3- Crime and deviance: contemporary issues and crimes

globalisation

the process in which regional economies, societies and culture have become integrated through a global network of political ideas through communication, transportation and trade

Mcgrew

defined globalisaiton as the events, decisions and activities in one part of the world now have consequences in other parts fo the world

• activities such as migration, communication and the process of buying and selling have become easier due to globalisation

Newburn- Nation State

1. Globalisation can reduce power of the nation state

   • nation state has become powerless due to the fact that it's hard to pinpoint an individual country for a crime 

   • - individual countries do not not have complete sovereignty over a crime 

   • in 2017 there was a north Korean cyber attack on the NHS which showcases that Britain doesn't have complete control on who is committing crime 

Newburn- future of crime

Opportunities for committing crime in new ways.

• criminals can take advantage of different laws between countries such as drug laws, weapons and tax havens 

• - maritime laws : piono ferries

Newburn- risk

Globalisation has created an awareness of risk from foreign countries.

• this is in line with becks risk society, people in PM society are cautious of decisions and not trusting of the globalised world 

Held et al

“The increasing interconnectedness of crime across national borders, and the spread of transnational organised crime”.

• e.g organ donors- estimated 2,000 organs are harvested from criminals in china every year 

Human trafficking and globalisation

the ultimate icon of globalisation is the intern nate as it can lure women into trafficking under the guise of mundane advertisements in foreign countries

an increasing integrated world economy enables human trafficking to thrive

Castells

Transnational organised crime

argues that globalisation has led to a global criminal economy

• e.g arms trafficking , nuclear materials trafficking. modern day slavery, cyber crimes

A02 for transnational crimes

In turkey police arrested four people and dismantled a suspected international organ trafficking ring. the ring originated in India and is accused of targeting vulnerable Indonesian nationals and facilitating kidney transplants in Turkey. Each kidney fetched $37k on the black market with the organ donor receiving $15k

Hobbs and Dunningham

Glocal crime

• organised crime is linked to globalisation

• involves individuals forming a network around a local hub which they argue grows to the point where legitimate and illegitimate business forms 

• organised crimes and rigid networks have become looser and dependent on local knowledge in the primary country the crime is committed as well as local connection to the secondary country the crime is committed in 

• due to the globalisation of crime we no longer have a strict ‘mafia style’ crime network 

• argues that crime is locally based but globally connected

Farr

two main forms of global criminal networks as globalisation has changed organised crime

Established Mafias

• tradition organised crime groups are based on ethnicity and exclusive which work independently 

• such as the American mafia ,Italian mafia 

Newer organised groups

• have emerged has a result of globalisation 

• russian, eastern european and albanian crime group 

• work with other crime groups on a globalised scale 

• colombian drugs cartel connected with the helbaniaz that emerged from gascoigne estate in barking 

• they dominate london’s drug trade and use globalised methods such as social media to recruit members  

Farr A02

between them these organisations control much of the worlds human trafficking for sex/ prostitution and/ or illegal immigration, money laundering, pornography, weapon and drug smuggling, as well as operating a range of legal businesses funded by the money laundered profits of their criminal activities. 

Glenny

Mc mafia

• participant observation to track transnational organised crime 

• aim was to mirror the business model than non- criminal organisations use 

• drug streamlining and service 

• paying for the same product and results - reliable and trustworthy

• want customer service to increase repeat business 

Lash and Urry

• crime is able to thrive due to ‘disorganised capitalism’ 

• in a globalised world there is fewer state controls and less regulations which means there is more freedom for businesses and finance 

• states therefore have less ability to regulate and manage individuals because now individuals can commit crime wherever they want

• individual states are now looking for any opportunity to further their finances

A03 for Lash and Urry

transparency information: in 2022 there was there was £1.5 billion russian money invested into UK property and they all have links to the Kremlin or financial crime

Taylor

growing inequalities

•  He claims globalisation creates crime at both ends of the social spectrum. 

