Crime and Deviance: Globalisation, green crime,

human rights and state crimes

Name:

Globalisation has brought with it the spread of transnational organised crime, for example trafficking drugs and people. Globalisation also brings de-industrialisation and insecurity, which lead to increased crime. It has also led to new forms of ‘glocal’ criminal organisation, with fluid networks and ‘franchises’ rather than the old mafia-style fixed hierarchies.

We now live in ‘global risk society’ where human-made threats include massive environmental damage. Green criminology adopts an ecocentric view and starts from the notion of harm rather than criminal law. It identifies both primary and secondary green crimes.

State crimes include genocide, war crimes and torture. The state has the power to commit massive human rights abuses and to legitimate its crimes using neutralisation techniques such as denial of responsibility. Human rights abuses are much more likely to occur eg when the enemy is portrayed as sub-human.

Learning objectives:

After studying this topic you should:

Understand the ways in which globalisation and crime are related and be able to evaluate explanations of this relationship;

Understand the different types of green crime and be able to evaluate sociological explanations of environmental harm;

Understand the relationship between state crimes and human rights and be able to evaluate explanations of such crimes.

Key questions:

1. Has crime become global?

2. How does the media report criminal activity?

3. What are green crimes and how are they dealt with?

4. What rights due all human beings have?

5. How can we stop state crimes when we have no world police?

Key information

Globalisation and crime

Mass media and crime

Green crime

Human rights

State crimes

Crime and globalisation

1. Use the glossary at the back of the book to look up the definition of globalisation, green crime and zemiology. Write your own definitions for each word below.

2. What causes globalisation?

3. How can crime be described as globalised?

4. Manuel Castlells (1998) argued that there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum. What forms does this take?

5. Explain, with examples, how the global criminal economy functions both as a supply and demand economy.

6. Define, with examples, how globalisation creates new insecurities and a mentality of ‘risk consciousness’.

7. In less than 150 words explain how Ian Taylor (1997) argues that globalisation has led to changes in the pattern and extent of crime.

8. What advantages might there be for large companies in switching their production to a less developed country?

9. Summarise the findings of Hobbs and Dunnington. Make sure you use the word ‘glocal’.

10. Explain with examples what Misha Glenny (2008) means by ‘McMafia’?

Green Crime

1. What is meant by ‘global risk society’?

2. Explain the differences between traditional criminology and green criminology.

3. What criticisms can be made of both traditional and green criminology?

4. Identify, with reference to the Bhophal disaster, examples of green crime in both the primary and secondary instances.

5. What rights if any do a) animals and b) the physical environment have?

6. Do humans have more rights than animals and the environment? If so what are they?

State crimes

1. How do Green and Ward (2005) define state crime?

2. What are the four catagories of state crime as defined by Eugene McLaughlin in 2001.

3. Explain, with examples, how the state is able to commit crimes on such a large scale.

4. What is meant by ‘human rights’?

5. Critical criminologists such as Herman and Julia Schwendinger (1970) argued that we should define crime in terms of the violation of human rights, rather than the breaking of legal rules. What did they mean by this?

6. What criticisms did Stanley Cohen (1996;2001) make of the Schwendingers’ view?

7. Explain what Cohen meant by the ‘spiral of denial’.

8. Explain, with examples, what is meant by ‘neutralisation techniques’.

9. Kelman and Hamilton identify three features of crimes of obedience, what are they?

10. How does Zygmunt Bauman (1989) explain why the Nazis were able to commit mass murder?