7.2.10 Global Crime

7.2.10 Crime

Are people becoming more alike because of globalization?

Globalization of crime: Just as transnational corporations can move their goods across borders to make profits, so can transnational criminal organizations. Transnational crime has become huge in the past two decades. This flow of goods moves both ways.

For example, a poor person in India might sell his or her own vital internal organs for transplant into a wealthy foreigner. Illegally harvested organs can be obtained in the Middle East and sold in North America. A child from the developing world might be sold into prostitution or sold as an adopted child in the developed world. Drugs may come from Colombia or Afghanistan to North America or Europe, or from the valleys of British Columbia to the cities of the US, etc. Weapons produced in the United States are sold on the streets of Somalia. Luxury vehicles from Western Europe are stolen and smuggled into Eastern Europe. As long there is demand, there will be supply.

Transnational corporations are complex operations; so, too, are transnational criminal operations. Complex crimes involve many smaller criminal acts and are, therefore, difficult to monitor and control. Sometimes legal buying and selling of goods is mixed with illegal buying and selling, resulting in an unclear area that is difficult for international and national law enforcement officials to deal with.

Technology and crime: The same modern telecommunications and information systems of legitimate businesses are used as easily by criminal networks. State-of-the-art communications equipment can be used for international criminals to make deals and coordinate the supplies. Reliable and rapid communication allows criminals to stay ahead of the law.

Computers allow criminals to obtain, process, and protect information — and avoid justice. Technology allows them to plan marketing strategies for drugs and other illegal goods and to find the best routes to smuggle goods and move money through financial institutions while leaving false trails to confuse the banks and police. Some criminal organizations are skilled at using technology for counterintelligence and for tracking law enforcement activities.

Child prostitution and trafficking in women and children are global crimes. In some countries with much international tourism, children are sold into the sex market. In poor nations, families sometimes sell their children thinking that they are sending them to a better life but often unaware that they are to become prostitutes. Illegal adoptions is another form of child trafficking.

Drugs: One in a thousand people use heroin or other opiates illegally, and two in a thousand use cocaine. Hundreds of thousands more abuse prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The numbers and types of illegal drugs have increased in recent years. Drugs such as heroin and cocaine are produced in greater quantities. With greater supply comes greater use. Drug-related crimes have increased more rapidly than almost any other crime in the last twenty years.

Reflect

What influence does international crime have on identity?

People in poor nations often are willing to do anything to survive, and members of the crime community are willing to do anything to provide more wealth for themselves and their families. The globalization of crime gives more opportunities for criminal acts. This has serious negative effects on individuals and cultures because people give up what they value and believe in to survive.

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