Globalisation and State Crime

How much does Castells say the global criminal economy is worth?

£1 trillion p/a

What are examples of the global criminal economy, according to Castells?

• smuggling of illegal immigrant- Chinese triads make $2.5 billion p/a

• sex tourism- Westerners travel to 3rd world countries for sex, sometimes with minors

• drugs trade- worth $300-400 billion annually at street prices

• cyber crimes- identity theft, child pornography, etc

• arms trafficking- to illegal regimes, guerilla groups + terrorists

How is the supply side of the global criminal economy linked to globalisation?

3rd world drugs producing companies (e.g. Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan) have large populations of impoverished peasants, drug cultivation requires little investment in tech + high profits, Colombia- 20% of population depends on cocaine production for livelihood, outsells all other exports combined

What is an example of the global risk consciousness?

risk is seen as global rather than tied to places- e.g. increased movement of people as economic migrants seeking work/asylum seekers fleeing persecution = anxiety in Western populations about risks of crime/disorder + need to protect borders

How has the media increased global risk consciousness?

moral panics about immigration- terrorists/scroungers ‘flooding’ the country = hate crimes against EM

How has the UK intensified social control on a national level due to global risk consciousness?

• UK has tougher border regulations (e.g. airlines fined if bring in undocumented passengers)

• no legal limit on how long someone can be in immigration detention

What does Socialist, Taylor say about globalisation, capitalism and crime?

• globalisation = changes in pattern/extent of crime

• free rein to market forces = greater inequality = rising crime

• crime at both ends of spectrum- TNCs switch manufacturing to low wage countries = job insecurity = unemployment = poverty

• deregulation = govts have little control over economies

• marketisation = people see themselves as individual consumers, calculate personal costs/benefits of each actions = undermines social cohesion

What do Left Realists say about globalisation, capitalism and crime?

materialistic culture promoted by global media portrays success in terms of lifestyle of consumption

How does globalisation create criminal opportunities on a grand scale for elite groups?

deregulation of financial markets = opportunities for insider trading + movement of funds globally to avoid taxation, creation of transnational bodies (e.g. EU) = opps for fraudulent claims for subsidies, estimated $7 billion+ p/a in EU

How can Taylor be criticised?

doesn’t explain how changes of globalisation make people behave in criminal ways (e.g. not all poor people turn to crime)

What do Rothe and Friedrichs say about crimes of globalisation?

• IMF + World Bank dominated by major capitalist states (e.g. World Bank has 188 member countries but 5- USA, Japan, Germany, Britain + France hold 1/3 of voting rights)

• impose pro-capitalist, neoliberal economic ‘structural adjustment programmes’ on poor countries as condition for loans provided- require govts to cut spending on health/education + privatise publicly-owned services (e.g. water supply), industries + natural resources

• creates conditions for crime- programme imposed on Rwanda in 1980s = mass unemployment + economic basis for 1994 genocide

What does Cain say about the IMF and World Bank?

they act as a ‘global state’, actions cause widespread social harms by cutting welfare spending + indirect consequences (e.g. Rwanda 1994 genocide)

What did Hobbs and Dunningham find about patterns of criminal organisation?

• individuals with contacts = ‘hub’ around which loose knit network forms with other individuals- links legitimate + illegitimate activities

• contrasts large scale, hierarchical, mafia style criminal organisations of past (e.g. Kray brothers of East London)

• crime = glocal system- locally based but with global connections, form it takes varies according to local connections

• shift from rigid hierarchical gang structure to loose networks of flexible, opportunistic, entrepreneurial criminals

How can Hobbs and Dunningham be evaluated?

it is not clear that such patterns in criminal organisation are new, or that older structures have dissappeared, two could have always co-existed- conclusions not generalisable to criminal activities elsewhere

What does Glenny mean by McMafia?

• organisations that emerged in Russia/East Europe following fall of communism

• under communism, Soviet state regulated all prices

• fall of communism = deregulation of most sectors except natural resources like oil- remain at old Soviet prices = 1/40th of world market price = bought up by KGB + former communist officials + sold abroad for mass profit = oligarchs

• capitalists use mafias to protect wealth- e.g. Chechen mafia

• new Russian mafias = purely economic, formed to pursue self interest (e.g. Chechenmafia originated in Chechnya but began to franchise operations = bran name sold to protection rackets in other towns

What does Beck describe late modern society as?

