The Globalisation of Crime

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The Globalisation of Crime Understanding Transitional Relationships in Context

On a contracting world stage, crime is a major player in globalisation and is becoming as much a feature of the emergent globalised culture as are other forms of consumerism. The Globalisation of Crime charts crime’s evolution. It analyses how globalisation has enhanced material crime relationships such that they must be understood on the same terms as any other signiWcant market force. Trends in criminalisation, crime and social development, crime and social control, the political economy of crime, and crime in transitional cultures are all examined in order to understand the role of crime as an agent of social change. In this Wrst book to challenge existing analyses of crime in the context of global transition, crime is shown to be as much a force for globalisation as globalisation is a force for crime, and an integrated theory of crime and social context is presented. Mark Findlay is Deputy Director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Sydney, where he is also Head of the Department of Law. Between 1996 and 1998 he was the Foundation Professor of Law at the University of the South PaciWc and he is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. Professor Findlay has written widely on comparative criminal justice themes and frequently acts as a consultant for international and governmental agencies.

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The Globalisation of Crime Understanding Transitional Relationships in Context Mark Findlay

          The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom    The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Mark Findlay 2004 First published in printed format 1999 ISBN 0-511-03513-6 eBook (Adobe Reader) ISBN 0-521-62125-9 hardback ISBN 0-521-78983-4 paperback

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements

page vii x

Introduction: Notions of context and globalisation 1 (Mis)representing crime 2 Crime and social development 3 Crime and social dysfunction 4 Marginalisation and crime relationships 5 Crime economies 6 Crime as choice 7 Integrating crime control Epilogue

1 20 58 94 115 138 167 186 221

Bibliography Index

226 236

v

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Preface: Some themes of method

Crime cannot be understood outside its social context. For the analysis which follows context is viewed as physical space, institutional process, patterns of relationships and individual variation. Context is a transitional state within which crime inXuences, and is inXuenced by, a variety of social, cultural, political and economic determinants. Contextual analysis is essentially interactive. As an object of such analysis crime is not limited to people or situations or reactions. Crime is more eVectively understood as relationships which develop along with the dynamics of its selected context. Essential for the motivation of these relationships is the representation of crime as choice. In order to appreciate crime beyond its localised manifestations, a contextual analysis needs to be comparative at many levels. The identiWed interest in globalisation suggests several dualities (local/global; custom/modernisation; market/enterprise) which dominate the comparative contextual analysis to follow. Initially the comparison will be within context (e.g. crime as a feature of social development internal to a particular transitional culture). Concurrently the comparison of context with context (e.g. locality and globe) will evolve. The latter holds out much for critically appreciating the representations of crime and the interests which promote them. To achieve its fullest potential within the theme of globalisation, comparative research should, therefore, concentrate within a nominated cultural… context; across two or more contexts within the same culture; across time and space within a culture in transition; culture to culture; and (not or) simultaneously at the local and global levels. Crime assumes a variety of social functions dependent on context. These may co-exist while contradicting or challenging any single understanding of crime. With crime being culturally relative, it has the potential … Culture here is preferred to notions such as society and community because, while culture is a relative concept, it relies on common forms and functions which allow for comparisons of civilisation and social development. In the comparative exercise, referent cultures are a useful locator when examining social relationships and behaviours in transition.

vii

viii

Preface

within any particular culture to fragment social order. However, crime’s existence and representation at a global level may argue for the unity and generalisation of social problems. Globalisation is a feature of the current social and cultural condition. As much as any other social entity, crime, its representations and its impact are part of globalisation. However, this has led to further distortion of the representation and utility of crime and control. With the implosion which produces and proves globalisation, crime is moving further away from conventional explanations of criminality. As with many emergent themes in social science, globalisation has both simple and complex representations. Put simply, it is the collapsing of time and space – the process whereby, through mass communication, multinational commerce, internationalised politics and transnational regulation, we seem to be moving inexorably towards a single culture. One proof is in modern, universal cultural iconography, though this is more likely to represent Coca Cola than universal human rights protection. The more complex interpretation of globalisation is as paradox, wherein there are as many pressures driving us towards the common culture as those keeping us apart. The resultant move towards globalisation is due to the prevailing nature and inXuence of internationalised politics and economics. Globalisation is a reXexive concept. It means modernisation and the marketing of predominant consumerist values. In this respect the inXuence of modernisation over developing cultures in transition initially destabilises custom and tradition. The beneWts and detriments of relentless globalisation, such as crime, should be both important and natural objects for comparative research. Essential to globalisation and crime is the internationalisation of capital, the generalisation of consumerism and the uniWcation of economies. If crime is to be understood as a market condition, then its place within globalisation becomes more vital as an analytical context for contemporary appreciations of crime and control. The conventional wisdoms of crime as a product of social dysfunction and marginalisation may be challenged and reWned through comparative contextual analysis. Globalisation as a focus for this provides the potential to position crime as a natural consequence of many modernisation paradigms previously considered to be subverted by crime. Crime is power. Relationships of power and domination which become criminogenic are enlivened through comparative contextual analysis. An appreciation of crime within globalisation is only partial unless control is considered. Control is more than a response to crime. The

Preface

ix

globalised strategies of crime control tend also to reveal the impetus for globalisation. The crime/globalisation nexus will be explored so as to challenge contemporary representations of crime, engage popular wisdom about the causes of crime, expose the inXuence of crime over social and cultural transitions, and demystify both crime and globalisation, thereby oVering the potential to rationalise control, diminish crime and reconstruct crime relationships and crime choice.

Acknowledgements

I simply wish to thank: the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, and the Benchers of the Middle Temple for the Inns of Court Fellowship during which the formative work for this project was achieved; the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, which funded the production of a discussion paper drawing together the preliminary themes of this work; the Law Foundation of New South Wales and the Law Faculty of the University of Sydney which Wnanced the revision of the manuscript; the University of the South PaciWc which supported the research behind several of the case-studies used in the analysis; my colleagues and good friends, Peter DuV, Ernesto Savona and Ugi Zvekic, who read and commented on various drafts and encouraged me to continue with the work; the American Society of Criminology, the PaciWc History Conference and the International Symposium on Economic Crime at whose meetings portions of this book were presented and criticised; to Wayne my meticulous reader, and Mariella Ienna, my muse and indefatigable associate – this work would not be between two covers without your help. Lastly, my thanks go to my family who watched and waited through the long days and nights of writing: I give this book to you.

x

Introduction: Notions of context and globalisation

Crime has been a silent partner in modernisation.… Within a contracting world, crime and its traditional boundaries are transforming into predictable and active features of globalisation. The analysis which follows charts this evolution. Globalisation creates new and favourable contexts for crime. This is the consequence of what Harvey refers to as the ‘compression of time and the annihilation of space’ (1989: 293–5). Commercial crime relationships in particular are set free to beneWt from opportunities not dissimilar to those enjoyed by multinational enterprise beyond the jurisdiction of the individual state and the limitations of single markets. The globalisation of crime represents the potential to view many crime relationships unburdened of conventional legal and moral determination. Crime operates amongst the other market  solventsÀ in globalisation, and as such may now be analysed against general features of ‘commodiWcation’ which are presently expanding and penetrating every corner of the planet. Were this book to advance a predominant thesis it would be that the process of time-space compression, which is globalisation, has enhanced material crime relationships to an extent where they require analysis in a similar fashion to any other crucial market force. The claim of globalisation is that: ‘Spatial barriers have collapsed so that the world is now a single Weld within which capitalism can operate, and capital Xows become more and more sensitive to the relative advantages of particular spatial locations’ (Waters, 1995: 57–8). The context of crime is such a location. … For the purposes of the analysis to follow modernisation is taken to involve a capitalist system of commodity production, industrialism, developed state surveillance techniques, and militarised order (see Giddens, 1991: 15).   As Gilpin agrees, the market here is ‘driven largely by its own internal dynamic’ where the pace and direction of advance are mainly inXuenced by external factors such as domestic and international political frameworks (Gilpin, 1987: 65). À The use of the word ‘solvents’ here refers to a process whereby conventional distinctions are weakened or destroyed as well as where crime is an agent of Xux.

1

2

The globalisation of crime

The globalisation of capital from money to the electronic transfer of credit, of transactions of wealth from the exchange of property to infotechnology, and the seemingly limitless expanse of immediate and instantaneous global markets, have enabled the transformation of crime beyond people, places and even identiWable victims. Crime is now as much a feature of the emergent globalised culture as is every other aspect of its consumerism. The task of this book is to explore this location in a variety of globalising social contexts in order to better appreciate the place of crime as an agent of social change. In addition, the durability of popular wisdom and its ensuing representations of crime and control are of interest now that a popular culture context is being transformed beyond cultural relativity. ‘There will be no there anymore; we will all be here’à Globalisation is changing our understanding of culture and its signiWcance as a context within which crime is constructed and played out. Until recently, and in recognition of the diversity of world cultures, it was safe to say that crime was culturally speciWc, and to conWne contextual analysis thereby. However, in the likelihood that: ‘in a globalised world there will be a single society and culture occupying the planet’ (Waters, 1995: 3), a more integrative and dynamic contextual analysis for crime, particularly as it sits within any universal culture,Õ is required. The value systems of modernised societies are amenable to a wide range of crime opportunities. With modernisation being a common theme for the development of world cultures, as well as a stimulus for globalisation, the reduction in the diversity of crime contexts in culture has an important bearing on contemporary understandings of crime. Cultures in transition are visited in the following analysis and they suggest an important causal nexus between modernisation and crime. Having said this, our world is still far from the universalised culture in all quarters. Therefore the recognition of the transitional and relative dimensions of culture in the proposed contextual analysis of crime is of importance. Globalisation is a transitional state. It is illusory and potentially distracting at this stage of the globalisation process only to concentrate on the ‘collapsing’ of time and space without recognising the diversity of à Waters (1995: 124). Õ ‘A globalised culture is chaotic rather than orderly – it is integrated and connected so that the meanings of its components are ‘‘relativised’’ to one another but it is not uniWed or centralised. The absolute globalisation of culture would involve the creation of a common but hyperdiVerentiated Weld of value, taste and style opportunities, accessible by each individual without constraint for purposes either of self expression or consumption’ (Waters, 1995: 125–6).

Introduction

3

human consciousness which remains (see Giddens, 1996). ‘Globalisation as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensiWcation of consciousness of the world as a whole . . . both concrete global interdependence and consciousness of the global whole in the twentieth century’ (Robertson, 1992: 8). It is the Janus-faced nature of globalisation which makes it both confusing and challenging as a context for analysis. It might even be said of globalisation that it is paradoxical in the way it uniWes and delineates, internationalises and localises. The features of this process will become clearer and less perplexing as we relate crime to globalisation and vice versa. This is because crime demonstrates a similar duality. Understandings of crime, and eVorts for its control, mean little beyond their social context. ‘Globalisation’ as the contextual focus for this study of crime reveals a prevailing dilemma for contemporary appreciations of crime in context reminiscent of the duality just referred to. Crime is regularly identiWed in populist discourse as a ‘world-wide problem’ requiring international commitments towards its prevention and control. However, the existence of actual crime relationships depends on a spectrum of speciWc and individual socio-cultural inXuences which may explain any particular choiceŒ made in favour of or against crime. These inXuences, and the crime choices which they support, are windows through which globalisation as a novel and signiWcant expository context for crime may be realistically and critically viewed (see chapter 6). The challenge in analysing crime as a problem in a global context, without sacriWcing the culturally speciWc ‘reality’ of crime relationships, requires more than reconciling perennial debates about universalism and relativity in social science. Present-day crime control agendas have positioned crime in a ‘globalised’ context whether we like it or not. Globalisation has now been deemed, through the language of international politics, to be an authorised and legitimate regimen of control. Critical considerations of the actual place of crime within globalisation, and globalisation within crime, however, have not always accompanied, or featured in, this development (see Waters, 1995: chs. 1 and 2). Therefore, in order to investigate and identify crime in its globalised context, it is no longer suYcient simply to seek out its empirical reality; Œ The analysis of crime and its representation which follows is not limited to paradigms in which crime is the result of free will or rational evaluation. However, the recognition of crime as an outcome which emerges from a process of selection, whether determined by environments of foreclosed opportunity or uninhibited personal preference, is an important counterbalance to suggestions that crime is irrational, ill considered or pathological. In addition, if crime is recognised as choice, then the process of choice is worthy of interrogation. In this way the ‘chooser’ is not disempowered and the choice is not dismissed.

