Crime And Globalisation Flashcards
What is the result of the globalisation of crime?
A global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum
What do Held et al suggest there has been?
A globalisation of crime - an increasing interconectedness of crime across national borders.
Give 5 forms that the global criminal economy takes
1) Arms trafficking
2) Trafficking in nuclear materials
3) Smuggling of illegal immigrants
4) Cyber-crimes
5) The drugs trade
What two things does the global criminal economy have?
A supply side and a demand side
What does globalisation create?
New insecurities and a new mentality of ‘risk consciousness’
Give an example of how globalisation has contributed to ‘risk consciousness’
The increased movement of people, as migrants seeking work or asylum seekers, has given rise to anxieties among populations in Western countries about the risks of crime and disorder and the need to protect their borders
Where does our knowledge about risks come from?
The media, and it is often exaggerated
What do the media do?
Create moral panics about the supposed ‘threat’ through negative coverage of immigrants portrayed as terrorists, which leads to hate crimes against many minorities in several European countries
What is the result of this increased global risk consciousness? Give two examples of this
The intensification of social control at the national level
1) The UK has toughened it’s border regulations, e.g. fining airlines if they bring in undocumented passengers
2) Te UK now has no legal limits on how losing a person may be held in immigration detention
How has globalisation created crime at both ends of the social spectrum?
1) It has allowed transnational corporations to switch manufacturing to law-wage countries, producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty, which encourages the poor to turn to crime
2) It had led to new patterns of employment, which have created new opportunities for crime, such as the increased use of subcontracting to recruit ‘flexible’ workers, often working illegally or employed for less than the minimum wage
Give one strength and one weakness of Taylor’s explanation of how globalisation has changed both pattern in and extent of crime
1) It is useful in linking global trends in the capitalist economy to changes in the pattern of crime
2) It does not adequately explain how the changes make people behave in criminal ways, e.g. not all poor people turn to crime
What do Hobbs and Dunningham mean when they say ‘glocal’ organisation?
The organisation is still locally based, but it has global connections
What does Glenny believe led to transnational organised crime?
The break up of the Soviet Union in 1989
What did the collapse in the communist state mean for capitalists?
That they turned to the new ‘mafias’ that sprang up and they were able to find protection for their wealth and a means of moving it out of the country
What were the new Russian mafias able to do?
Make connections with other criminal organisations in other parts of the world