• there is a widening of this inequality as multinational corporations move frim country to country seeking profit 

• reduced job security and increased unemployment especially in the manufacturing sector

• increased part time or temporary jobs encourages employment of people who are working illegally and claiming benefits 

• P&O ferries fired 800 staff over zoom in march 2022 and replaced them with workers who can work for maritime minimum wage 

• minimum wage in the UK is £10.42 but the maritime minimum wage is £3.20 

A02 for supply and demand in a globalised world

• less economically developed countries are supplying more economically developed countries

• demand means that they are able to take advantage of LEDCs 

• therefore the w/c in places like columbia and pakistan into a criminal lifestyle so they can take advantage of MEDCs demand 

• commiting crime therefore becomes the rational choice

  cocaine from the andean region is worth $7.2 billion and heroin in Afghanistan $33 billion , counterfeit products from asia is $8.2 billion 

  In the UAE, a 17-year old girl was rescued from sexual exploitation. Brought to the UAE from Pakistan when she was just 13, the girl had been forced into prostitution by a family member.

  
  
  

Winlow

postmodernity and masculinity

• deindustrialisation- crisis of masculinity 

• deindustrialisation only occurs in a globalised world as jobs are going to less economically developed countries

• to compensate for their masculinity they picked fights, drug dealing and binge drinking when they were bouncers. 

there is more opportunity to commit crimes such as the bedroom radical, the dark web and phishing scams

Young

bulimic society

• exacerbates bulimic society aws consumerist culture increases due to he increased access to different products and thereby it would lead to an increase in crime 

• relative deprivation on a global scale 

• turning to crime to feed individualistic tendencies  which is being exemplified by growing economic inequality and overall creating a desire to consume. 

• migration, tourism, travel has led to countries having similar cultural ideology which as a result promotes consumerist lifestyle 

Bauman

 happiness, choice and freedom are up to the individual to gain and is no longer the responsibility of the governments to provide this communitarian lifestyle. neoliberalism is being taken up by governments worldwide

Beck

Global risk society

• more risks in society means that people are more cautious of their surroundings and the risks society has manufactured e.g cyber crimes, nuclear fallout, climate change

• meant that globalisation has led to new types of crimes of employment. rise of flexible work, zero hour contracts and precarious employment or seasonal employment, this has put them in positions where they are closer to criminal engagement as a result of being pushed out into the fringes of their workplace 

things the mass media does

1. Stereotype criminals:

• if white their good aspects are focused on e.g Lucy letby 

• black men are stereotyped are gang members and thugs 

  2.Stereotyping victims:

• older people are more likely to be portrayed as victims of crime 

  
  

deviance amplificaiton

• the media focuses and sensationalises newsworthy stories to the point to which the media can exacerbate situations and create moral panics. 

• e.g panic over knife crime in london , mods and rockers, myth of the black mugger. 

• folk devils are created by the media which all of society’s problems are blamed on 

Cohen

Deviance amplification spiral theory

• a crime/ deviant act is committed which therefore causes labelling on the individuals which causes deviancy amplification as police act on label and stereotyping and they act upon it. media sensationalise it further which creates a moral panic and the crime and deviant act is committed more as its being policed heavier 

Cohen study of Moral panic and folk devils

• The mods and rocker had a fight which caused them to to be labelled by the media as thugs and gang bangers which caused the police to go looking for the mods and rockers to prevent any fights as they are deemed as volatile. the media further emphasises the danger of the two groups which also incited the group to fight further. the media then sensationalises these small fights which lead to the two groups benign seen as folk devils and the police are harsher on  them. 

Stuart hall

myth of the black mugger

• there was a rise in black men mugging people. this is picked up by the media and due to wanting to divert the discourse from the winter of discontent the media therefore amplifies this fact and sensationalises this. this allows for the label of black men as muggers be broadcasted and this leads to the police looking and having typifications of black men as muggers due to there being a moral panic about it. the media sensationalises this further and creates a folk devil out of them which consequently diverts the attention from the winter of discontent and accurately places the blame of societal pressure on black men . criminalises black people.

King

the media decides who the ‘folk devils’ and victims are

In the USA, the overall likelihood of a white person being a victim more generally of violent crime is down 22 per cent from what it was ten years ago, and yet in 2013, the ‘knockout game’ – random black-on-white assaults – became the dominant storyline in the US media. Despite no measurable increase in these types of attacks, a moral panic emerged that drew from and amplified numerous previous panics around race and violent crime. 