4

The globalisation of crime

nor is it helpful to remain focused on operational distinctions like oVenders, oVences and where the latter are committed. The globalisation of crime and control has transformed essential representations of crime so as to require the recognition of crime beyond behaviours, jurisdictions and moral refrains. It has elevated the context of crime to a prominence which makes actors, behaviours and labels essentially dependent on their setting. The declaration of interest in context as a sphere of inXuence is not a return to determinist crime theorising. Globalisation is both dynamic and transitional and as such its interaction with crime, choice and control goes beyond a web of simple causal links. A search for common themes of crime and control in today’s transitional contexts leads to an eventual consideration of globalisation. An analysis of globalisation, it is argued, is not complete without consideration of crime and control.œ While crime on the streets might be viewed as a local issue and crime in the multinational boardroom as more global, there remain important contextual themes common to both and inextricably essential to an understanding of either. This is where an interactive appreciation of crime in context is important to an understanding and analysis of crime as a force for globalisation and vice versa, rather than being restricted to representations of crime as criminals, oVences or victims – aliens in the ‘global village’.– A further development on the local/global duality is to view crime as ‘patterns’ of behaviour and reaction at the global level, while more as matters of individual variation in the local context. Again, not wishing to construct Welds for analysis which artiWcially delimit the local from the global, there is much about the representation of crime as a global problem— which implies a more structural set of relationships than do the localised representations of crime as people and actions. In an attempt to appreciate the ‘globalisation’ of crime and control both as and beyond political rhetoric, what follows will identify important themes of change which have shaped the present priorities of the ‘global œ As will be elaborated upon in later chapters, the regulation and control of crime have a profound impact not only on the nature and incidence of crime, but also on the opportunities for crime and crime choice. Throughout the analysis which follows the dynamic relationship between crime and control will form a focus. – For an understanding of the ‘global village’ concept beyond cliche´, see McLuhan (1964: 93). — In referring to a problem as global, the interpretations of Galtung (1995: 29) are useful: ( ( (

global in the sense of ‘world-wide’, being shared by a high number of societies; global in the sense of ‘world-interconnected’, with causal loops spanning the whole world; global in the sense of ‘world-system’, applying to world society as such.

Introduction

5

village’. One such signiWcant theme is development. More than modernisation, development is a paradigm aVecting all world cultures and an international Wnancial dogma intruding on all societies in transition. Along with development, free-market economics and the reconstruction of centralised economies are current themes of change, particularly in Eastern Europe. Within the discourse generated around these themes of change is a tendency to marginalise crime as a ‘foreign import’ or a ‘black market aberration’. This in turn diminishes the signiWcance of a crime market within these emergent economies and ignores the opportunity for using crime as a critical measure of free-market economics to achieve reconstruction. Within contemporary cultural and social development in whatever paradigm, global priorities such as economic reconstruction largely deWne the direction of modernisation. So too are they integral to current representations of crime and crime control, particularly when crime is targeted as a challenge to the realisation of such priorities. However, the place of crime within themes of change is not so simple. For instance, the interaction between development (as a crucial characteristic of globalisation) and the place of crime within developing cultures provides a universal and strategic, if largely unrecognised, back-drop to the analysis of crime and globalisation (see chapter 2). Crime is a feature of the transitional and the globalised society, and as such should be accepted as a common theme in globalisation. Why this is not so becomes an important theme for analysis. Answers may lie in the relatively positive and purposive representations of globalisation and its ‘legitimate’ features, such as development, when contrasted against the pathological representations of crime. This is in further need of analysis. This book is an attempt to disclose crime and crime relationships as common, even normal, features of societies in transition. However ‘society’ requires contextualisation. The universal context of crime within ‘globalised’ society reveals the often paradoxical representations of crime and rationalisations of its place in any transitional culture. In order for the ‘globalisation’ of crime to be taken seriously (beyond international political rhetoric), and so that globalisation can be oVered as a signiWcant theoretical context within which to understand crime, the place of crime in terms of cultures in transition; societies in stages of development; and individuals experiencing marginalisation as a consequence of transition and development, is here ranged against representations of crime as a problem beyond artiWcial social and spatial boundaries. The globalisation of thinking about crime, and the manner in which it is represented, invites a three-dimensional contextual analysis. This will move from the comparative level of globalisation and apply the

6

The globalisation of crime

internationalised representation of crime, given perspective through visions of culturally speciWc crime relationships and choices, so as to inclusively explain relative and universal ‘interactions’ of crime and society in transition. As suggested earlier, the representation of crime reveals how and why it exists in certain contexts. Representations of crime are more often than not transitional; the theoretical ‘postures’ underlying any particular representation of crime and its socio-cultural location are equally so. The context of crime is itself an interactive process, wherein representations are crucial. In what follows (see chapter 1) we commence our analysis with an examination of how crime is represented and why; work our way across a range of contextual assumptions about crime on which such representations rely; and, combined with reXection on globalisation, reveal crime to be as much a recognisable dimension of cultures in transition as it is of globalisation in ascendancy. Crime in context Crime is a social phenomenon involving people, places and institutions. Crime can neither exist nor make sense without its particular social context. This book critically explores popular impressions of crime as a global phenomenon and its impact within the context of communities in transition. It locates crime within actual relationships and real social settings. It evaluates representations of crime in a language which is often meant to be no more complicated than the representations themselves appear. ‘Context’ is employed here as a central concept within the analysis of this study, in preference to overworked notions such as ‘community’, ‘society’ or ‘culture’. The interactive and actual connotations of ‘context’, along with the often artiWcial and extreme notions of community, society and culture within representations of crime, promote contextual analysis. Michael Mann argues persuasively (1986), that the conception of society as an unproblematic, unitary totality is both unhelpful and illusory. ‘There is no master concept or basic unit of society . . . societies are much messier than our theories of them’ (Mann, 1986: 3–4). ‘Society’, global or otherwise, will not provide an incisive referent for this analysis of crime. ‘Community’ has become pastorale and idealised (see Cohen, 1985); ‘culture’ is too value-laden and perplexing. Having an identiWed context, rather than model states declared as the essential location for analysis, enables a consideration of what Mann suggests as the constitution of societies: ‘multiple overlapping and interconnecting socio-spatial connections of power’ (1986: 1). Crime be-

Introduction

7

comes an important element within such interconnections of power and domination, as well as providing an interesting relationship of power, itself worthy of study. Globalisation is a fertile context within which crime, as relationships of power, and interconnections through which power materialises, may be understood. Globalisation is a power context and a language for asserting hierarchies of power. In addition, the contextual signiWcance of crime for individuals, for communities in diVering situations of social development, as well as for global ‘agendas’, is understood through a realistic evaluation of popular wisdom about crime and control. By commencing our analysis with a critical review of the representation process, the possibility exists to test the resilience of certain causal explanations for crime from local to global wisdom. Further, the globalised representation of the crime problem can be appreciated in terms of common and constant considerations of crime and control. If the representations of the crime problem remain consistent across contexts, then there must exist reasonably uniform motivations behind these representations which outweigh recognition of the diversity of crime relationships. The reasons for such contested realities and their avoidance may illuminate the transition towards globalisation and the signiWcance of crime within it. Working down from globalisation as an analytical context for crime, the resultant conceptualisation of crime throughout this book is speciWc, but far from static. The book discusses how crime relationships which connect players in a crime context are created, are shaped and are reliant on settings wherein a wide range of identiWable ‘life’ features interact towards crime. In terms of contextual interaction, it is a purpose of this project to critically analyse the relations and interactions between representations of crime as phenomena beyond individuals, relationships and cultural contexts; selective marginalisation through social development; individual and cultural ‘reformation’ in response to social marginalisation; and choices for crime, creating opportunity within speciWc cultural ‘reformations’, under pressures on society to modernise and develop. In particular, this study considers common scenarios of crime and social development in select transitional cultures. The context of crime within such transitional cultures is signiWcant through the interconnection of development, marginalisation and traditional sources of cultural reintegration. These ‘themes of change’ are applied to contextual analysis, recognising their situation within popular representations of crime, and the often ambiguous way in which they are relied upon for the purpose of explaining crime or in justifying certain control strategies.

8

The globalisation of crime

A methodology employed in the book is to analyse case-studies…» of hitherto misunderstood and misrepresented crime relationships in contexts which exhibit these ‘themes of change’. Such misrepresentations betray links between important themes like the marginalising consequences of social development, cultural strains and the development of crime choices, and imperatives toward re-integration (see chapter 4). The case-studies provide interesting and recognisable contexts for such links. In addition, they pose for analysis any of the following conXict situations: ( the clash between traditional value structures and the enticements of

modernisation; ( the transition in governance and leadership as a result of urbanisation; ( the fracture of extended family socialisation as a consequence of urban

drift; ( the struggle for material purchase in a cash society; ( the closure of legitimate opportunity in Xuid states of employment and

employability; ( the discriminatory dimensions of state-centred criminalisation; ( the selective social pressures arising from institutionalised economic

diversity; ( the active and reactive potentials of traditional cultural re-integration

within social settings where community identity remains. The globalisation theme In a social context, globalisation is the progress towards one culture on the planet – a single society. Temporally, globalisation is a social process wherein the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede, and people become increasingly aware of this recession (see Waters, 1995: 3). The globalisation process of modernisation is of most interest to us for the exploration of crime contexts. The social paradoxes associated with modernisation are particularly signiWcant triggers when analysing crime relationships. For example, where modernisation weakens culture, crime will emerge selectively to strengthen certain cultures and weaken others, depending on the manner in which such cultures foster crime relationships. At the same time, like any other signiWcant social inXuence, crime acts as a lubricant and a solvent for globalisation in a similar fashion to legitimate features of modernisation. …» Where possible, case-studies have been drawn from cultures such as those in the PaciWc islands where: custom and tradition are intact and apparent; the interface between forces of tradition and modernisation is sharp and active; cultures are in transition; crime and control are signiWcant features of such transition; globalisation is in its formative stages.

Introduction

9

Globalisation is a reXexive concept. It involves the progression from the political eras of colonisation, the economic eras of industrialisation and the social eras of the state. It might be said that globalisation: is the direct consequence of the expansion of European culture across the planet through settlement, colonisation and mimesis. It is also bound up intrinsically with patterns of capitalist development, as it has ramiWed through political and cultural arenas. However, it does not imply that every corner of the planet must become Westernised and capitalist but rather that every set of social arrangements must establish its position in relation to the capitalist West . . . it must relativise itself (Waters, 1995: 3).

