim
- denial of injury
- denial of responsibility
- condemning the condemners
- appeal to higher loyalty
