8. Globalisation, green crime, human rights and state crime

What did David Held et al define globalisation as? What does Castells say about the global criminal economy?

• “deepening and speeding up of world wide interconnectedness in all aspects of life, from the cultural to the criminal” → spread of transnational organised crime → globalisation of crime

• Castells says the global criminal economy is worth over £1 trillion per annum.

Name some forms of crime in the global criminal economy?

• Trafficking of arms, nuclear material, women and children, body parts (2,000 taken annually from criminals in China), endangered species

• Smuggling of illegal immigrants

• Cyber crimes (attacks on NHS, M and S, 4.1 million incidents last year)

• Green crime

• Drugs trade

• Money laundering

Explain the global criminal economy using the drugs trade?

• Idea of supply and demand.

• The richer West demands the products and the poorer developing countries have a lot of poverty → drug cultivation is attractive, requires little investment and commands higher prices than traditional crops

• Eg: Columbia 20% of the population depends on cocaine production for their livelihood

Explain the idea of global risk consciousness giving examples and evaluating?

• Globalisation brought an increase in insecurities regarding the movement of people eg: migrants

• Led to people being more concerned with protecting their borders eg: UK has no upper limit on how long people can be kept in detention centres and in March 2026 the government changed refugee status from permanent to temporary, requiring review every 30 months.

• However, this may be due to moral panics from the media which exaggerate issues presenting migrants as “flooding” the country

How does Taylor argue globalisation led to increased inequality which led to crime? (poor people)

• Globalisation allowed TNC’s to shift manufacturing to low wage countries → job insecurity + poverty

• Deregulation → governments have little control over their economies to make more jobs or increase welfare spending

• Marketisation → encouraged people to see themselves as individual consumers calculating the costs and benefits undermining social cohesion → materialistic culture

• These things widen inequality encouraging the poor to turn to crime. The lack of legitimate job opportunities drives people to look for illegitimate ones. Eg: in LA deindustrialisation led to the growth of drug gangs to 10,000 people

How does globalisation lead to more crime for elitist groups?

• Deregulation of financial markets → movement of funds around the globe to avoid taxation eg: Starbucks - tens–hundreds of millions in avoided tax

• New patterns of employment → subcontracting workers eg: Sports Direct which were exposed for hiring workers on zero hour contracts for below minimum wage and there were poor working conditions

• However, big TNC’s aren’t always aware they are subcontracting as there may be a big supply chain

How may regulatory bodies cause crimes of globalisation giving examples?

• World Bank has 188 member countries but 5 of the richest hold over 1/3 of all the voting rights. Rothe and Friedrichs argue those bodies impose pro capitalist “structural adjustment programmes” on poor countries in return for loans

• These programmes often require cuts on spending to health and education and privatisation allowing Western corporations to expand

• Rothe et al say the 80s programme imposed on Rwanda caused mass unemployment creating the economic basis for the 1994 genocide

• Cain argues the World Bank acts as a “global state” not breaking laws but indirectly causing harm

Which sociologist said about the “glocal” organisation linked to changing patterns of crime, explain and evaluate?

• Hobbs and Dunningham argue crime works in a “glocal” system as it is locally based but with global connections. It varies from place to place

• There has been a shift in the gang hierarchal structure to loose networks of entrepreneurial criminals

• However, it is not clear if these changes are new or if the 2 always co-existed

Explain and name the sociologist who came up with McMafia as a change in the pattern of crime due to globalisation? Evaluate?

• Glenny argues globalisation → rise of “McMafia” (meaning organised crime operating like multinational corporations across borders)

• Shows how crime has become standardised, global, and business-like.

• After the collapse of communism (e.g. the fall of the Soviet Union), new markets opened up (due to deregulation of markets), creating opportunities for criminal networks to expand internationally and do drug trafficking/cybercrime

• To protect their wealth capitalists turned to mafias who wanted to pursue self-interest and profit. eg: Chechen Mafia became a brand name

• However, Glenny may over-exaggerate organisation, as not all global crime is as structured or corporate as “McMafia” suggests.

What was Beck’s idea about green crime?

He said due to late modernity we can provide adequate resources for all however, the increase in technology creates new manufactured risks. These are global environmental harm leading Beck to describe the late modern society as a “global risk society”.

Eg: needing wood for manufacturing → deforestation → rising CO2 and global warming

Describe and evaluate traditional criminology of green crime?

• Only interested if a law is broken

• Situ and Emmons say green crime is an “unauthorised act or omission that violates the law”

• White (green criminologist) says this is an anthropogenic view as it assumes humans have the right to dominate the environment and put economic growth before it

• It is clearly defined however, it is accepting definitions of green crime that are shaped by powerful groups (these people often commit the green crimes)

Describe and evaluate green criminology?