And yet, as Giddens suggests (1996), whereas globalisation was initially the province of Westernised cultures, it is now outside and beyond the exclusive control of any particular cultural inXuence. It is the international inXuence of consumerist market economics rather than the particular impact of culture which presently fuels globalisation (in a somewhat similar fashion to the way in which it shapes transnational criminal enterprise). Globalisation is a process of paradoxes. As indicated earlier, while crime may weaken presently existing cultures, so too it becomes a force for globalisation. But more than this, it is the realisation that material exchanges tend to localise, political exchanges tend to internationalise and symbolic exchanges tend to globalise, which suggests an evolution for globalised crime. Consequently, our analysis is directed away from paradox in favour of a transitional and interactive consideration of crime relationships. For instance, corruption, if it is essential to the maintenance of a local black market, will exist as the giving and receiving of material advantage. Where corruption is a feature of government, it transforms beyond local exchanges of advantage into processes of inXuence which become politics. For corruption to replace the work ethic of the community and the sense of duty of the public oYcial, it challenges the themes of rights and responsibilities which are advanced as symbols of globalised culture. Given the limitations inherent in the concept of ‘society’ (see Mann, 1986: 3), the recently popularised ‘global village’ (see McRae, 1994) may be an even less convincing site for analysing globalised crime. If globalisation is advanced as the preferred new society (an impression common in international politicking), contextual clarity is required or our analysis may not proceed much beyond the major diYculties encountered in utilising ‘ideal types’. If it is to work as an applied analytical device, the process which is globalisation, rather than globalisation as a spatial entity, presents a suYcient mix of universal and speciWc issues to enable and support contextual analysis. Therein any consideration of crime should not be lost within the minutiae of localised priorities, nor within the

10

The globalisation of crime

ill-deWned landscape of internationalism. Globalisation as a process and a ‘place’ is speciWc – certain enough to oVer a framework for crime and control relationships, and universal enough to elicit generalisations so essential for contextual analysis. Much of the recent analysis of crime in society explores its material representations and political positioning. However, the symbolic presence of crime and justice is rarely understood. Symbolic exchanges of crime and justice can be liberated in the context of globalisation from spatial referents essential to particular situations of deviance and control, as well as cultural contexts. This enables crime and control, whether as behaviours, situations or institutions, to be accorded their true symbolic standing when measured against localised representations. Crime and justice at symbolic levels claim more universal signiWcance than less mobile material or political concepts. Local notions of crime and territorial notions of justice contradict the transition to globalisation. Symbolic exchanges of crime and justice instead realise the transition. As will become apparent from the analysis of crime control (see chapters 6 and 7), state-based criminal justice institutions face criticism and reduction in operational terms, while receiving global endorsement as symbols of democratisation (see Findlay, 1997). Common mass culture has facilitated the symbolic exchanges of crime and justice. Media representations of crime as a global issue and control as a global responsibility are elements of the wider trend to relativise and universalise all issues in global terms. With democracy promoted as global politics, and free-market economics the preferred paradigm of modernisation, certain symbols of criminal justice and crime problems are reiterated as aspects of globalisation. The value system of globalised society, advertised through a pervasive media web,…… tends towards universalism and abstraction and thereby is more inclusive. For instance, where economic proWt and not humanity is advanced as the purpose of good government, political values are measured in monetary terms and the electorate is encircled by budgetary outcomes. Within this inclusion, crime and control have become a common and constant topic of global communication. Representations of crime, and victimisation as a prevailing threat of world-wide proportions, promote such inclusion. Crime, on a global level, universalises measures of world order and disorder, and oVers a further duality for analysis. Crime control, on a global level, builds and endorses uncontested notions of world order. Yet the reality of crime in modern societies is its challenge to integra…… The value may be commodiWcation, the medium television and the web commercial advertising.

Introduction

11

tion and its reliance on dysfunction (see chapter 3). What follows will explore this in detail and attempt to rationalise popular representations of crime as disorder. The interaction between crime, choice and control within a range of contexts and across the global Weld will be examined to reveal the integrative and divisive dimensions and consequences of these relationships. The dynamic, interactive environment indicated by globalisation positions itself above the particularist, and sometimes limited, concerns of community and culture. New ways of viewing crime as behaviours, relationships and control objectives, rather than as social or societal facts, are suggested. The overlapping networks of social interaction represented in globalisation oVer an alternative to, or at least an enhanced context for, explaining contemporary representations of crime and their place within the space, organisation and development of social power. However, our understandings of crime, reliant as they are on media imagery, popular wisdom and symbolism, require that the representation of crime be visited as contexts, wherein themes of change are invested with their political and social meaning (see chapter 1). Representations of crime – beyond popular wisdom This work sets out to explore popular impressions of crime and its impact on communities in transition. In choosing representations of crime as one primary ‘trigger’ for analysis, there is a recognition of a widespread and prevailing interest in crime and a desire at community levels for simple and convincing evaluations of crime problems. So saying, the ‘local wisdom’ about crime is treated both as problematic and indicative. While usually failing to provide a suYcient understanding of crime in context, this wisdom goes a long way towards identifying what is troubling people about crime, and where and in what form it is feared. It is contended that the relationships, dynamics and consequences of crime are derived mainly from popular impressions rather than critical scholarly analysis. Popular impressions determine climates of fear and isolation which impact on the quality of life within communities. This is more so than actual crime victimisation. All too often the desire to know more about crime within communities has been satisWed by misleading political discourse or academic equivocation. This study of crime is conscious of the distracting impact of such representations and endeavours not to compound it. Partial or unbalanced ‘understandings’ of crime themselves become a signiWcant variable in the context of crime, thereby inXuencing the shape it assumes and the eVect it renders to its essential relationships.

12

The globalisation of crime

As the emphasis on crime shifts, or preferred explanations prevail in the midst of community transformation, the transitional context of crime needs to be understood so that the ‘real’, or at least realistic, representation of crime within speciWc communities can be contrasted with other representations on oVer. The interests behind the almost chronic misrepresentations of crime have the power to endorse, as well as deny, its signiWcant and constant justiWcation for or against social change. The analysis of crime in context has the potential to unmask these interests and thereby challenge the misconceived stories about crime by examining crime relationships in actual settings.…  These settings, being actual communities in states of change, mean that the context of crime in question is tangible and dynamic. Further, through the appreciation of the place of crime within social change, and the inXuence of such change on the development of crime, the understanding of crime may be as fresh as each new context in which it features. Many misrepresentations of crime are implicit in their overtones either of ‘free will’ or ‘determinism’. Without entering into the wider theoretical battle over the motivations for crime, our analysis accepts that crime is a consequence of choice, however constructed. To view crime as a consequence of choice enables a more eVective consideration of the various contexts from which such choices eventuate. Crime as choice Crime involves the exchange and negotiation of power relations, and the development and inXuence of property interests. It evolves within both legitimate and illegitimate economic environments. Due to the nature of contemporary economies, these environments require analysis in local cultural and global dimensions if the determinants of choice essential to their existence are to be recognised behind the ‘universal truths’ which promote representations of crime. The interaction between these dimensions proves crucial to any understanding of crime choices within globalised economic environments. Crime and social integration are dependent concepts commonly referred to in theoretical perspectives of criminology. In this regard, crime is viewed as a by-product of behaviours and relationships within contexts where connections of aYnity and aYliation have broken down. The strains at work on traditional social bonds in situations of economic development may at the same time stimulate the formation of crime …  The reference here, and throughout the work, to actuality is an invitation to move from theory to various forms of empirical or experiential reality.

Introduction

13

cultures. Crime relationships often arise within such cultures where other social connections are blocked or distorted, and these relationships inXuence the social status of the oVender, victims and observers. Such personalities and their interaction give substance to the contextualisation of crime. The location of crime relationships, in addition, is no longer a key to their appreciation. From the perspective of globalisation, what in the past may have been understood as a certain problem with a particular solution is transformed to new levels of threat, inXuence and responsibility within new cultures. This transition is a focus for inquiry in what follows. Studying the manner in which crime creates new contexts for itself, or how its context is redeWned (depending on shifts in social, economic and political climates), conWrms the dynamic nature of crime and its dependence on other fundamental social relations. While the causes of crime and the essence of criminality may remain debatable, the social context of crime, what its form and presence indicate, and its place in social development are tangible, if culturally relative. This book is not limited by this relativity, moving across local and global, actual and symbolic cultures in order to achieve a comparative appreciation of crime. Cultures of crime When contextualising this analysis, the location on the speciWcs of crime and culture, and more particularly on crime choices within transitional cultures, is crucial for its cogency and cohesion. Recognising that crime is a current dilemma for social development, and that the eVective prevention and control of crime is culturally speciWc, this research is concerned with those crime relationships which emerge as choices in moments of social transition. In this respect our conceptualisation of crime and culture is neither static nor exclusive. Crime cultures have regularly presented a convincing context for criminological theorising (see Cohen, 1985; Marx, 1980; Taylor, 1984). In the present work crime cultures’ interactive existence continues to open up opportunities in this regard. Grand theories of crime suggest universal explanations of crime (see Braithwaite, 1989). This study is located within, and works out from actual communities and across social development and cultural transition as contexts of crime analysis. As a result, a range of theory which recognises and supports the potential of interactive analysis is enjoyed. Case-studies of crime cultures, as suggested above, will locate crime within actual relationships and social settings in order to evaluate various representations of crime. In this way the signiWcance of crime for individuals in diVerent situations of social integration, and for communities

14

The globalisation of crime

undergoing phases of social development, can be established and understood. The transition of crime concerns from the local to the global account should not, it is argued, be treated separately from the transitions of crime across any cultural contexts. It is the motivations for, and interests behind this transition, which are diVerent and debatable in the globalisation of crime. These motivations and interests recur as outcomes of the discussion of representations of crime, through to the examination of control and re-integration. The relationships which produce particular representations and argue for control strategies manifest these motivations and interests. Relationships of crime Crime is interactive and as such depends on personal relationships and institutional reactions. Unless crime is discussed in terms of interaction, its dynamic inXuence within social change may be overlooked. These crime connections are as much subject to transition as the contexts within which they thrive. All too often crime and criminality are talked about as if one party to a relationship, or one institution in an administrative process, is responsible or responsive. As a result, perpetrators are stereotyped, victims are marginalised, control agencies are distorted and justice policy is misdirected. What follows will attempt to unravel some of the misunderstandings about crime by sequentially connecting: ( ( ( (

the behaviours of individuals and groups; the impact of such behaviours on others; the responses of control agencies; the reciprocal inXuences on crime relationships and their context, as each interacts and transforms; ( the wider socio-political and economic context within which these arise and operate; ( the global representations and deWnitions of crime and its consequences, and the control agendas Xowing therefrom. For contexts wherein laws regulate behaviour, crime is a trigger for the inception of control relationships. Sometimes the reverse is also true. Usually crime is characterised as a breach of legal prohibitions which are graduated in terms of their seriousness, or the severity of the harm resulting from their violation. While the measure of crime seriousness is a culturally relative exercise, violence against individuals is more often than not an aggravating feature of crime in most community settings. However, the social positioning of crime is not simply a matter of determining the seriousness of crime or its consequences. The status of

Introduction

15

the oVender or the victim, the priorities of criminal justice agencies, and the perceptions of governments and communities inXuence the representation of crime and reactions to it. For example, in both developed and developing societies signiWcant investments of control resources are directed against minor property crimes, public order oVences, as well as certain crimes of serious violence, individual against individual. At the same time, theft by corporations, environmental destruction, or violence by state agencies against individuals, may not receive a similar intensity of control eVort or state response. The harm caused, the seriousness of the behaviour, or the extent of victimisation do not explain such diVerential treatment. Nor will the laws against criminal activity necessarily clarify the position. It is the social context of crime which holds the key to its signiWcance. In considering the active connections between crime and context in contemporary societies, and their globalisation, it is important to reXect upon the dynamics of social development. Not only are contemporary cultures immersed in the politics and economics of development, but ‘globalisation’ across a wide range of social relationships and structures means that the crime and development relationship requires more than a static or localised consideration. At this level, considerations of context are neither culture-bound, nor time-dependent. Modernisation, which is a crucial context for the crime and development nexus, is the chosen paradigm for our discussion of crime and economy (see chapter 5). Crime economies Crime involves personal and property relationships which inXuence a variety of economies, and in fact can constitute economies of their own. Crime as a product of social opportunity possesses the potential to promote certain forms of economy as well as threaten other forms. The relationship between crime and economy is just one of the important concerns in globalised representations of crime. Economies and the struggle to promote and market a dominant paradigm is a feature of globalisation. The relationship between crime and economy, the economies of crime, and crime as economy…À are each concerns for the position of crime within globalisation. Crime economies have emerged as characteristic of particular situations of social development. The selective opportunities presented by crime, which are otherwise distorted or foreclosed through development, locate crime in transitional societies beyond narrow frameworks of legal …À For a discussion of the rationale behind this distinction of relationships between crime and economy, see chapter 5.

16

The globalisation of crime

or social control. Crime as choice, outside naive and ritualistic assertions of free will is an image which assists in the positioning of crime within social development contexts and moral or legal proscriptions. It would be too narrow to concentrate on both crime and globalisation as economic constructs or objects only for economic analysis. In this work economy is one important social situation of crime. Others which feature as popular causal components of crime are also engaged here.