A03 for cohen

McRobbie and Thornton

• the media have moved on from creating moral panic as ‘we’ are the media today through social media

Greer and Reiner

more crime in tabloids than broadsheet

Newburn

coverage can be misleading because

• it disproportionately feature higher status and older offenders as they are seen as more important and more vulnerable and so they sell more papers

• exaggerate the proportion of crimes that are cleared by the police as not all crimes are reported

• exaggerate the risk of being a victim of crime especially for white and upper class backgrounds

• tends to present crimes as a series of individual incidents and have little coverage on patterns

Jewkes

the impact of globalisation on media pluralism

-due to globalisation there is no longer a dominant ideology as the media no longer just represent the political interests of the owners as they are now interested in profits and circulation and therefore there is a fight for consumers. 

• consumer choice - individuals therefore has choice and control over what they consume 

• he argues that its no the structural control but rather consumption that leads ot news stories which lead to sensationalization, exaggeration and moral panics 

• argues that if the audience don't like what is being presented in the media then they don't consume it

A03 on the impact of globalisation on media pluralism

in 2010 the sun had 3m people a day and in 2019 its halved to 1.4m people a day, the telegraph decreased from 700 thousand a day in 2010 to 360 thousand a 2019. 

• disputing A03: sinclair newsgroup in USA - able to broadcast the same message across multiple channels which shows that choice we have is both limited and distorted

• murdoch family - own fox news the sun, the times and sky which own many broadcasting rights in australia, usa, britain 

Greer and Reiner on how the media creates crimes

– there has been a long history of ‘respectable fears’ (concerns of ‘respectable’ people) about the media causing crime and deviance. They identify several ways in which the media might do this:

• media feed into these respectable fears to sell more papers

1. Labelling, moral entrepreneurship, and deviancy amplification

• media promotion of certain crimes through exaggeration, sensationalisation and distorting the truth 

  2 . Motives for crime

• come about due to the media presenting consumerist culture as the desire and goal

• intensifying relative deprivation 

3. Knowledge and learning of criminal techniques

   criminals can learn where a good place to commit crime 

   criminals can also learn how to commit crime 

4. New means of committing crimes

   -communication, transnational crime and trafficking 

   -cyber crime such as phishing

5. The reduction of social controls

• social media has highlighted flaws in policing e.g george floyd, sarah everand, stephen lawrence 

cyber crimes A03

 For example, in 2015 there were major concerns about the way ISIS had seized large parts of Syria and Iraq using social media such as YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr to conduct high tech media jihad to advertise its message globally and to plan terrorist attacks on the west

• libyan rebels tweeted during the arab spring NATO with coordinates of where they were going to attack 

Wikileaks

media being used to expose crimes and act as a tool of surveillance

• Wikileaks is an organization that facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information through its website, founded by Julian Assange in 2006. 

  In 2010,  a classified military video was posted, showing a US helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and a number of Iraqi civilians in 2007. - highlighting war crimes 

  Wikileaks’ affiliate, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange, have been detained and charged with espionage and have sought refuge in different embassies around the world.- manning was sentenced to 7 years in prison and julian assange is currently in prison in UK

  
  

A03 for media and crime

Philo and miller

•  audiences are not passive and are active in their engagement in the media. Means that audiences are aware of when things are benign turned into a moral panic

Situ and Emmons

defines crime as an ‘unauthorised act or ommission that violates the law ‘

White

Transgressive Criminology

• argues green crime is “any action that harms the environment and/or the (non) human animals within it regardless of whether a law has been broken or not. Green criminology is a form of transgressive criminology – it includes new issues and oversteps boundaries”.

  • globalisation has increased the amount of green crime and so traditional laws are falling behind 

  • pollution and deforestation do not break laws and are incredibly hard to police which still causes harm 

  • crimes against the environment are seen as less deviant- than theft or blue collar crime 

A02 for green crime

• bhopal disaster

• The Union Carbide factory leaked a poisonous gas.

• 25,000 people died approx

• The parent company in the US escaped prosecution

• .Paid a low $410M for all victims.

• Not clear if it was a green crime or corporate negligence.

• But it did cause huge social & environmental harm.

White view of harm

1. The anthropocentric view of the law:

•  human centred worldview and is the idea that humans have the right to dominate nature and consume as they wish.

• puts economic growth before the environment.

