How has globalisation reshaped crime, and what are green and state crimes?
Globalisation and crime in contemporary society, the global criminal economy, green crime, human rights and state crimes, including genocide and crimes by states against their own citizens.
A focused answer to the AQA A-Level Sociology Crime topic on globalisation and crime, covering the global criminal economy, glocal organisation, green crime (primary and secondary), and state crime including genocide and human rights.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
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What this dot point is asking
AQA wants you to explain how globalisation has changed crime (the global criminal economy), and to explain green crime and state crime (including genocide and crimes by states against citizens). A running theme the examiner rewards is the definition of crime: legal versus harm-based.
Globalisation and the global criminal economy
- Supply and demand: the global economy links demand in the West (for drugs, sex work, cheap labour) to supply from poorer countries, where for some producers (such as drug-crop farmers) crime is a rational survival strategy.
- Glocal organisation: Hobbs and Dunnighan argue crime is "glocal", globally connected but still rooted in local conditions and contacts; loose, flexible networks replace old rigid mafia-style hierarchies (Glenny's "McMafia").
- Risk society: Beck argues globalisation creates new manufactured global risks (environmental, financial) that generate new crimes and a heightened, often media-fuelled sense of insecurity.
Green crime
A debate runs between traditional criminology (which studies only breaches of existing law and so risks ignoring lawful but harmful pollution) and green or transgressive criminology (which studies environmental harm regardless of whether a law was broken). The latter adopts an ecocentric view (humans and the environment are interdependent) and links to global inequality, since the poorest often suffer most environmental harm.
State crime
State crime is illegal or deviant activity carried out by, or with the complicity of, state agencies. It can be the most serious crime because states have great power and can define what is legal.
- McLaughlin identifies four types: political crimes (corruption, censorship), crimes by security forces (genocide, torture, war crimes), economic crimes (violating health and safety), and social and cultural crimes (institutional racism).
- Green and Ward define state crime as state organisational deviance that violates human rights, which gets round the problem that states write their own laws.
- Cohen analyses how states deny or justify their crimes using techniques of neutralisation (denial of injury, denial of the victim, denial of responsibility, condemning the condemners, and appeals to higher loyalty) and a three-stage "spiral of denial" ("it did not happen", "if it did it is something else", "even if it is what you say it is justified").
Evaluation
A central issue is definition: should sociology stick to legal definitions (which let states legalise their own crimes), or adopt zemiology (the study of social harm) and a human-rights or transgressive approach to capture green and state crimes? Critics of the harm-based approach warn it is subjective (who decides what counts as harm?). Global and state crimes are also hard to police, because they cross borders and the powerful actors involved often control or evade the law.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of AQA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AQA 202020 marksApplying material from Item C and your knowledge, evaluate the view that globalisation has changed the nature and extent of crime.Show worked answer →
A Paper 3 (Crime) 20 mark essay across AO1, AO2 and AO3.
Outline the global criminal economy (Castells), glocal organisation (Hobbs and Dunnighan), and risk and crime (Beck's risk society).
Develop with green crime (South's primary and secondary) and state crime (Green and Ward, McLaughlin's types, Cohen on neutralisation) as new and expanded forms of harm.
Evaluate the definitional debate (legal versus transgressive criminology and zemiology) and the difficulty of policing global crime. Apply the item and conclude that globalisation has both expanded existing crime and created genuinely new forms.
AQA 202110 marksOutline and explain two reasons why state crime is difficult to control.Show worked answer →
Two developed paragraphs, no item.
Reason one: the state defines what is legal. Because states make and enforce the law, they can legalise their own actions or avoid prosecution, and Cohen shows how they use techniques of neutralisation (denial of injury, of the victim, of responsibility) and a "spiral of denial" to avoid accountability.
Reason two: scale, power and the definition problem. State crimes such as genocide are committed by powerful actors who control the police, courts and media; victims may be denied recognition, and there is disagreement over whether to use a legal or a human-rights and harm-based (Green and Ward, zemiology) definition.
Markers reward two distinct, developed reasons.
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Sources & how we know this
- AQA A-level Sociology (7192) specification — AQA (2015)