Social situations of crime In looking at global representations of crime against actual social relationships, we are interested in the social ‘situation’ of crime relationships rather than too much elusive and unconvincing speculation about causes, consequences and trends (see chapters 3 and 4). It is from a culturally speciWc grounding that explanations are possible as to why: ( certain forms of behaviour become prohibited by criminal law and are

deWned as ‘crime’; ( certain acts and persons are selected by, and become subject to, pro-

cesses of law enforcement; ( certain acts and persons are Wtted with the label ‘criminal’ through a

process of adjudication; ( criminal ‘identity’ is maintained, developed and transformed through

the interpretation and reaction of others (see Hester and Elgin, 1992: 11–12). Our analysis is enlivened by appreciating and viewing crime ‘culture’ as transitional, and the representations of crime ‘problems’ as global. The resultant understanding of real crime relationships oVers more convincing insights into contextual imperatives towards crime and control in all their forms and situations. As emphasised earlier, the context of crime necessary for any understanding of crime’s social signiWcance is also interactive. Crime depends on people and agencies doing things to each other. As such, realising the relationships which constitute crime events and consequences are what we are about. Crime may not simply be explained as being caused by something, or as the cause of another thing. However, crime as a social phenomenon has little actual relevance except in terms of its impact on communities and the impact communities bring to bear on it. In policy terms, the ‘cause and eVect’ dimension of crime needs to be addressed if the social relevance of criminal justice administration is to be seen to inXuence the motives and manufacture of crime.

Introduction

17

Positioning of criminalisation Unfortunately, confusion and misinformation abounds regarding crime and its actual place in society. In a global discourse this ‘place’ is largely pre-determined by the representations of crime resulting out of reaction to it. Because the process of determining and imposing crime labels (sometimes referred to as criminalisation) is profoundly political, it is important to go behind representations of crime to question the motivation for labelling as well as committing crime. The moral, political and welfare ‘threats’ posed by crime feature signiWcantly in global crime control discourse. Crime is considered by some commentators to be symptomatic of pathology, as aberrant behaviours, as dangerous personalities and classes of personality, as harmful events. For an adequate contextual appreciation of crime, its purposive character demands recognition beyond narrow and loaded debates about the ‘free will’ of the oVender, and the extent to which this might be conditioned through behavioural or environmental determinism. Alternatively, and of interest here, the reaction to crime says as much about crime as does the behaviour and circumstances deemed criminal and the mechanisms which label them so. With crime involving people, personalities, the public and institutions of power, it exists as social relationships – acts or actors to be corrected or controlled. The dimensions and dynamics of crime relationships hold the key to the social signiWcance of crime. In its most immediate state the crime relationship is a triangular connection linking oVender, victim and observer. The crime/control relationship is played out in real situations and intersects with instrumentalities and processes which impose on it particular meaning. The interpretation and representation of crime relationships, and the control response to these, determine and are determined by the social context of crime. The analysis that follows is sensitive to the signiWcance of both community and state-centred control initiatives (as well as their absence) in depicting the way in which crime relationships and crime choices are constructed and evolve. Many of the social determinants which are popularly represented as causing crime or justifying control are also confronted.

Understanding social determinants of crime and control contexts As identiWed earlier, a principal methodological interest of this work is to explore the relationship between crime and certain major social determi-

18

The globalisation of crime

nants in order to test presumed links between crime and opportunity (whether it be material or social prospects for advantage), crime and marginalisation (the absence of opportunity), and crime as a feature of social development (the reformulation of opportunity). Through an analysis of the common features of crime within contexts in transition, a convincing understanding of the globalised dimensions of crime may develop. Crime and social integration (or its converse, marginalisation) are not commonly understood beyond the popular stereotypes of criminal behaviours and state reaction (see chapter 3). This analysis oVers a more realistic appreciation of actual crime relationships from the perspective of individual as well as social integration. In this respect this analysis is hopefully unburdened by the prevalent mythology which supports an abounding fear of crime and the apprehension of its consequences. What makes this analysis fresh is the appreciation of crime as a force for change as much as an unwanted product of social development or a negative consequence of globalisation. Crime creates opportunity in similar ways to its reliance on the foreclosure of choice. By examining crime and ‘states of change’ (transitional contexts) the analysis will range from the most local to global contexts of crime and, in doing so, it is released from the constraints of generalisation. The central theme in what follows is the social contextualisation of crime, both at the level of culturally speciWc analysis and more universal relationships. Recognised is the contradiction that crime, like many other social phenomena, cannot on the one hand be understood outside its particular social environment. But as a universal social ‘fact’ common to all cultures it must possess forms and features with the potential to be generalised. Globalisation, as considered here, provides a means whereby the localisation of crime may be transformed towards more generalised themes of change without ignoring their original cultural relationships and manifestations. It is the context of crime and its representation which gives these ‘universals’ their reality. Social context, and its relevance for analysis, lies behind the discussion of particular connections between crime and development, crime and marginalisation, economic dimensions of crime, crime and social disorganisation and dysfunction. Each principal subtheme structuring the discussion which follows is a tool for revealing the social context of crime through an understanding of ‘real’ contexts. The linkages between principal features of social context, the way crime is represented, and strategies for its control become apparent when one investigates how crime and criminalisation choices are made. The nature of these choices will then help to explain how particular individuals and

Introduction

19

groups within a society become involved in crime relationships and criminalisation. It is only with an understanding of the context within which crime choices are made that the dynamics of crime and its control will be appreciated. A unifying context of crime in which we have an interest is popular knowledge. Such contemporary ‘knowledge’ of crime is now distinctly globalised. With this in mind, the discussion which follows takes to task the expected conditions of crime in a global society. In particular, the speciWcity of crime relationships and the transparency of global crime agendas are juxtaposed to seek out more valid representations of crime in transition. In summary, the book identiWes some of the major contextual inXuences over crime, and examines the social consequences of crime under particular social conditions reXecting on globalisation. Particular themes and inXuences earlier identiWed are elaborated upon in order to reveal the complexity of crime as an interactive social phenomenon. The analysis works towards an examination of prospects for a diminution of crime through social reintegration in societies. This is especially relevant where such traditional structures are under challenge from development. It concludes with a look at the rationalisation of crime control through the reconstruction of crime relationships. This tendency, adopted in the following analysis, that is to dissect the dynamics of crime either functionally or structurally while expounding the importance of an interactive analysis of crime, might be criticised. This style of review has been chosen in order to answer the often oversimpliWed, stereotyped and partial representations of crime and causation. The context of globalisation can be as much an oversimpliWcation as are representations of crime. By critically applying an interactive context for analysis, account will be taken of the complexity of crime, while recognising the socio-political reality of the ‘crime problem’, however stereotypical or partial its representation.

1

(Mis)representing crime

Crime trends Late last century Durkheim (1984) proposed, and recent studies seem to conWrm (Leavitt, 1992), that increases in the frequency of crime relate to social diVerentiation as a process of socio-cultural evolution. Put simply, the more artiWcially divided a society becomes as it develops, particularly as Durkheim saw it in terms of the structure and product of labour, the more common is crime. If this is so, then one might assume increased crime rates as a natural consequence of cultural modernisation or social diversiWcation. Globalisation, therefore, may tend to stimulate or retard crime, depending on whether it is a force for harmony or dissonance. The diYculty with this or any other general assertion about trends in crime is the culturally speciWc nature of crime and the problems involved in revealing its social reality (see Quinney, 1970). These issues make reliance on crime trends little more than speculation. Due to the paucity of useful crime data from most countries, it is impossible to generalise on long-term crime trends world-wide. Braithwaite suggests that ‘the only generalisation we can make about historical crime trends is one of a general [post-World War II] increase’ (1989: 50). There are ‘common-sense’ expectations regarding the rise and fall of crime rates during particular social periods. These include the assumption that theft increases during economic recession and high unemployment. Such assumptions undermine the cautions which must accompany crime trend analysis. The fact is that during times of economic downturn and contraction of job opportunities, communities which might otherwise be seen as criminogenic tend towards greater homogeneity, and property crime rates within these communities fall (see Braithwaite, 1979). Even so, the popular wisdom continues that poverty causes crime (cf. Currie, 1997). The political impact of statements about the rise and fall of crime, and the social consequences of this, empowers any institution claiming the ability to quantify crime and the potential to regulate its rate. The state’s 20

(Mis)representing crime

21

monopoly over crime Wgures gains its power from the bald presentation of empirical ‘truth’ about crime. In an eVort to assess the world position on crime and trends in crime both from a spatial and temporal perspective the United Nations has been interested in international crime surveys since 1972 (see General Assembly Resolution 3021 (XXVII), 18 December 1972). To date, Wve international crime survey exercises have been carried out by UN agencies… at diVering levels of empirical sophistication, achieving various degrees of success. The UN has also sponsored international crime (victim) surveys (see Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate, 1995), international surveys on crimes against business, and a transnational organised crime survey. Each of these has involved diVering methodologies and has produced results which range in empirical conviction. Perhaps more signiWcantly, the eVorts by the UN to produce even such very qualiWed and unrepresentative data on world crime trends are evidence both of the interest in crime as a national and global problem and the international concern over crime trends. While the utility of this ‘world-view’ on crime may be challenged, the signiWcance of the discourse which surrounds it is undeniable. In analysing the results of the third UN survey,  attempts were made, in the face of considerable methodological diYculties, to discuss changes in recorded crime over the period of the Wrst three surveys (1970–85). The results might seem disappointing in their generality: ( Over the period there was a considerable increase in reported crime in

all parts of the world (5 per cent per year, which is well beyond the rise attributable to population growth). ( There was an overall upward trend in recorded crime between 1975 and 1980, followed by a more universal rise in the period 1980 to 1985. (From 1980 to 1985, 81 per cent of respondent areas and countries reported an increase in crime rates.) ( The total per capita crime Wgures tend to be higher in Western Europe and North America (these variations may be largely a factor of administrative and reporting practices). ( There was a more general tendency to report to the police crimes which occurred. … The UN Survey of Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems is a regular collection of statistics provided by member states, to the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division. The rounds of the survey have covered the periods: 1970–75; 1975–80; 1980–85; 1985–90, and 1990–94. The sixth survey period will be for 1994–97, and from then on it is intended that they be every two years and supplemented by topical surveys (e.g. prison conditions).   For a detailed discussion of the Third UN Survey of Crime Trends, see UN (1993).

22

The globalisation of crime

( As countries attain higher levels of socio-economic development (e.g.

(

(

( ( (

more telephones, more goods insured), the rate of reporting crime increases. Violent crimes are more likely to be reported in situations where criminal justice authorities show themselves to be more sympathetic to the victim. In the periods 1975–80 and 1980–85 there was a marked increase in the rates for drug crimes and robbery. In both periods the increase in rates for drug crimes was greater than for any other oVence. In both these periods theft accounted for the largest percentage of reported crime, with more thefts per capita in developed countries. Some countries experienced a decrease in certain types of crime. For instance, in Canada and Sri Lanka fewer drug crimes were recorded. There was a small decrease in non-intentional homicides, and the per capita rate of intentional homicides rose slowly.

In concluding the overview of the third survey the UN report observed (UN, 1993: 53): The global picture is not an encouraging one. There has been an increase in the overall crime rate; and there is the diYcult issue of the interrelationship between ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ crime rates in the context of socio-economic development. The future may be even more gloomy, as some projections seem to indicate.

So without the complete picture on crime throughout the world, broad patterns of criminality are said to have emerged across time and place which provide some opportunity to discuss ‘trends’. This might be more convincing, at least in societies in comparable phases of development (see Heidensohn and Farrell, 1991), if as we suggest development and modernisation are criminogenic (see chapter 2). Where trend analysis of crime (such as in the UN surveys) has been attempted, patterns in crime are mainly considered in either a temporal or spatial sense (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984). Indices of comparison are also not restricted to oYcial statistics on crimes reported to state agencies.À For example, Walker (1994) utilises the data provided through the initial two United Nations Crime Victims Surveys (1989 and 1992) to compare criminal activity as reported by victims, over a range of oVences, throughout twenty countries. The conclusions which may be drawn from even a cursory examination of these data may provide the opportunity to discuss crime trends from region to region, or country to country, in diVerent stages of socio-economic development. For example, car theft seems to have been a more signiWcant problem of victimisation in WestÀ For a discussion of the diYculties involved in the use of oYcial crime (justice) statistics as a measure of crime see Hogg (1983).