• this is the view taken by the world 
  

  2. The eccentric view of the law:

• the view that humans and the environment are interdependent 

• environmental harm also causes harm to human 

• both humans and the environment are likely to be the victim of exploitation from global capitalism 

• transgressive approach 

A02 for the transgressive approach

• explosion 2010 at BP deep water horizon in the Gulf of Mexico had a disaster which spilled millions of tons of crude oil into the sea, destroying wildlife and fisheries, impacted the tourism industries and killed 11 people who were working on the plant 

• 3 companies, BP, transocean and Halliburton have an anthropocentric view of the world 

• companies were ‘omnipresent’ 

• US regulations were inadequate and there was no requirement that the cement plug that failed needed to be tested

White on what crime is

• any action that causes harm should be considered a green crime as it's not an accident as it was due to systemic failings. 

• regulations were inadequate due to lobbying the US govt against increasing regulations 

south et al

Primary Green crime: 

• crime that directly causes destruction of the earth 

e.g littering , deforestation, air pollution, fox hunting 

Secondary Green Crime:

• breaking the rules that could prevent environmental disasters

e.g. letting sewage out into the oceans - Thameswater releasing sewage into the ocean 

in 1985 the French Govt authorised a sinking of Greenpeace Rainbow warrior so they could increase nuclear weapons testing 

Beck on green crime

• describes modern society as a ‘global risk society’ 

• we are more aware of the risks posed to us through green crime through things like deforestation, pollution, destruction of the ozone layer which are caused by technology and science 

• greta thunberg: social media , raised awareness, encompasses the effects of a risk society  

A-02 of becks risk society fitting into green crime

deforestation of the world rainforest

• Between 1960 and 1990 1/5 of the world’s tropical rainforest was destroyed.

• In the Amazon, forest has been cleared to rear beef cattle for export.

• The criminals of these crimes includes the state and those who profit from deforestation. 

• links to chambliss: capitalism is criminogenic 

• Snider: rich make the laws 

• south- Primary green crime 

• White : anthropocentric approach 

White on transnational companies

• argues that transnational companies move manufacturing operations to the global south to avoid pollution laws in the developed countries 

wolf

marxist approach on the four groups he identifies that commit green crimes

1. Individuals 

• through things like littering, Fly tipping, not recycling

• food we eat such as beef and animal trafficking such as the buying and selling of indigenous species 

2. Private business organisations 

• in the pursuit of profits will cut corners and break environmental laws

things like Thameswater and pollution and deforestation, emissions , breaching health and safety regulations 

3. States and governments 

• French sinking greenpeace boat to test nuclear weapons 

AO3: Santana (2002): the military is the largest institutional polluter through things liek nuclear weapons, warfare, landmines 

the nuclear arm race causing unprecedented nuclear waste 

4. Organised crime 

• cause mass green crimes through collusion with Gov’ts 

• Interpol argued that a significant proportion of green crime is carried out by organised crime networks.

massari and monzini

study in the Bay of Naples in which the mafia is responsible for dealing with 90% of all nuclear waste that goes through the city. this is done via the gov’t as its cheaper to dispose of this way however is not environmentally friendly 

Potter

environmental racism

• he highlights that those who are most at risk of being a victim of green crime tend to be EMs, the perpetrators tend to be white 

• in 2019 Natural England found that black and ethnic minority britons were exposed to particulate matter pollution at a rate 19-29% higher than their white counterparts 

Snider

• rich make the laws 

• laws that do get passed threaten profit and therefore are rarely enforced as private companies have the power to lobby gov to relax regulations 

 laws and regulation against pollution or environment are rarely passed 

sutherland

nlike white collar crimes, environmental crimes carry less stigma as the people or companies committing these green crimes often have the power to influence the discourse around crime and they avoid the label of criminal 

Volkswagen emission scandal of 2015

W fitted 11 million vehicles with defeat device at cheating emission tests, breaching environmental regulations which meant that the company was possibly responsible for nearly 11 tonnes of extra air pollution each year- roughly the combined amount of UK'S emission from power plants, vehicles, industrial and agricultural pollution.

