Detailed textbook notes on Alevel AQA Sociology - crime and deviance, specifically globalization, green crime, human rights and state crime
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Topic 8 – Globalisation, Green Crime, Human Rights and State
Crime:
Globalisation:
Crime and Globalisation:
Held defined globalisation as ‘the widening, speeding up of worldwide
interconnectedness in all aspects of life, from the cultural to the criminal, the
financial to the spiritual’
Globalisation has many causes
o The spread of new ICT and the influence of global mass media, cheap air
travel and easier movements for businesses to relocate to other countries
where larger profits can be made
The Global Criminal Economy:
Held argues that there has been an increase in the interconnectedness of crime
across national borders
Globalisation has created new opportunities for crime, new means of committing
crime and new offences (e.g. cybercrime)
Castells argues that there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion
per annum which takes a number of forms
o Arms trafficking; for illegal regimes and terrorists
o Human trafficking; often linked to prostitution or slavery. Up to half a million
people are trafficked to Western Europe annually
o Cyber-crimes; e.g. identity theft and child pornography
o The drugs trade; worth an estimated $300-$400 billion annually at street
prices
o Money laundering; of the profits of organised crimes, estimated at up to $1.5
trillion per year
The global criminal economy has both a demand side and a supply side – part of why
transnational crime is so large is because of its demand for its products and services
in the West but without the supply side that provides the source of dries and sex
workers it also wouldn’t be able to function
Global Risk Consciousness:
Globalisation creates new insecurities and produces a new mentality of ‘risk
consciousness’ in which risk is seen as global rather than in specific places
Most of our knowledge about these risks comes from the media
Globalisation, Capitalism and Crime:
Socialist, Ian Taylor argues that globalisation has led to greater inequality/ rising
crime
Globalisation has created crime at both ends of the social scale
o Transnational companies which manufacturing to low-wage companies
which leaves individuals unemployed without job security
, o Deregulation means that governments have little control over their own
economies while state spending on welfare has decreased
o Marketisation has encouraged people to see themselves as individual
consumers
Left realists note that the increasingly materialistic culture promoted
by the media means that success is shown in terms of consumption
These factors create inequalities and almost encourage the poor to turn to crime
because the lack of legitimate jobs means they’re forced into illegitimates ones
o In LA, de-industrialisation has led to the growth of drug gangs, now
numbering 10,000 members
Globalisation has also led to new patterns of crime which leads to new opportunities
for crime
o Paying below minimal wage, working in conditions that breach health and
safety laws
Useful in linking global trends in the capitalist economy to changes in the pattern of
crime
But it doesn’t explain how these changes make people behaviour in criminal ways
(not all poor people commit crime)
Patterns of Criminal Organisation:
Hobbs and Dunningham found that they way crime is organised is linked to the
economic changes because of globalisation
It involves individuals with contacts acting as a ‘hub’ around which others, seeking
new opportunities, linked legitimate and illegitimate activities
Contrasts large ‘Mafia’-style organisations in the past such as the Kray brothers
‘Glocal’ Organisation:
New forms of criminal organisations have international links – especially with drugs
trade by crime is still rooted in local context
Hobbs and Dunningham argue that crime works as a ‘glocal’ system – locally based
crime but with global connections such as the drugs trade, sex trafficking or
smuggling of goods
Argue that changes associated with globalisation have led to changes in patterns of
crime
There is little evidence to suggest that such patterns are new or that older patterns
have disappeared
o May have always co-existing so it is hard to generalise this to other criminal
activities
McMafia:
Glenny argues ‘McMafia’ is another example of the relationship between crime and
globalisation
It refers to the organisations that emerged after the collapse of the communism in
Russia and other Eastern European countries
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