(Mis)representing crime

23

ern than Eastern Europe (as it then was), and this might have something to do with diVerent levels of car ownership and patterns of use across the two regions. Furthermore, those countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, where households are usually privately owned, suburban, detached-style dwellings, are those where burglary is at its highest. From this one might speculate that as patterns of the ownership, occupation and use of private property develop, so too the patterns of associated property crime will change. Therefore a variety of speciWc and inXuential social indicators remain hidden behind the bald face of crime rates, and as a result the explanatory potential of these is ignored in a discussion of raw Wgures and trends. From another dimension Walker utilises similar data to plot and compare reported rates of crime (homicide, robbery and motor vehicle theft) from twenty-two diVerent urban regions and cities. The analysis reveals that homicide and robbery Wgures could be associated with levels of urbanisation, while motor vehicle theft data exhibits no such obvious connection. The bigger the city the more likely it is that its citizens may be robbed. The question here is whether the context of urban environments, urbanisation or the social diversiWcation which is a feature of city life tend towards crime. Added to urbanisation as a potential inXuence on crime, Walker states the impact of certain legislative restrictions. Homicide rates in US cities, for example, vastly outstrip those from cities in countries where gun laws are more restrictive. Is gun ownership and use aVected by legislative regulation and does such ownership and use facilitate and stimulate crime? Is the context of Wrearms violence inextricably bound to gun ownership and how does the medium for violence determine the manner in which it is ultimately appreciated beyond the bounds of popular wisdom and ‘gun culture’? A close look at these examples will reveal a wide range of limitations inherent in considering crime data out of its social context. Even so, the Wgures have an impact and the endeavour to present and analyse trends in their development emphasises the desire of people to know how safe their city is or how criminal their community. Representations of crime are all too often constructed with one eye on such public expectations and the other on global concerns, rather than advancing the contextual complexities which might make simple and persuasive causal analysis more conditional. For example, it is one thing to promote the blanket allegation that unrestricted gun ownership leads to violent crime; it is another to challenge gun use and advocate selective and successful restrictions through comparisons with the data on who commits violent crimes with guns, against whom and where (see Zimmering and Hawkins, 1997). Clearly,

24

The globalisation of crime

in ‘gun cultures’ such as the United States, the signiWcance of gun ownership largely remains debated at the level of ideology. Attacks on the gun rely on generalised causal assumptions about guns, violence and crime, while the ideological power of the constitutional right to bear arms is unchallenged. Trend analysis based on primitive frequencies and causal connections derived from popular wisdom may produce misleading representations of crime, rather than aVording a detailed consideration of crime in context (problematic as that may prove). At this point it might be worthwhile reiterating that the levels of contextual analysis envisaged in this work have several useful forms, each essentially comparative. The examination of crime and control, and their representations within cultures, may be analysed against other signiWcant triggers for social transition. External to this are the features of globalisation which lend themselves to comparison with culturally speciWc representations of crime. If the analysis addresses these levels concurrently, then any apparently contradictory or disparate representations of crime can be reconciled. Temporal and spatial patterns The ‘geography’ of crime has been the fascination of social statisticians since the earliest experiments with ‘mapping’ features of societies and communities (social mapping) (see Fitzgerald, 1981: Part I). To justify the proposition that crime was largely the province of particular social classes, cities were explored to reveal the sites of crime. However, as both cities and crime are dynamic social entities, this geographic analysis employed generalised historical and interactive social dimensions which necessitated that its conclusions would be equivocal (Downes, 1989). Spatial analyses of crime are not limited to comparisons across local, urban, regional or national boundaries. Material indicators of socioeconomic development have also provided sites for analysis (see Clinard and Abbott, 1973; Zvekic, 1993; Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate, 1995). The diYculties associated with treating this type of socio-economic data as if it relates to material, temporal or spatial contexts centre around the assumption that crime is as easily located in ‘places’ and ‘situations’ as it is in the transitions of communities and cultures. Spatial analyses of crime may focus on absolute locations, mapping techniques, relative ‘sites’ and Xow data. Problems arise with the spatial units of measurement, such as relative size and standardisation (see Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984: chs. 9 and 10). In addition, the diYculties of generalisation across locations will always temper the comparative utility of spatial analysis.

(Mis)representing crime

25

‘Crime and the city’ is of particular interest for spatial analysis, as it is employed in supporting social policy development. Urban crime research provides the basis for the growing literature and array of policy initiatives based on ‘situational crime prevention’. Here the environmental determinants of crime are manipulated in order to reduce its prevalence and alter its location (Evans and Herbert, 1989: 108, 315). Temporal patterns of crime are regularly extrapolated in order to criticise crime as a feature of nominated cultural contexts. In addition, such patterns may be used to suggest commonality across cultures in terms of the development of crime trends and their duration within constant stages of transition or development. This is particularly useful in triggering the search for comparable socio-cultural factors or contexts which may explain why common crime trends arise across distinctly diVerent historical periods. For example: Conditions in the less developed countries have exhibited many similarities to those that suddenly produced extensive crime a century or more ago in Europe. Today the process of development is bringing pronounced changes, and amongst the more serious is the general increase in crime. In fact, one measure of the eVective development of a country probably is its crime rate (Clinard and Abbott, 1973: v).

A central purpose for studying crime patterns over time is to discover ‘themes’ which assist in understanding the historical and cultural ‘place’ of crime, as well as how it has come to be so. In considering crime as a pattern or trend it is less diYcult to conclude that while the social, legal, political, economic and demographic structures of society change over time, essential social relationships and the opportunities which they invite move as with the dynamics of crime. This has become a resounding theme in the globalised treatment of crime, wherein the nature and impact of the crime problem is emphasised through its constancy and universality across time and space. Relating temporal changes in crime to temporal changes in other aspects of society is a potentially powerful explanatory technique. The indices of comparison, however, are regularly not selected by policy analysts with suYcient care, and such comparisons commonly become strained (see Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984: chs. 6 and 7). The search for long-term patterns in crime recognises the signiWcance of crime’s historical and developmental perspectives. Obviously the variation in data sources to enable long-term pattern analysis requires a more creative appreciation of ‘folk’ history than oYcial statistics of today might invite (see Cohen, 1985). Flexible approaches to the utility of data sources developed through an appreciation of historical analysis become

26

The globalisation of crime

particularly relevant for comparative studies between cultures at signiWcantly diVerent stages of administrative development. Through the application of a more integrated and interactive method of crime measurement, trend analysis will have a potential to consider the dynamic nature of crime within transitional social and cultural contexts. In addition, a critical approach to oYcial statistics on crime and their by-products (crime rates) may go towards indicating what is not being measured, as well as what they are actually measuring, rather than accepting what they are said to represent (see Hogg, 1983). The analysis of crime should not simply be conWned to a search for trends in actions and behaviours. The reactions to crime from within communities, institutions and states, must also receive spatial and temporal consideration. Much of the expanding literature on criminal justice policy and administration contains a wealth of information on the ‘oYcial’ context of crime from the perspective of those required to ‘deal’ with it. Yet too often this is simply represented as a measure of criminal activity and behaviour rather than as an indication of the essential relationships between crime and control. Often particular reactions to crime arise from anticipated as well as experienced crime. Shifts in expectations about crime, therefore, may have as great an impact on the quality of social life as measurable real trends in crime. The fear of crime has been identiWed as a greater threat to the quality of life in many communities than the prevalence of criminal behaviour. Expectations about crime and its control, therefore, will have an impact on the representation of crime as social harm. While such representations based on expectation emerge and develop, they readily diverge from and ignore the realities of crime within society (see Hall et al., 1978). Irrespective of this disjuncture, the impact of victimisation through fear can be as signiWcant as that which results from a crime ‘event’. Challenges of measurement Braithwaite (1989) suggests that an adequate explanation of crime must address the following Wndings: ( Crime is committed disproportionately by males. ( Crime is perpetrated disproportionately by Wfteen to twenty-Wve-year-

olds. ( Crime is committed disproportionately by unmarried people. ( Crime is committed disproportionately by people living in large cities. ( Crime is committed disproportionately by people who have experi-

(Mis)representing crime

( ( ( ( ( ( (

(

27

enced high residential mobility and who live in areas characterised by high residential mobility. Young people who are strongly attached to their school are less likely to engage in crime. Young people who have high educational and occupational aspirations are less likely to engage in crime. Young people who do poorly at school are more likely to engage in crime. Young people who are strongly attached to their parents are less likely to engage in crime. Young people who have friendships with criminals are more likely to engage in crime. People who believe strongly in the importance of complying with the law are less likely to violate the law. For both women and men, being at the bottom of the class structure, whether measured by socio-economic status or socio-economic status of the area in which the person lives, being unemployed, or being a member of an oppressed racial minority, increases rates of oVending for all types of crime apart from those for which opportunities are systematically less available to the poor (i.e. white collar crime). Crime rates have been increasing since World War II in most countries, developed and developing. The only case of a country which has been clearly shown to have a falling crime rate in this period is Japan (e.g. Braithwaite, 1989: 44–9).

As with the analysis which posits the signiWcance of social integration for crime choice and crime relationships, social bonds are an early casualty in socio-economic development. Braithwaite’s social features of criminality may equally arise as common and predictable characteristics of modernisation and development (see chapter 2). Except for the variables of age and gender, these ‘truisms’ say as much about the conservative socialising potential of legitimate relationships as they do about contextual triggers of crime. Attachment to parents and the family, marriage, school commitments and patterns of authorised occupation evidence an involvement in the non-deviant community, and an implication in structures and institutions of authority. There is more to risk and lose if an individual so connected challenges or rejects any of these relationships. Braithwaite is simply identifying the causal connection between crime and marginalisation, marginalisation and crime. Marginalisation through modernisation is a consequential, criminogenic theme of socio-economic development. Such crime ‘Wndings’ reXect societies where certain cultural bonds

28

The globalisation of crime

could be seen as complex or developed (e.g. school, marriage, socioeconomic class, employment, cities, etc.). Thus it might be argued that as universal ‘predictors’ of crime they are limited and conditional. Yet what they do advertise in a general sense is that the principal relationships of social interdependency have an impact on criminal potential and behaviour. In this respect any rounded consideration of social development needs to examine the dynamics of crime and the relationships on which it depends. It is not enough to concentrate on the characteristics of potential oVenders while largely ignoring the transition of crime in a developing world and in the context of development. Modernisation has created new frameworks for material and social opportunity. The collapse of both autocratic political and economic structures, and the Xight from neo-liberalism in world orders, has led to a hiatus of legitimate control relationships throughout many world cultures. Investment in the nation-state has been transformed. Involvement and implication in conventional politics and government is now sectionalised; many feel worthless and unable to improve their daily lot. Globalisation, like the political discourse of internationalism at the turn of the century, assumes, and is fostered by, the breakdown of rigid political and economic alignments. New commodities and avenues for trade in information and expectations have accompanied other structural adjustments to such change. In the wake of incipient democratisation, the incursions of free-market economics, and the proliferation of mutual assistance, social ‘problems’ such as crime have assumed universal as well as transnational dimensions. The ‘new’ political context of crime is now global, as is the stage for its control. For example, the Western press (European in particular) has recently been full of scaremongering about the Russian ‘MaWa’, and the rise of black market economies in former Warsaw Pact states:à ‘The sexy Russian MaWa provides journalists and their [American] readers with a relatively unthreatening, European model of crime – a revisited Marlon Brando world of consigliere, caporegima and soldiers. At least that is the model which is appealingly seductive, although quite inaccurate’ (Rosner, 1995). Irrespective of the accuracy of these reports, they recognise the potential for crime to develop as might any other economic process in times of political transition, particularly where black markets have survived the centralised economy to oVer the only accessible and reliable site à The conservative interest group ‘Freedom Forum’ recently held a conference for European news journalists on the press coverage of the rise of organised crime in Central and Eastern Europe. The report of the conference (Freedom Forum, May 1994) conWrms that widespread maWa stereotypes are encouraged in the reporting of crime particularly in Russia and Poland.

