Globalization, Transnational Crime and State Power: The Need for a New Criminology

Abstract

This paper focuses on globalization as it relates to transnational crime. It attempts to show how the very patterns and dynamics that make globalization possible and effective as a positive force in the world also give rise to “collateral” negative, that is criminal, consequences and facilitate the spawning and rapid growth of transnational crimes. Moreover, there are also crimes committed opposing globalization. And globalization also makes it easier to fight crime since it facilitates cooperation and coordination of anti-crime efforts. Thus it has a complex relationship with crime: positive, negative and preventative. The paper also addresses how criminologists should review and revise their research and intervention models to take into account how globalization has changed the way we can and should approach crime. It addresses the lack of criminological interest in the “crimes” of globalization. It challenges the essentialist assumption of mainstream criminology that the legal definitions of crime are sacrosanct and frozen. We need a broader conceptualization of crime which goes beyond the prescriptions of criminal law and draws on different intellectual traditions (crimes of globalization, structural violence and the critique of neo-liberalism) which emphasize the contingent influence of social harm in people's life choices. New and bold ways of thinking and modeling are needed. Examples are provided.

Keywords

• globalization
• transnational crime
• criminology