• More radical approach known as zemiology (study of harms). White argues that green crime is any action which harms the physical environment/humans/animals within it even if no law is broken

• White holds an ecocentric view seeing humans and the environment as interdependent harming each other through global capitalism and exploitation

• Most environmental harms aren’t illegal so it is a form of transgressive criminology as it includes new issues

• Most countries don’t have same laws so legal definitions of green crime aren’t consistent especially as they are a product of a countries political processes which are often led by MC

South classifies green crime into primary and secondary, name some primary crimes with examples? What is primary crime?

• Primary crime results directly from the destruction or degradation of the earth

• Air pollution - Walters found twice as many people now die from air pollution-induced breathing issues as 20 years ago. Eg: VW emissions scandal 2015 where they reduced emissions temporarily to pass tests when the actual emissions were 40x above legal limit

• Deforestation - 1960-1990 1/5 of the world’s tropical rainforests were destroyed. Eg: logging in the Amazon to produce timber and for cattle ranching

• Species decline + animal abuse - 46% of mammal species are at risk of extinction, badger baiting rose by 55% from 2019-20. Overfishing

• Water pollution - 25 million die from drinking contaminated water annually, Thames Water sewage pollution scandal (2022–2024)

Name and explain some secondary green crimes that South suggested? What is secondary crime?

• Secondary crime grows out of flouting the rules aimed at preventing/regulating environmental disasters

• State violence against oppositional groups - French secret service blowing up Greenpeace ship which wanted to prevent green crime in NZ

• Hazardous waste + organised crime - eco-mafias profit from illegal dumping of waste as it is very expensive for industries to dispose of safely. Eg: Western countries exporting waste to developing countries. Bridgland explains how 2004 tsunami put radioactive waste dumped by European companies on the shores of Somalia

• Environmental discrimination - black people are often forced to live in areas next to garbage dumps

Evaluate green criminology overall?

• Recognises the growing importance of environmental issues

• Very subjective of what crimes are

What is state crime, describe the extent of it? Why does the state get away with it?

• Green and Ward say state crime are “illegal activities perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agents”. They further the state’s policies

• Green and Ward say 262 million people were murdered by the state during the 20th century (huge scale)

• Chambliss says state crime is “acts defined by law as criminal and committed by state officials”

• However, power the state holds as a source of law means it can conceal its own crimes and evade punishment, decriminalise or criminalise acts → less public faith in state

• States have supreme authority within their borders → UN can’t intervene

What are the 4 types of state crime?

McLaughlin came up with:

• Political crimes corruption and censorship

• Crimes by security/police forces - genocide

• Economic crimes - violations of health and safety laws

• Social/cultural crimes - institutional racism

How does the Rwanda genocide include all the 4 types of state crime?

Political crimes

• The Hutu-led government used propaganda and censorship to spread anti-Tutsi hatred.

• Media like Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines encouraged violence and dehumanised Tutsis.

Crimes by security/police forces

• Around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in about 100 days.

Economic crimes

• The state failed to protect citizens’ basic rights, including access to resources and safety.

Social & cultural crimes

• Long-standing ethnic discrimination against Tutsis was reinforced by the state.

• Identity cards labelled ethnicity

• Tutsis were labelled as “cockroaches” and “rats” showing extreme institutional racism and dehumanisation.

Describe giving examples how Kramer and Michalowski distinguish between state-initiated and state-facilitated crimes?

1. State initiated - Where the state approves corporate crimes. Eg: Challenger space shuttle was made with risky, negligent and cost-cutting decisions leading to an explosion killing 7 people

2. State facilitated - When states fail to regulate and control corporate behaviour eg: Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster causing the largest oil spill in history. BP and government regulators failed to see the cost cutting decisions

Distinguish between the 2 kinds of war related state crimes giving example?

1. Illegal wars - under international law, war can only be declared by UN. However, countries come up with excuse clauses. For example, Russia justified Ukraine war which is widely agreed to be illegal by saying it was in self-defence and to stop Neo-Nazi’s

2. Crimes committed during the war/aftermath - Whyte says the USA’s neoliberal colonisation of Iraq illegally changed the constitution so the economy could be privatised to make money ($48 billion to US firms). Prisoners were also tortured. Kramer notes how the terror bombing of civilians became normalised especially through WW2 eg: Hiroshima

Which sociologists define state crime in terms of social harms? Evaluate?

• Michalowski says state crime includes illegal acts and legally permissible acts which have the same consequences in terms of harm as the illegal acts

• Hillyard et al argue we should replace the study of crime with the study of harm “zemiology” to see whether things are against the law. Eg: state-facilitated poverty

• This creates a single standard that can be applied to different states and prevents states from making laws to allow them to misbehave. However, harm is a very broad term

• Labelling theorists may argue that state crime is only labelled as such by the state however, this is more vague and the state my be brain-washed by ruling class ideology

Describe and evaluate the international law definition of state crime?