(Mis)representing crime

29

for consumerism.Õ In this regard it is misleading and inaccurate (but profoundly politically powerful) to talk of the black market as the new invention of crime syndicates recently arrived to prey on the nascent free market. Further, the representation of organised crime in the old communist states as a profound threat to the success of free-market economics and the liberating inXuence of democratic government locates crime control amongst the essential armoury of international political reform and stability. It juxtaposes ‘good’ (the free market) against bad (the black market), while fundamentally confusing the motivation for the latter by representing it as crime rather than economy. The problem with this analysis is that it misunderstands the existence of organised crime within the context of the communist closed economy, its transformation during the breakdown of communist government, and its position within the freer market economies which have emerged. Of the ‘MaWa phenomenon’ in the Soviet Union, Anderson (1995) observes: ‘Two of the three conditions historically related to the development and growth of maWas – excessive bureaucratic power and illegal markets – were characteristic of the Soviet Union before its break-up at the end of 1991.’ In the Gorbachev era, law reform which freed up the labour market and allowed for the privatisation of some co-operativesŒ created a new context for organised crime. The price rises which initially accompanied privatisation added to the attraction and then the proWts of the black market; co-operatives were inWltrated and taken over; extortion was exacted from others. The new lending agencies created to service the privatised co-operatives were corrupted in the same fashion as government bursars had been in earlier years. Since the fall of the Soviet Union many more crime gangs have emerged to ‘compete for control of illegal markets and the territories for protection rackets’ (ibid.). Associated with the signiWcant inroads of organised crime into banking and commerce in Russia have been violent attacks and contract killings. Apologists for the present position of organised crime within corporate Russia argue that this is nothing more than a predictable feature of the early stages of capitalism (Scammell, 1993). A more relevant view is that which recognises the aspirations of the larger criminal enterprises in Russia to monopolise their hold over both licit and illicit markets. In this regard they resemble the Soviet state within its centralised economy. ‘The greatest risk of the MaWa phenomenon in Õ In some respects the black markets might be viewed as the new centralised economy from the way they rely on monopolisation and exclusion to ensure their proWt and overall market presence. Œ The Law on Individual Labour Activity (1987) and The Law on Co-operatives (1988).

30

The globalisation of crime

Russia is that an entrenched alliance between central and local oYcials and maWa groups will prevent competition in many markets and greatly reduce the beneWt of the Xedgling market economy’ (Anderson, 1995). What Anderson overlooks here is the perpetuation of criminal enterprise across Soviet and Russian market models as an indication of the prevailing opportunities for crime choice and crime relationships oVered throughout the wider social context of modern Russia.œ In analysing the ‘phenomenon of interest in the Russian MaWa’ and the function of that image within the former Soviet Union, Rosner (1995) observes: The function of deWning newly-permitted business activities in the former Soviet union as MaWa organised crime and lawlessness, while continuing to participate in such activities, determines the social standard of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in a country where beating the system was part of the system . . . For the newly formed democratic order in the former Soviet Union to begin to examine and set boundaries in a free enterprise system, it must deWne legality not only in terms of social and business acceptability, but also determine who is conducting himself and a business in a socially acceptable fashion, and what is normative behaviour.

As for the function of the MaWa image outside Russia, it ensures the maintenance of the ‘evil empire’. Previously this was feared in a political context; now it is seen as attacking the sanctity of free-market capitalism. This representation of the crime wave in Russia as a rejuvenation of long-standing black markets and the syndication of international organised crime avoids any potential to criticise legitimate market economies as generating a crime by-product. Such a representation would suggest the focus on crime as a competing market strategy, even a contesting form of government, places crime as squarely opposed to democracy and free-market economy. If one takes the next step of agreeing that these crime ‘forms’ are as bad as, or even worse than, the totalitarian systems that democracy replaced, then market economics is conferred with an impression of ‘goodness’ which it need not earn. Crime, its personalities and institutions, become demonised and any criminal consequences of market economies are ignored (see Anderson, 1995). A more critical appreciation of the impact which market economics has had on these transitional cultures reveals crime as inextricably linked to social development and modernisation. The particular nature of such development determines the form which crime assumes and the manner œ The transformation of both market structures and criminal enterprise, as well as their interrelationships, presents an interesting example of displacement and replacement which is detailed in chapter 7.

(Mis)representing crime

31

in which communities apprehend its consequences. In a global sense crime problems eventuate as inevitable consequences of ‘Westernisation’. This is essentially political. In the big cities of America, for example, new levels and locations of violence are apparent as the structural opportunities for young AfroAmerican and Hispanic males contract and as violence increasingly becomes a way of negotiating power and opportunity in urban slums. Interdependency around violent associations becomes more signiWcant for crime control than other general forces of socialisation, such as the school and the family, which are the Wrst casualties of this contraction and re-adjustment of opportunity structures. Individuals may be socialised towards crime as well as away from it. Braithwaite’s Wndings suggest, more particularly, that the social conditions for a reduction in, or avoidance of crime are similar to those for communitarianism and interdependency: For a society to be communitarian, its heavily enmeshed fabric of interdependencies therefore must have a special kind of symbolic signiWcance to the populace. Interdependencies must be attachments which invoke personal obligation to others within a community of concern. They are not perceived as isolated exchange relationships of convenience but as matters of profound group obligation (Braithwaite, 1989: 85).

It is in the conceptualisation of interdependency and communitarianism that the relationship between crime and social integration becomes problematic. Globalisation advertises the widest range of social relationships and interdependence. The global community, with its irreversible commitment to modernisation and development, superimposes institutions and obligations of interdependence over constant pressures towards marginalisation through material division. In such a profound context of contradiction crime has evolved into an essential mechanism of compromise and resolution. Where motivations and consequences of development produce such ambiguity, crime control commitments are not the necessary consequence of communitarian consensus. Individual interdependencies and relationships which promote or eschew crime require interpretation within a framework of group loyalties. For communitarianism, either cultural or global, to be a force against crime these loyalties should reXect a strong, but illusive, moral consensus. Communitarianism in this sense, while obviously closely connected to more individual interdependency, implies an aggregation of dependencies at a societal level. A fundamental Xaw with this reliance on communitarianism to defeat crime is with the ideology of this consensus, or whether it is actually possible within societies in states of transition (see

32

The globalisation of crime

chapter 7). Where individual or group interdependencies oppose or reject a more societal or domineering communitarianism, the latter must lose its potency as a framework for social re-integration, and the crime control consequences which are expected to Xow. ConXict theorists (see Parker, 1974; Taylor et al., 1973), being those who see society as forced together through relationships of domination and oppression, would hold that the very existence of crime daily deWes any possibility of communitarian consensus. Class theorists (see Chambliss, 1978; Hall, 1978; Miller, 1973) might challenge the consensus itself and applaud any resistance to it. The multiple moralities evidenced in youth sub-cultures, for example, may identify the inevitability of dissensus in modern heterogeneous or pluralist societies. Braithwaite replies that the tension between social conXict theories of crime and consensusbased theories of control ‘can be reconciled by a realistic perception of how isolated, but nevertheless important, criminal sub-cultures are in the wider society’ (Braithwaite, 1989: 43). Whatever one’s view of the social bonds required for eVective crime control, there is now little argument in criminology that social disorganisation, alienation and anomie are inXuential over criminal associations and behaviours. Where theories are in dispute is over how responsibility for crime is principally to be determined, and from this what is the meaning of crime. Theories of crime and measurement It is diYcult to introduce a consideration of crime ‘trends’ without Wrst locating crime within some theoretical context. This admission is not proposed as some form of ritual oblation to theory which has become almost obligatory in contemporary social science research. Rather it recognises the reality that representations of crime are essentially dependent on the manner in which crime is explained. The ‘facts’ we seek about crime are more likely a reXection of where we anticipate crime to occur than a natural result of criminalisation. And all this in turn largely depends on theories about crime (see Young, 1971). Even popular wisdom about crime and the representations it promotes is usually suggestive of theoretical predispositions which would scarcely be recognised as such by their proponents. For instance, the idea that crime and broken families are causally connected demonstrates a conWdence in social determinism which would not be out of place in the Chicago school of deviancy theory (see Park and Burgess, 1925). Western crime theory has developed either around the concern to explain types of behaviour, or to understand the social reaction to them. To a large degree theories of crime are determinist (i.e. they see either

(Mis)representing crime

33

features of the individual or the environment as essentially inXuential over crime), and the question at issue is, out of what context do the inXuences of social or behavioural determinism develop. ( Is it the mind or the personality of the oVender which generates

criminality? ( Is it the response of the state in determining something to be criminal

which initiates a spiral of secondary deviance (i.e. deviance which Xows on from an initial deviant occurrence)? ( Is it the structure of society which stimulates the formulation and expression of crime choices? Some theories have recognised that both individual and social determinants combine to create ‘criminal careers’ (where crime constitutes the work and the structure of material gain). Or else they attempt to explain why sub-cultures emerge with crime as a focus. Other theories prefer to explore the oVender’s interpretation of what he or she is doing rather than to speculate on causes of behaviour (see Young, 1981). Parochialism, however, has been a burdensome feature of the development of crime theories. Sumner’s criticism (1982: 1) that ‘western criminological theory is virtually silent on crime in underdeveloped countries’ as it has ‘never been much concerned to locate crime and justice within broader patterns of social development’ remains largely true today. If crime is a socio-political concept rather than a universal type of behaviour, then Lopez-Rey (1970) was right to observe that criminological theory says little about the bulk of crime and overemphasises those forms of crime with which the formal agencies of criminal justice are concerned. Braithwaite (1989), in his recent attempt to develop a ‘grand theory’ of crime, argues that a global explanation is possible: notwithstanding the diversity of behaviour subsumed under the crime rubric . . . There is suYcient in common between diVerent types of crime to render a general explanation possible. This commonality is not inherent in the disparate acts concerned. It arises from the fact that crime, whatever its form, is a kind of behaviour which is poorly regarded in the community compared to most other acts, and behaviour where this poor regard is institutionalised (2–3).

Critics of this position do not accept that criminality is a quality of the act in question, or simply of the moral or consensual reactions to it. Some hold that to focus on acts and behaviours of the criminal is to undervalue the important power relations which determine crime. To understand crime one needs to consider the reactions to the act as much as the act itself. And a consideration of reactions must go beyond approbation and examine the structures and interests around which such approbation is

34

The globalisation of crime

broadcast. Quinney (1970), for one, concentrates on how criminal deWnitions are formulated and applied, how behaviour patterns develop in relation to criminal deWnitions, and how criminal conceptions are being constructed. In this way the social reality of crime is constantly being constructed. It is the social reality of crime with which we are presently concerned. Theories of crime and its causation need to be able to explain the social context of crime and its ramiWcations, as indeed to interpret behaviours and expose perpetrators. The theoretical explanations applied to the analysis of crime that follow are those which recognise the social, economic and political reality of crime, as well as its historical development and its comparative signiWcance on a variety of levels. To this extent crime will be understood in a further three-dimensional fashion; with a history, social presence, cast and community, and with an impact on social development. This framework provides the theoretical context for indicators of crime which we will propose as available for measurement. What are measured as crime indicators? In many instances where crime is advanced as evidence of social disintegration, it is treated as rather non-problematic. Politicians refer to the rise and fall of the crime rate as if they were talking about something Wnite like the accurate daily Xuctuations in temperature. The police point to reductions in the number of reported crimes as an indication of their eYciency. An increase in crime, on the other hand, evidences the need for more police resources. Judges seek to inXuence the Xow of criminals before the court through sentencing practice. Yet where particular political and administrative interests may desire certainty in the empirical representation of crime, there are risks in assuming too much from oYcial statistics on crime (see Hood and Sparks, 1970). Such statistics might indicate more about the development and activity of the formal criminal justice system than they do about ‘real’ criminal activity (see Hogg, 1983). Alternatively, crime rates may vary signiWcantly, depending on a community’s conWdence in reporting crime to the authorities. Therefore, a low oYcial Wgure for crime might mean any of the following: ( ( ( ( ( (

an inactive police-force; a suspicious or cynical public; frightened victims; an underdeveloped criminal justice sector; a disorganised or under-resourced collection of statistics; or a low occurrence of crime.

