CRIM 1001: Transnational and State Crime Notes
Globalisation and the Changing Role of the State
Globalisation has led to intense global and regional interconnectedness, challenging the traditional concept of political community as an exclusive, territorially delimited unit. The fate of people and communities in disparate regions is now intertwined through complex systems.
The Globalising Process
Globalising processes require analyzing society from a new perspective. People's lives are influenced by events and social institutions spatially far removed from their local contexts. Social life occurs ‘at a distance’ (Giddens, 1990). David Harvey (1990) describes globalisation as the transformation of time and space through compression.
The Changing Role of the State
Max Weber (1948) defined the state as a human community that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. The state is considered the sole source of the ‘right’ to use violence.
The growth of penal populism reflects public disillusionment with modern institutions of government and crime control (Pratt, 2007). The unquestioned belief in penal experts' ability to manage crime has been increasingly questioned (Garland, 2001; Pratt, 2007). Researchers emphasize the need to move beyond state-centered thinking about crime and justice (Franco, 2020) and to broaden the criminological imagination to include questions of international justice (Green and Ward, 2004; Morrison, 2006).
Global Movements of People
Globalization has improved transportation, significantly enhancing mobility. More people live outside their homeland than ever before, making migration a pervasive aspect of contemporary life (Papastergiadis, 2000). In some countries, mobility is crucial for national economies through remittances or tourism income (Sassen, 2003). Countries are increasingly affected by various migratory movements, including labor migration, refugee movements, and permanent settlement (Castles & Miller, 2003).
Border Controls and Fortress Continents
Contemporary mobility presents a significant challenge for states trying to control it. Bauman (1998) emphasizes the mutual reinforcement of globalization and mobility, alongside a renewed emphasis on territoriality. Technologies like biometric passports, visas, and ID cards have been developed in response to global threats (Zureik & Salter, 2005). New border practices differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' mobilities in response to terrorism threats (Franco, 2020).
People Smuggling and Trafficking
Increased securitization has made borders more difficult to cross, leading to a rise in clandestine migration. Organizing movements of people has become a growing industry, termed the ‘migration industry’ (Castles and Miller, 2003). Estimating the exact figures of trafficking victims is difficult, and data is often circulated with little reference to its origin (Goodey, 2005).
The UN defines trafficking in persons as:
“‘Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs” (UN, 2000).
Reports of Alleged Modern Slavery
According to Gannoni & Bricknell (2024) data from July to December 2022 (n=150):
Forced marriage: 32\%%
Sexual servitude: 26\%%
Trafficking persons out of Australia: 21\%%
Forced labour: 12\%%
Trafficking persons into Australia: 9\%%
Reports of modern slavery, categorized by exploitation type and industry, show the prevalence across sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, construction, commercial sex, and domestic services.
Issues With Current Approaches
Researchers highlight that current approaches often treat trafficking as illegal immigration, criminalizing victims (Goodey, 2005). There is a need to focus on protecting the rights of trafficked victims, who are often treated as tools for securing convictions (Goodey, 2005). Law enforcement officials sometimes treat unclear cases as illegal immigration (Aronowitz, 2003).
Mafias, Networks, and Transnational Crime
Globalisation is reshaping the underworld, with evolving law-enforcement strategies, technologies, and social change breaking down old forms of organised crime and creating new, flexible networks of criminal entrepreneurs (Galeotti, 2007: 6).
Scale of Transnational Crime
The size of the transnational criminal economy is notoriously difficult to estimate, as illicit activities are designed to be invisible. The illicit drug market is one of the largest industries worldwide, estimated at over 500 billion a year (Jenner, 2014). Without drug traffickers, the drug industry would become localized with remoter suppliers.
Advances in communication, transportation, and information technology have enabled the drug industry to grow into one of the largest in the world. Drug trafficking is rife where borders blur and economies deregulate. Like a legitimate business, the drug trade seized the opportunity that globalization presented.
The main difference between the drug market and a legitimate market is the illegality of drugs. Production costs are higher due to the risk of incarceration. The illicit nature of drugs also causes a large negative externality: violence.
The State-Crime Nexus
The discourse around transnational organised crime often paints a simplistic picture. However, the boundaries between illicit activities and state laws have been far from clear. Charles Tilly argues that the state is simply the most efficient and effective form of organised crime.
Crimes committed by the state, from war violations to corruption, are some of the most common and damaging forms of illegality (Green and Ward, 2004). Failed states are often discussed as a security issue rather than a developmental and humanitarian problem. Symptomatic of the weakening of the state under globalisation, failed states are seen as a magnet for criminal elements. In the case of Guinea-Bissau, cocaine cartels moved their business there because of the general fragility of the state (Vigh, 2012). Criminal networks and other violent non-state actors are sometimes so powerful that they represent ‘shadow sovereigns’ (Nordstrom, 2000).
Concluding Thoughts
The globalising processes have completely changed how we interact and move around the world, producing new pressures and unequal tensions that lead to new criminal opportunities. Much of criminology focuses on street crime, but transnational crime is quantitatively and qualitatively more harmful.
Transnational crime operates through the contours created by globalisation and is a part of, not separate from, global capitalism. Quite often, the nation-state itself is more complicit than initially reported, resulting in much suffering, inequality, and the growth of criminal organizations.