• State crime is based off international law which is created through treaties and agreements between states providing globally agreed standards (eg: genocide)

• Rothe and Mullins say state crime is any action by or on behalf of the state which violates international law or the state’s domestic law

• It doesn’t depend on personal/societal definitions of crime and is designed to deal with state crime

• However, some argue international law is a social construction as Strand and Tuman found Japan sought to overturn the ban on whaling by concentrating aid on small states as bribery. Also, international law generally focuses on war crimes

Explain human rights as a definition of state crime?

• Human rights include civil rights (right to vote, privacy, education) and natural rights (right to life, liberty, free speech)

• Herman and Schwendinger argue state crime is defined by a violation of people’s basic human rights by the state eg: states that practice racism

Evaluate human rights as a definition of state crime?

Pros

• Risse et al argue states now care about protecting their citizens human rights because they are seen as a global social norm → shaming

• Sociologists should want to defend human rights and not accept state definitions of crime as that makes us subservient to the state

Cons

• Cohen says acts such as economic exploitation aren’t self-evidently criminal even if we find them morally unacceptable

• Disagreements over what counts as a human right. Green and Ward say liberty is not much use if people are too malnourished to use it

Explain and evaluate the authoritarian personality as an explanation for state crime?

• Adorno et al identify an authoritarian personality which includes a willingness to obey orders without question eg: WW2 German soldiers

• However, Arendt’s study found little psychological difference between 'normal' people and psychopaths, suggesting personality alone cannot explain state crime. His study was of a Nazi war criminal who was found to be relatively normal and not that anti-Semitic

How can you explain state crime as a crime of obedience?

• State crimes can be described as crimes of obedience where one must deviate from one social norm to conform to the other - generally obeying authority

• Green and Ward argue people can be re-socialised into obeying authority even when it includes hurting others. States may create enclaves of barbarism where torture is practiced segregated from wider society to allow the torturer to regard it as a 9-5 job

• Kelman and Hamilton identify 3 features to produce crimes of obedience: authorisation (acts being approved by those in authority), routinisation (turning the act into a routine so the person can detach themself from it), dehumanisation (propaganda about “the enemy” portraying them as sub-human so moral principles don’t apply)

What does Bauman argue are the 4 features of modern society (MODERNITY) that caused a breakdown to pre-modern barbarism with the Holocaust? Explaining state crime?

• Division of labour - everyone was responsible for 1 small task so no one felt personally responsible

• Bureaucratisation - normalised the killing by Kelman and Hamilton’s 3 features

• Instrumental reality - where rational, efficient methods are used to achieve a goal regardless of morality eg: murder

• Science and tech - from railways transporting people to industrially produced gas used to kill them

Evaluate Bauman’s 4 features of modern society explaining state crime?

• Not all genocides occur from a highly organised division of labour. In the Rwandan genocide participants were unable to distance themselves from the killing

• Ideological factors are important - inferior and sub-human ideologies

How and why is there a culture of denial which can explain state crime today?

Alvarez says there has been a growing impact of international human rights eg: Amnesty international putting pressure on states. Cohen argues this lead to states making a greater effort to conceal/justify/re-label crimes. There are 3 stages of the spiral of state denial:

• Stage 1: denying it ever happened - some may argue with COVID19 leaders claimed the virus wasn’t a threat and wasn’t real

• Stage 2: It wasn’t how it looked eg: self-defence not murder - George Floyd scandal where officials reframed protests as riots or law-and-order issues instead of police brutality issues

• Stage 3: justification - US drone strikes on Yemen and Pakistan saying it was unavoidable in the fight against terrorism

What are Sykes and Matza’s 5 neutralisation techniques allowing deviant behaviour to be justified

Denial of Victim

• Victims are portrayed as deserving the harm or as dangerous enemies.

• They may be labelled terrorists, criminals, or violent groups justifying it.

Denial of Injury

• Authorities claim no real harm was done: Actions are described as not physically or psychologically damaging.

• Harmful practices are minimised or redefined as harmless procedures.

Denial of Responsibility

• Individuals say they were just following orders or doing their duty.

• Responsibility is shifted to higher authorities or the system.

• Lack of personal responsibility especially with policemen/death camps

Condemning the Condemners

• Critics are attacked or discredited by governments who claim critics are biased, racist, hostile, or politically motivated.

• This shifts attention away from the alleged wrongdoing.

Appeal to Higher Loyalty

• Actions are justified as serving a greater cause (e.g., nation, religion, security).

• Harmful acts are framed as necessary sacrifices for a larger goal.

• Moral responsibility is replaced by loyalty to the group or cause.