Crime + deviance - globalisation

• Globalisation of crime


  Crime has become interconnected across different countries
• Opportunities for crime have increased and totals over £1 trillion per year
• Global crimes

  • Trafficking of women and children
  • Cyber-crimes
  • International terrorism
  • Drugs trade
• Global risk consciousness


  Risk is seen as global rather than local
• Much risk consciousness is artificially created by moral panics set off by the media
• Risk consciousness has increased social control by nation-states
• There is also increased international cooperation and control e.g. 'wars' on terror and drugs especially since 9/11/2001
• Causes of the growth in global crime

  • Supply & demand
  • Difficult to police as it crosses national boundaries
  • Spread of new ICT
  • Cheap air travel
  • Growth of international terrorism
• Globalisation, capitalism & crime (Neo-Marxist Taylor 1997)


  Globalised capitalist economy has created greater inequality and rising crime among the powerful and powerless
• Crimes of the powerless

  • De-industrialisation has meant that transnational corporations have created job insecurity, unemployment and poverty in the West by switching manufacturing to low wage countries
  • Cuts in welfare mean the working class in the UK are faced with widening inequality which encourages the poor to turn to crime e.g. drug dealing
• Crimes of the powerless

  • Growth of drugs gangs with 10,000 members in LA, with gang related killings running at one a day
  • Marketisation has encouraged people to see themselves as individual consumers, resulting in a lack of social cohesion (togetherness) and therefore making crime more likely
• Crimes of the powerful

  • Deregulation of financial markets have increased opportunities for illegal trading
  • New patterns of employment - some business owners hire illegal immigrants who are paid below the minimum wage and work in conditions that break Health & Safety laws
• International loans - crimes of globalisation (Rothe & Friedrichs 2015)


  International financial organisations such as the IMF and World Bank impose strict economic conditions on the loans they provide to poorer countries, including cuts to spending on health and education, and privatisation of publicly owned industries. This creates ripe conditions for crime.
• Crimes of globalisation

  • The programme imposed on Rwanda in the 1980s by the IMF and World Bank caused mass unemployment and created the economic conditions for the 1994 genocide
• Cain (2010) argues that the IMF and World Bank act as a 'global state' and while they may not break any laws, their actions cause widespread social harms
• 'Glocal' organisation

  Crime happens at a local level but is connected to global events
• 'Glocal' organisation

  • The effects of deindustrialisation in Sunderland and how a new night time economy had created new criminal opportunities for bouncers
  • Drug dealing is influenced by suppliers from countries such as Columbia and Afghanistan but the pattern of dealing is shaped by local gangs
• McMafia

  The fall of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe (in 1989) and the deregulation of its economy gave rise to McMafia. Oligarchs (former KGB & communist leaders who became the new capitalist ruling class) made money by buying oil, gas, diamonds etc. at old communist prices and selling them for huge profits on deregulated world financial markets. Oligarchs formed an alliance with new mafia organisations such as the Chechen mafia to protect and move their billons of wealth out of the country.
• Recent work by Rothe & Friedrichs does consider the impact of the policies of international financial institutions on crime, even though they themselves may not be committing crimes
• As the world has become more globalised opportunities for transnational crime have increased – e.g. green and cybercrimes cause harm on a global scale
• Globalised crime shows how crime is committed by the powerful e.g. large corporations or international bodies and have the power to inflict serious damage to the environment or vulnerable citizens
• Global crimes such as green crimes also raise important questions about re-defining criminology so that it studies acts that are harmful as well as breaking criminal laws
• Crimes of the powerless


  Crimes committed by individuals or groups with little power or status in society, often motivated by economic necessity or social exclusion
• De-industrialization


  The process of shifting an economy away from manufacturing and towards the service sector, often leading to job losses and insecurity in the West
• Cuts in welfare

  Reductions in government spending on social welfare programs, disproportionately affecting the working class in the UK and leading to widening inequality
• Drug dealing


  One example of a crime that some individuals may turn to as a result of poverty and job insecurity, due to the widening inequality caused by cuts in welfare