(Mis)representing crime

35

Much has been written about the problems with oYcial crime statistics (e.g. Hood and Sparks, 1970; Jupp, 1989). These problems are exacerbated when this data forms the basis of legal jurisdiction (see Alvazzi del Frate et al., 1993). However, the desire to quantify crime and talk of trends in terms of rates is an important feature of criminal justice policy. Predictions about public safety, expectations for crime control, and expenditure on criminal justice will continue to rely on crime Wgures, no matter how loud the warnings from criminologists regarding methods for enumerating crime. The political impetus behind such representations is too strong, and the community expectations regarding crime ‘numbers’ tend to overlook their rubbery nature. Victimologists, and the ‘left realists’ (see Young, 1992), who have come full circle from their renunciation of the positivist and behaviourist task of empirical crime research, have accepted community desires and political imperatives to numerically represent crime. It seems that crime Wgures are the common ground for contemporary crime research and the conXict is only over how the Wgures are produced, who has control over their interpretation, and what they represent. The empirical representation of crime has experienced recent reWnements with the development of crime victimisation surveys (where the consequences of crime rather than the characteristics of oVence and oVender are measured: see Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate, 1995) and ‘self-report’ studies (where respondents are invited to identify their past criminal activity: e.g. Jones et al., 1986). The modern method for quantifying crime arises from the recognition of crime as a dynamic social relationship, rather than the result of any single institutional intervention or of a simple cause and eVect scenario. However, the more sophisticated and sensitive the empirical measure, the more it will rely on the statistical capabilities of the jurisdiction within which it is carried out.– It is no accident that, with a small number of exceptions (see Alvazzi del Frate et al., 1993; Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate, 1995), adequate statistical evaluations of crime only appear in modernised states. For the remainder of the world, if crime is measured at all, it may be a rather ‘hit and miss’ aVair. Methodological diYculties aside, the socio-cultural speciWcity of crime adds a new dimension to the complex task of measuring it, as well as attempting comparative analysis of crime trends on a country or regional basis. Crime is neither a universal nor unequivocal social fact. What – When looking at the limitations on comparative analysis within the international victimisation surveys, Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate observe: ‘the problem of cultural interpretation remains particularly relevant in the comparative perspective . . . several issues are at stake here and they are somewhat diVerent from previous [qualitative comparative experience]’ (1995: 13).

36

The globalisation of crime

comprises crime will largely depend on what a community and its structures of authority designate crime to be. Most societies agree that certain acts of personal violence, or the violation of property rights should be criminal. But the way in which these ‘crimes’ are determined, and the consequences which Xow from these determinations, may vary to such an extent that the establishment of a common typology of crime is problematic. Add to this the variety of attitudes in respect of the aetiology of crime, along with the signiWcant variations in ranking crime seriousness, and the task of measuring crime becomes more daunting. For instance, in cultures where state and religious prohibitions are closely connected and share structures of penalty, adultery may be considered a serious crime. In neo-liberal, pluralist states such behaviour may not even be sanctioned by the criminal law. Also, consistent with the great variation in corporate culture throughout the world, it was only recently in the United States that ‘insider trading’ became unacceptable as shrewd business competition, and has been criminalised at State and Federal levels. In other corporate cultures this form of competition ‘rigging’ has long been recognised as serious and penalised as a crime with other types of industrial espionage. But measure we must if we are to raise an appreciation of crime beyond cracker-barrel common-sense. In any case, Wgures will continue to be thrown about to represent increases in crime or its control, irrespective of their validity. What should be attempted, in order that some comparative trend analysis might proceed, is the establishment of a broad and noncontroversial taxonomy of crime (see Braithwaite, 1989), and a method of measurement which is not dependent on the activity of formal criminal justice agencies alone. To this end the data available on crime should not be limited to that which is quantiWable, or at least only numerically so. The wider the range of available data on crime the more likely it is that indicators will emerge which are not entirely reliant for meaning on their cultural location.

How far can crime and justice data be detached from speciWc social, political and economic contexts? It might seem contradictory to emphasise the cultural speciWcity of crime, while at the same time to encourage its comparative analysis at a range of levels. However, the search for the social context of crime allows for the consideration of structural and functional issues, such as youth homelessness and unemployment, which may be more open for comparison than random instances of criminal behaviour. In this respect the context of the act or actor becomes the medium for comparative analysis. With this in mind, the results of comparative analysis will act as indicators of those

(Mis)representing crime

37

contextual factors and relationships which inXuence and are inXuenced by crime. Ultimately, discussions of pattern and trend may then be reinterpreted into speciWc socio-political and economic contexts. To some extent the current discourse on the globalisation of crime has emerged from a similar process of interpretation, but one in which the speciWcs of context have merged within claims to uniform materialist and political aspirations which outstrip culture and diversity. Contextual re-interpretation is particularly necessary when crime is considered as economy (see chapter 5). For an economic analysis of crime, a macro perspective may be helpful in signposting those considerations which construct the concerns of micro-analysis (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988). Crime as economy means speciWc patterns of exchange, set relationships of power, people doing things to the property and security of others for proWt. These images are Wrmly grounded in designated socio-cultural contexts, and complemented in the discourse of globalisation by rarely contested economic models as the framework for contrast (i.e. free-market capitalism). In a globalised crime context, analysis is taken to the macro level while representations of crime and crime problems appear as ‘culturally’ designated as if they were local issues. Such issues, in fact, sacriWce their locality under the weight of uniform economic models. This is even so if we explore speciWc or individual economies of crime. The global ‘market’ and its inXuences over crime relationships and crime choices are expressed as if the market is a homogeneous entity, and its aspirations are uniform. Thus for drugs and crime it is simply assumed that the global priorities of prohibition and control represent the views of the members of the ‘global community’. However, at the level of politics arguably they do not. Therefore, in the representation of crime it is not merely the tendency to universalise crime problems which stretches the reality of culturally generated crime data. The transfer of crime representations into the context of globalisation and the ‘global community’ tends to distort the reality of crime relationships and the manner in which they are appreciated within diverse and disparate economies. One way out of this diYculty is to consider the more general indicators of crime across cultures, in order to ascertain whether a truly transnational or international picture of crime relationships and crime choices will emerge from whatever economic context. This is a diVerent process to that in which an artiWcial ‘global community’ context is created and crime is problematised within it. However, crime as universal depends on a reconsideration of globalisation, wherein diversity of particular economies can be contrasted with the push for some uniform commitment to preferred economic models.

38

The globalisation of crime

Can crime indicators be compared internationally? The report on the Third UN Survey of Crime Trends and the Operations of the Criminal Justice System (UN, 1993) rather optimistically concluded: According to the analysed data, there is a basis for comparison [of crime and justice data] between national experiences not only with regard to the extent and patterns of the crime problem, but also with regard to the national response to it. That comparative perspective, in turn, provides a basis for determining how each country evaluates the relative success or shortcomings of its crime prevention system and how countries may learn from each other.

On the extremely conditional data emerging from the UN world crime survey initiatives, some would say this conWdence in comparative analysis was more heart-felt than conWrmed. Unfortunately for the comparative analysis of crime, the preoccupations of European and American criminologists have been focused largely on local concerns. An ‘internationalist’ or global perspective on crime problems is rarer in research than politics, and when it does arise in the research literature it is concerned more with control issues such as policing drug-traYcking (aVected as they are by international treaty obligations and law-enforcement instruments). It is not simply that the nature of criminal enterprise in these special instances is appreciated as transnational and as such requires an ‘internationalist’ response. With drugtraYcking in particular, global crime control obligations and initiatives are predicated on a developed globalised political agenda regarding drug marketing and trade, as well as the recognition that co-operative crime control is essential to minimise harm at a local and transnational level. The international obligations towards control have designated certain crime problems and as such both domestic investigation agendas and international rights issues may stand compromised beyond the globalisation of crime and control (see Findlay, 1995). It is perhaps not surprising that when comparative crime analysis does take place it ignores ‘problems’ which have little negative impact in one jurisdiction but which are signiWcant in international political terms, because of their negative impact in another more politically powerful context. For instance, in certain economies in South America the commercial advantage of the illicit drug trade may far outweigh the social and moral ‘cost’ of drug abuse amongst their relatively small proportion of local drug users. However, these states are required to be involved in international drug control politics by other more powerful states which face far more deleterious consequences of the drug trade at home. International comparisons inevitably involve the collection of data

(Mis)representing crime

39

from diverse social, economic and political contexts, which inXuence the manner in which this data can be treated. Does such data report on comparable events, or does the context out of which ostensibly similar data arise make these events dissimilar? The issue here is whether crime indicators (data) from various cultural settings are addressing the same thing. Absolute parity in cross-cultural measurement is impossible if one holds that social meaning is culturally speciWc. Therefore, in order to advance a comparative endeavour, one must seek suYcient similarity around which trends may be viewed. A creative consideration (and application) of the nature of the data to be employed for the purpose is vital if comparative analysis is to advance beyond theoretical frameworks (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993). Vagg (1993) identiWes four ‘main approaches’ in the comparative exercise over recent years: (a) attempts to link crime trends or problems to common social, economic or political denominators;— (b) direct comparisons of questions, and several countries;…» (c) attempts to produce broad generalisations and generate policy recommendations;…… (d) examinations of particular regional developments.…  What is missing in this overview of the comparative analysis of crime and justice are those studies which draw on a wide range of data from a variety of regional and cultural settings in order to propose and test workable cross-cultural models of crime and control (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988; 1993). The comparative dimension in such work is advanced through a framework of analysis which, while recognising the culturally speciWc nature of crime data, tests styles, trends and indications of crime and control possible for generalisation.

Preoccupations with the developed world The comparability of crime data becomes more suspect when crime is expected to indicate levels of socio-economic development. The mean— See Shelley (1981) discussing the use of industrialisation and urbanisation; Sumner (1982) analysing decolonisation and underdevelopment. …» See Downes (1988) for a comparison of penal policies across countries with economic similarities but cultural diVerences. …… See Hood (1989) for a summary of a large body of international practice on the death penalty. …  See Heidensohn and Farrell (1991) wherein they indicate the range of consequences or problems which Xow from particular developments.

40

The globalisation of crime

ingfulness of correlating crime with economic development, for instance, is dependent on the application of models of development which can account for diVerences in the ‘make-up’ of development within particular socio-cultural settings. Further, contextual issues which indicate development may correlate with expectations about crime. Therefore, the issue of which leads to what may become confusing when analysing the nexus between crime and development issues. To avoid such temporal sequence problems, we suggest that the social context of both be examined for common themes, and then the interrelationship between these themes should be considered within concepts of economy (see chapter 5). In this respect the most successful analytical focus is one which recognises the peculiar features of social development and crime within it, while drawing on familiar connections between crime and society. The balance between generalisation and speciWcity (while diYcult to establish) is perhaps easier to maintain when the analysis avoids any uncritical reliance on particular paradigms of crime or development. Such paradigms present a tendency to unnecessarily constrain the parameters of analysis within a speciWc political or economic ideology. In considering the problems associated with measuring and representing crime, the analysis of crime as a relationship presents an important interpretative dimension. The appreciation of crime as a relationship avoids constraining analysis to ‘the baleful doctrine of social facts’ (Watts, 1996: 134). Understanding crime as rates and numbers through the testing of causal or correlative independent variables gives these rates and Wgures the appearance of reality and fact. But the explanation of crime through a statistical artefact is neither puzzling nor without its own political logic. While the crime rate may be a fact, it does not refer to what it represents as fact. ‘And the pursuit of an explanation for why a set of numbers changes over time or is diVerent between this society and that . . . [will] like Hesse’s Glass Bead Game Wll up many hours of the day and confer great prestige on the players’ (ibid.). Crime, however measured and represented, is real. And statistical generalisation may be a valid epistemic objective. As Braithwaite declares: ‘I think crime is real. I also think two crimes is the sum of two real things and therefore counting them can be a sensible and illuminating activity’ (Braithwaite, 1996: 144). For those troubled by the perplexing questions of what crime Wgures represent, and how better to measure crime, a new look at the direction and object of inquiry holds out possibilities. Rather than concentrating on the product of criminal justice agencies, or the under-accounting of crime situations, an evaluation of crime relationships oVers a more satisfying

(Mis)representing crime

41

potential for understanding crime. With this approach it is not essential to chase, estimate or pretend empirical accuracy. The examination of relationships allows for viewing crime situations as dynamic types rather than static indices. Crime aVects people and communities, and therefore the harm caused by crime is another possible context in which crime can be understood. A crucial player in crime relationships is the victim, and victimology is a feature of the globalised discourse on crime. Victimisation and crime control – its signiWcance for the measurement of crime Recently, the exploration of crime relationships beyond the act or the perpetrator to the victim and the harm done has opened up new potentials for understanding crime as a social relationship (see Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate, 1995). In their earlier forms, victimisation surveys in the USA arose out of a social democratic criminology where causes of crime were seen within the relative deprivation of the modern city. Both the oVender and victim were located in the same socio-structural context – the lack of opportunities in a society with high ideals of achievement yet very limited social mobility. The political and theoretical link between an interest in the causes of crime, and crime victims was short-lived. Control-centred criminology emphasises oVenders and potential oVenders rather than harm arising out of the oVence. Its compatibility with conservative political movements prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s overtook victim methodology and relegated it to eVorts at crime ‘mapping’ and the spatial measurement of criminal activity as a technique for control. Victimology and the advancement of the rights of victims has posed a strong conservative, and sometimes contradictory inXuence over the development of criminal justice policy. It has employed radical political concerns, such as the status of women and the protection of the child, towards the development of tendencies against due process and liberalism in matters of public morality. For example, certain feminist argument tends to advocate restricting freedom of expression if it amounts to pornography. Similarly, those who might otherwise support the protection of a defendant’s rights struggle to protect child victim witnesses from vigorous defence challenge in child abuse cases. In addition, the early focus of victimology on violent crime against the person tended to marginalise other concerns with crimes of the powerful. However, a consideration of victims has also developed as an essential plank in the theory and methodology of radical criminology (see Jones et

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The globalisation of crime

al., 1986). The victimisation studies which chart the high victimisation rate of women in terms of male violence immediately raise the problems of: a patriarchal social criss-cross cutting problems of class. The insistent Wndings from conventional victimology of the intra-class and intra-racial nature of crime pointed to a degree of disorganisation, particularly within the working class, which creates self inXicted wounds outside those already generated by the corporations, the police and the courts. It was in this theoretical context that radical realism arose within criminology. At heart this started from the premise of taking people’s fear of crime seriously and arguing that these were more realistic than either radical or conventional criminologists made out (ibid.: 3).