‘global risk society’

What is an example of global ‘manufactured risk’?

Mozambique 2010:

• Russia- global warming = heatwave = wildfires that destroy grain belt = exports bans to push up world price of grain

• Mozambique = 30% rise in price of bread = rioting/looting of food stores = at least a dozen dead

• international speculators = ‘gambling on hunger in financial markets’

How does traditional criminology describe green crime?

• subject matter defined by criminal law, if no law broken then no crime

• Situ and Emmons: environment crime = ‘an unauthorised act or omission that violates the law’

How can traditional criminology be criticised?

accepts official definitions of environmental problems + crimes = shaped by powerful groups (e.g. big businesses) to serve own interests

How does green criminology define green crime?

• starts from notion of harm

• White: criminology = any actions that harms physical environment and/or humans + non-human animals within it, even if no law is broken

• many environmental harms aren’t illegal so green criminology = transgressive criminology = zemiology

• diff countries have diff laws so harmful action in one country might not be harmful in another- legal definitions don’t provide consistent standard of harm

What do Marxists say about ‘crimes of the powerful’

capitalist class able to shape law + define crime so own exploitative activities not criminalised/enforcement is weak

What does White mean by the anthropocentric view of environmental harm?

• human-centred

• humans have right to dominate nature for own ends, economic growth > environment

What does White mean by the ecocentric view of harm?

• humans + environment = interdependent

• environmental harm also hurts humans

• humans + environment = liable to exploitation by global capitalism

• view adopted by green criminology

What are primary green crimes, according to South?

‘crimes that result directly from the destruction and degradation of the earth’s resources’

What are examples of primary green crimes?

• Air pollution- carbon emissions grow 2% p/a

• Deforestation- 1/5 worlds tropical rainforest destroyed through illegal logging from 1960-1990

• Species decline/animal abuse- 50 species a day become extinct

• Water pollution- Deepwater Horizon oil spill

What are secondary green crimes, according to South?

crime born out of the flouting of rules aimed at preventing/regulating environmental disasters

What are examples of secondary green crimes?

• State violence against oppositional groups- 1985 French SS blew up Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour NZ, killing one crew member

• Hazardous waste/organised crime- Italy- eco-mafias profit from illegal dumping of toxic waste at sea, high cost of safe/legal disposal, Western countries ship waste to be processed in 3rd world countries where costs/safety standards are lower

• Environmental discrimination- poorer groups worse affected by pollution (South), e.g. black communities in USA situated next to polluting industry/garbage dump

How can green criminology be criticised?

focus on broad concept of harm = hard to define field of study, matter of values that cannot be established objectively

Why is state crime more serious than other types of crime?

• Large-scale- Green and Ward: 262 million people murdered by govt in 20th century

• Source of law- state defines criminality so can conceal crime/evade punishment, national sovereignty = hard for UN to intervene

What are the 4 categories of state crime, according to McLaughlin?

• Political- e.g. corruption/censorship

• Security/Police- e.g. genocide/torture

• Economic- e.g. violation of health/safety laws

• Social/Cultural- e.g. institutional racism

What happened during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide?

• previously Belgian colony, used minority Tutsi to rule Hutu majority- all same ethnic group but diff classes, Tutsi own livestock, Hutu don’t

• Belgians ‘ethnicised’ groups giving race identity cards + educating separately

• 1962- Rwanda gains independence, majority Hutu brought to power

• 1990s = civil war, Hutu govt does racist hate propaganda towards Tutsis

• 1994- Hutu president plane shot down = genocide

• 100 days = 800,000 Tutsis/moderate Hutus slaughtered

• 1/3 Hutu population actively take part in genocide- lot’s forced to join killing or be killed

What do Kramer and Michalowski mean by state initiated corporate crime?

• When states initiate/direct/approve corporate crimes

• e.g. 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster- cost-cutting by NASA = explosion killed 7 astronauts after take-off

What do Kramer and Michalowski mean by state-facilitated corporate crime?

• when states fail to regulate/control corporate behaviour

• e.g. 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in Gulf of Mexico, rig leased by BP exploded + sank, killing 11 workers + largest oil spill in history due to cost-cutting

What are the two types of war-related crime?

