Criminology and transnational crime

Abstract

At this juncture police chiefs and politicians embrace two common stereotypes about transnational crime. The first is that transnational crime is synonymous with organized crime, and the second is that transnational crime is a novel threat for all nations and citizens because of the globalization of contemporary world. Criminology can partly be debited for these stereotypes. In a recent collection of 23 published classic and influential criminological papers on transnational crime, most of the papers are dealing with traditional and modern criminal organizations being active in transnational criminal activities (smuggling drugs, arms, stolen cars or illegal cigarettes; human slavery or money laundering). In many of the contributions, globalization is put forward as one of the (accelerative) causes of transnational crime, except one of the selected chapters of Beare’s volume in which Andreas openly questioned globalization as one of the main causes of transnational organized crime. The author criticized heavily, the assessment of the United Nations of 2010 on the amount and seriousness of transnational organized crime in which the then director wrote: “Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations”. Andreas gives a great number of other examples of authors ringing the alarm bell by claiming that transnational crime is a novel phenomenon in the world threatening the peaceful constellation of the existing world society. Nevertheless, systematic empirical research on the relation of globalization and transnational crime is hard to find in criminology. Viano recently argued that transnational crime is strongly increasing by globalization, but stated relativistically: “Seen in historical perspective, globalization is the natural outcome of a process that began centuries ago and that advanced through several major technological innovations, some of which, like the telegraph, have already become obsolete while others, like the internet, are constantly growing and morphing into new forms and applications”