Problems with researching green crime

• transgressive approach make the crime undefinable 

• Different measurements - many of the powerful can avoid prosecution, even if their crimes are discovered, making it hard to discover and measure the true extent of it

• Different laws – countries have different laws surrounding green crimes, which make it hard to compare the levels of green crime globally

• Different definitions – conflict over the true definition of what constitutes a green crime means that there are problems arising from measuring, monitoring and reporting green crime. Critics say defining these boundaries is a matter of values so it can’t be established objectively

eval of green criminology

• highlighted an increasing and global issue of green crime and directly addresses harm against the environment and by extension of this discusses a direct impact on nature and humans 

• weaknesses is that distinct measures and laws that define what a crime is and so it's very difficult to define what green criminology , this is a matter of values rather than a matter of law

definittion of state crime

crime commited by the state or in the interest of the state

green and ward definiton of state crimes

‘violation of human rights pepretrated by agents of the state in the deviant pursuit of organisational goals

green and ward’s organisational goals

• state crimes committed on behalf of or with the complicity of state agencies and are implementing official or unofficial state policies 

• rogue individuals who work for the state ( police soldier etc) who abuse, commit crimes without the authority to do so - ‘ deviant pursuit’ 

• organisational goals allows the sociologist to identify a difference between a random act of someone working on behalf of the gov’t and rogue individual carrying out illegal activity for the state 

universal human rights

• education 

• religion 

• equality 

• safety 

• right to live 

• right to a fair trial 

• right to bear arms - USA 

• basic necessities 

why are human rights controversial

• they can be viewed as subjective

• seen as western and liberal rigths and to a certain extent ethnocentric to the western world

• Waters: rights are socially constructed

herman and schewendinger

it is the duty of sociology to support human rights and to expose abuses by the state

turner

no one can enforce universal human rights, the world could never agree on universal human rigths

Cohen critiscm of Green and ward and Herman and Schwendinger

• says that they are confusing criminality with immorality by using human rigths as sociologists should be objective

• argues that there is no way to study everything that is immoral as its impratical

• traditional definitions of crime are necessary or otherwise they will no longer be a scope of criminology

Cambodia pol pot

• Pol pot imposed a version of agarian socialism which due to the combined effects of forced labour, malnutrition, poor medical care resulted the deats of 21% of the populaiton

• proportionally it was the largest genocide of all time and he was never punished

Shaker Aamir

Last detainee of Guantanamo bay with allegations of troture and made false confessions to escape beatings, sleep deprivation and held in solitary confinement for long periods of time

Green and Ward’s 1st explanation of state crime

Integrated theory

• reasons are similar to conventional crimes like street crimes. for instance where there is opportunity, motivation of offenders and failure to control- these can also apply to state

• theories that can be applied are routine theory, RCT- clarke and Hirschi’s control theory

Green and warde’s second explanation of state crime

Kelmans and hamilton: crimes of obedience

This leads to ‘Crimes of Obedience’ where ordinary people will go along with the neutralisation which makes the techniques easier. They suggest that violent states encourage obedience by those who actually carry out state-backed human rights violations in three ways.

1. authorisation in which each individual that carries out these acts believe they are doing it for their state and country, they have the states support and authority

2. routinisation in which it becomes the norm and leads them to become detached

3. dehumanisation in which the enemy is seen as subhuman and inferior and so pain and torture is justified

Swann

‘enslaved barabarism’

• the ones that carry out the barbaric acts are rewarded in which the perpetrators of this violence are able to return to everyday life

Cohen on why states get away with the crimes

Techniques of Neutralisation

• denial of responsibility

• denial of injury of the individuals

• condemnation of the condemners which involces accusing those who are being attacked as having done mych worse themselves

• appeal to higher loyalties

Cohen on why its difficult to research state crimes

• shows that it wil be difficult to understand the true extent of state crimes because governments adopt strategies of denial

Tombs and whyte

states unlikey to provide funding for research into state crimes and argues that official statistics may omit key details to effectively research intor state crimes.

sociologists may also be blocked or detained for the purpose fo their research

Stan Cohen

Culture of denial

• looked at gross violation of human rights and says that the state often develops a culture of denial

  1. the event did not happen

  2. the state tries to redefine what has happened and label it as collateral damage or an accident

  3. state will justify the abuse as they are seen as the lesser of two evils

eval of state crimes

• reliance on secondary data make it very difficult to research and measure as well as defining

• there are very few universal human rigths

• states would argue they are justified as they are the lesser of two evils

• dangerous and therefore the topic is neglected as seen through wikileaks and Julian Assange