• Illegal wars- war can only by declared by UN Security Council, e.g. US ‘war on terror’ in Iraq + Afghanistan, to justify as self defense made false claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction

• Crimes committed during war/aftermath- Kramer: normalisation of terror bombing of civilians, WWII Americans fire-bombed 67 Japanese cities + atomic-bombed Hiroshima + Nagasaki, continued in conflict of Iraq/Syria

How does Chambliss define state crime?

‘acts defined by law as criminal and committed by state officials in pursuit of their jobs as representative of the state’

How can Chambliss’ definition of state crime be criticised?

Using state’s own domestic law to define state crime ignores fact that states have power to make laws to avoid criminalising own actions + can make laws to allow themselves to carry out harmful acts e.g. Nazi compulsory sterilisation of the disabled

How does Michalowski define state crime?

illegal acts + ‘legally permissible acts whose consequences are similar to those of illegal acts’ in terms of harm, prevents state ruling themselves ‘out of court’ by making laws that allow them to deviate, creates single standard to be applied to multiple states

How can the harm definition of state crime be criticised?

• field of study too wide- what level of harm is too far?

• who decides what counts as harm?- replaces state arbitrary definition with sociologist arbitrary definition

What do Labelling Theorists say about state crime?

it is socially constructed- can vary over time/between cultures

How can the Labelling Theorist definition of state crime be criticised?

• vague- Kauzlarich: anti-Iraq war protestors found they saw war as harmful/illegitimate but unable to label it as criminal

• unclear who is the relevant audience to define state crime

• audience definitions can be manipulated by r/c ideology (e.g. media persuade public to see war as legitimate not criminal)

How do Rothe and Mullins define state crime?

any action on behalf of/by state that violates international law and/or state domestic law

How can Rothe and Mullins’ definition of state crime be criticised?

international law = social construction involving use of power, Strand and Tuman: Japan tried to overturn international ban on whaling by concentrating foreign aid on impoverished ‘microstates’ (e.g. 6 small Caribbean island nations) to bribe them to vote against ban

What are the 2 categories of human rights?

• Natural rights people have by virtue of existing (e.g. right to life/liberty/speech)

• Civil right (e.g. right to vote, to privacy, to fair trial, to education)

How do Herman and Schwendinger define state crime?

violation of peoples basic human rights by state/agents (e.g. states that commit imperialism, racism, sexism, economic exploitation, etc)

How does Cohen criticise Herman and Schwendingers definition of human rights?

gross violations of human rights (e.g. torture) = crimes, acts like economic exploitation aren’t self-evidently criminal

What did Adorno et al mean by the ‘authoritarian personality’ to define state crime?

• willingness to obey superior orders without question

• Germans had this in WWII due to punitive, disciplinarian socialisation patterns

What features do Kellman and Hamilton argue create crimes of obedience?

studies My Lai Massacre in Vietname where 400 civilians killed by platoon of American soldiers:

• authorisation- when acts ordered/approved by those in authority, normal moral principles replaced by duty to obey

• routinisation- strong pressure to turn crime committed into routine that individuals perform in detached manner

• dehumanisation- enemy portrayed as sub-human, normal principles of morality dont apply

What features of modern society made the Holocaust possible, according to Bauman?

• Division of labour- each person responsible for small task so no-one felt personally responsible for atrocity

• Bureaucratisation- killing normalised as repetitive, routine job, victims dehumanised as ‘units’

• Instrumental rationality

• Science/tech- railways transported victims to death camps, industrially produced gas used to kill them

How can Bauman’s theory of the factors that made the Holocaust possible be criticised?

• not all genocides are highly organised w/ division of labour (e.g. Rwanda genocide carried out by marauding groups)

• ideological factors important (e.g Jews = inferior under Nazi ideology)

How does Cohen say states conceal/justify human rights crimes?

• dictatorships flatly deny human rights abuses

• democratic states have to legitimate actions through ‘spiral of state denial’:

  1. ‘it didn’t happen’- e.g. state claims no massacre, human rights organisations, media + victims show proof

  2. ‘if it did happen it was something else’- e.g. states say self-defence not murder

  3. ‘it is justified’- e.g. to fight ‘war on terror’

How does Cohen apply Sykes + Matza’s neutralisation techniques to states to justify human rights violations?

• denial of victim

• denial of injury

• condemning condemners

• appeal to higher loyalty