Using materials from item b and elsewhere assess the view that the process of globalisation has led to change in both the amount of crime and types of crimes committed (21 marks)
Globalisation refers to the increasing interconnectedness of societies. Globalisation has many causes including spread if information communication technology, the global mass media, Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure and many more.
Held et al argues there’s been globalisation of crime; an increase of crime across the border. The same process that brought globalisation of legitimate activities has also brought the spread of transnational organised crime. Globalisation creates new opportunities for crime and new means of committing crime, for example cyber-crime. Globalisation creates new insecurities and produces a new mentality of risk consciousness where risk is global rather than isolated. For example rise in economic migrants has led to concerns of risk of disorder and increasing need to protect borders. Much knowledge of risks comes from the media which often exaggerates dangers we face. For example with immigration the media create moral panics of supposed threats, often fuelled by politicians. Negative coverage of immigrants has led to hate crimes against minorities in European countries. One result is the intensification of social control at the national level. The UK has toughened borders; there is now no limit as to how long a person may be held in immigration detention.
Ian Taylor (1997) argues globalisation has led to changes in the pattern and extent of crime as globalisation has created crime at both ends of the social spectrum. It has allowed transnational corporations to switch manufacturing to low wage countries, producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty although Left realists argue increasingly materialistic culture promoted by the global media portrays success in terms of lifestyle of consumption. All these factors create insecurity and widening inequality that encourage people, especially the poor to commit crime.
Globalisation has led to new patterns in employment which create new opportunities for crime. It has led to increased use of subcontracting to recruit flexible workers, often working illegally for less than minimum wage. Taylor’s theory is useful in linking global trends in the capitalist economy to changes in the patterns of crime. However it does not adequately explain the changes make people behave in criminal ways. For example not all the poor turn to crime.
Globalisation also leads to green or environmental crime can be defined as crime against the environment. Much green crime is linked by globalisation and increasing interconnectedness of societies. Regardless of the division of the world into separate nation states, the planet is a single eco system and threats to the