When looking at victim data the relationships of crime had a distinctly discriminatory perspective and appeared as abuses of power and status as well as attacks on individual safety and integrity. Further, the complexity of any class analysis of crime was exposed through the fears and apprehensions of the victim rather than the motivations of the oVender. Now it can be said of even state-sponsored victim studies that they present an audit of people’s experiences, anxieties and problems about crime. They have expanded from surveys of victims to a critique of the provision of criminal justice services and community attitudes to penalty (see Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate, 1995). Above all else victimisation studies have Xeshed out critically the utility of oYcial crime statistics. Records of the activities of criminal justice institutions and agencies no longer stand alone as the authorised picture of crime. And this has not only inXuenced the preparation of crime data in the more developed nation-states. The most recent United Nations world crime survey has emphasised the victim’s perspective and amassed comparative data on ‘world crime’ in terms of victimisation (see Alvazzi del Frate et al., 1993). International victimisation surveys The UN International Crime (Victim) Survey (1992) involved countries and cities which diVered greatly in many respects.…À Therefore, the differences in samples and territorial coverage did not allow for straightforward comparisons. What analysis has been carried out is of one year’s victimisation rates and attempts towards comparison have been made (see Zvekic, 1993). Some general conclusions from the data are: …À The 1996 International Crime Victimisation Survey in industrialised countries measured victimisation in the previous year and covered eleven countries. Five of these had been involved in the two previous surveys and another Wve in the second survey. Nineteen thousand interviews were conducted: see Mayhew and Van Dijk (1997).

(Mis)representing crime

43

( Developing countries evidence higher rates of victimisation for almost

all selected types of crime surveyed. ( Urban areas in industrialised countries appear to be at lower risk in

(

(

( (

(

( (

(

(

comparison to both developing and Eastern/Central European countries for theft of personal property and sexual incidents. The smallest diVerence between the groups of countries relates to assault/threat, for which developing and industrialised countries show equivalent risks. The blight of corruption in the developing world is particularly debilitating, with it often being nominated as the common form of victimisation. On average, consumer fraud rates were much lower in industrialised countries. Public satisfaction with police response to crime was most favourable in industrialised countries. Citizens in developing countries were less satisWed with police performance in controlling crime. Judgements about the police are often negative in countries where more people feel the need to take precautions against street crime at night. Less favourable judgements are also found in countries where victims who report crime are dissatisWed with their treatment by police. Public attitudes to punishment seem to reXect and support established sentencing traditions. Some ex-communist countries/cities have much higher levels of crime than indicated by the police-recorded crime Wgures, which may show an undercount of crime due to victims’ reluctance to report. Crime is a heavy burden for some with, for instance, one in Wve respondents in the last year experiencing at least one incident of theft or damage to property or some form of aggressive behaviour. Levels of actual risk are far from negligible, whether or not these are softened by insurance systems or social support. With the exception of Switzerland and Japan, all industrialised countries suVer from an appreciable level of property and aggressive crime, particularly in more urbanised areas.

Certain trends have been noted (Zvekic, 1993) between the Wrst and second international victimisation surveys carried out in 1989 and 1992 respectively. In the European countries taking part in both surveys, the risk of crime had generally increased, particularly in thefts of and from cars. The risk of many crimes in the USA did not appear to have varied signiWcantly, and risks in Canada and Australia also remained stable. The policy implications of victim surveys (such as their consumer satisfaction perspective) ensure their dominance in crime measurement

44

The globalisation of crime

methodology. With the nomination by communities of the fear of crime as a vital social concern, victim surveys have obvious political ramiWcations. The interconnection of law and order politics with the fear of crime produces a potent political imperative. Methodologies with the potential to make fear real and register its Xuctuation will demand recognition in political discourse on the crime problem. In globalisation terms, rates of victimisation provide a more fertile Weld of comparative analysis than other conventional measures of crime. In addition, the notion of ‘generic’ or ‘nation’ victims is of relevance for policy development and control strategies. Through the implication that mass victimisation is now a feature of crime in its global context, the shift in responsibility and authority for control tends to endorse generic representations of criminalisation. This then aVects the jurisdictional context of criminal sanctions, the traditionally national focus of policing, and the local focus for prevention, control and punishment agendas. Trends in criminalisation and the processes of crime control The state’s monopoly over the legitimate use of violence in the form of punishment is a principal claim to authority for modern governments (Kennedy, 1984). Over the last century in the developed world, the bureaucracies associated with the administration of such punishment have burgeoned. Generally these bureaucracies have retained their direct links with other aspects of the state, while tending to expand into ‘community’ dimensions (see Cohen, 1985). This growth has what Cohen refers to as a ‘net widening’ eVect, where beyond the formal structures of the welfare state authority an ever expanding array of ‘punishment’, ‘correctional’ and ‘intervention’ strategies present as being communitycentred. Probation, community work orders, juvenile attendance centres and work release centres are just some such initiatives which incorporate a structure of state authority within a community location. The potential for enhancing state legitimacy through such developments, without sacriWcing ultimate authority, is obvious. This is particularly important for states within which the formal institutions and processes of criminal justice are under challenge (see chapter 7). An early feature of the ‘modernisation’ of most state systems is the development of formal criminal justice. However, a feature of this development has been to marginalise the principal participants within the expectations and interests of state institutions and processes. The exercise of force through policing becomes the province of the state, or is

(Mis)representing crime

45

licensed out through state police to the private sector. Crimes are prosecuted by the state on behalf of the community, rather than remaining the responsibility of the victim. In fact, until recently, with developments such as victim impact statements and victim’s compensation, the victim was becoming marginalised out of the justice process except for his or her role as a witness. The administration of justice through state courts is now a complex state function in many societies. Even in cultures where the division between the religious and the secular is not rigid, the criminal courts have a unique procedural autonomy beyond the form of laws which they administer. With the development of formal court-room justice has arisen pressures for adjudication systems within the reach of the common oVender or victim. Many citizens now view the criminal justice process as unable to satisfy the legitimate expectations of victims, the protection concerns of the community, and the demands of defendants for universal access to quality representation (McBarnet, 1978). The pressures for alternative adjudication processes which result, have had a far greater signiWcance in areas of civil law, while the criminal jurisdiction still remains largely the province of the state. More recently, and particularly in those cultures where custom is a current force in socialisation, traditional community-based forms of dispute resolution have reasserted their signiWcance amongst modernised crime control strategies (see chapter 7). The formal state-monopolised mechanisms of control have colonised certain of these forms (as depicted in the case-study in chapter 7), removing them from their community context and into the state-sponsored process. The results of this transformation conWrm that crime control is a profoundly contextual enterprise. The punitive arm of the state continues to exercise oppressive dimensions of state power. Despite trends towards de-institutionalisation and alternative sentencing options (e.g. those which do not simply involve a Wne or a period of incarceration), the state’s power to execute and imprison oVenders is jealously guarded. Even for limited experiments with the privatisation of prisons and juvenile custody, the licence and to imprimatur of the state are essential. A signiWcant feature of the expanding inXuence of the state through the criminal sanction process has been the development of sentencing options which now bring into the formal justice process, and progress through that process, oVenders who earlier would have been dealt with by informal, non-state measures. For instance, in some jurisdictions oVenders who otherwise might have been

46

The globalisation of crime

admonished either by the police or the courts are now subject to supervision (probation) or work (community service orders). If these individuals breach such orders they will often receive a custodial penalty, and perhaps such a consequence would never have been likely if their original oVence had been dealt with informally. Diversion away from the formal justice process and its consequences towards welfare or community supervision alternatives is now a motivation of even government agencies. Particularly with juvenile oVenders the deleterious eVects of being labelled a criminal by state agencies such as the police and the courts (criminalisation) are being recognised as often outweighing the harm caused by the oVence itself. Diversion also exposes the limitations of criminal justice and the unrealistic expectations held out for punishment. Processing recreational drug users through the courts and prisons, for instance, may be far more likely to exacerbate their criminal potential than minimise their abusive behaviours. Criminalisation, and the secondary deviance which the criminal label appears to foster, is certainly on the increase in developing nations, despite the inXuence of diversion, and the widespread concern over the failure of rehabilitative punishment. This is a logical consequence of the expansion of a sector of state administration which remains attractive to conservative and radical politics alike, irrespective of its demonstrated and constant failure to live up to its competing ideologies. One needs only to witness the expansion of prison populations to crisis point in Britain, the USA and much of Europe to doubt the necessary connection between increases in criminalisation and positive cost/beneWt analysis for the state (see Christie, 1993). With the increase in criminalisation Xows a consequent development of the formal and informal systems responsible for managing criminalisation. These institutions and systems generate administrative structures which spend money and process people. Any or all of these activities are measurable and say something about the nature and state of crime within the communities in which these systems operate (see Hogg, 1983). The growth of formal state agencies for managing and controlling crime and enforcing the law is viewed in some paradigms as an important indicator of social development. It is important as a part of contextual crime analysis to inquire whether crime and other indicators of development are inextricably linked within, and determinant of contexts of social development. It is also relevant to consider the role which the processes of criminal justice play in the advancement of legitimate development aspirations. In order to elucidate these connections for the purposes of crime analysis, an examination of the manner in which crime is represented must precede.

(Mis)representing crime

47

Misrepresentations of crime and control One of the diYculties associated with an accurate contextualisation of crime is the diverse manner in which it is represented. This is not simply a problem of distortion or misinterpretation; the basic sources from which crime becomes known are so varied. Therefore, the possibility of problematic representations of crime being broadcast and forming the basis of oYcial reaction is almost unavoidable. Personal descriptions or accounts of crime constitute the most popular representations of crime. The accuracy, representativeness and comparability of such accounts are problematic. However, what they may lack on these measures they make up for in entertainment value and political impact. Therefore, their potential audience and signiWcance may diVer considerably from the oYcial account, while their ‘authority’ and longevity may outweigh such representations. Criminal justice system records of crime, while proposing greater credibility as oYcial accounts, are disparate enough to fuel a variety of crime representations. The media are particularly committed to the use of such data as veriWcation for opinion, and politicians often tend to rely on ‘systems’…Ã data (i.e. that which is a measure of how the justice system operates) as representations of real crime activity. Associated with these records are the problems attendant on enumerating a social phenomenon like crime. Not only does there exist a ‘dark Wgure’ of crime beyond oYcial statistics, but there is also the ‘dark Wgure’ of recording which plagues any management system. Whether representations of crime rely on oYcial records, surveys, memoirs or common-sense as their source, the impact of the representation will be as much dependent on the means of broadcasting and the motives behind this as on its proximity to truth. In this respect, the recent shift in the media interest in crime in the USA, away from Wctionalised representation and towards the widespread televising of actual policing, current court sittings, and life in prison, has brought crime control into the homes and businesses of large sectors of American society otherwise not touched by crime. They are now the observers of police operations, the participants in trials, and the judge and jury of the oVender and the system. Even so, these glimpses of crime situations may not leave the viewer any more deeply aware of the complexity of the entertainment phenomenon. The media saturation of crime control in Western broadcasting has …Ã Using the concept of criminal justice as a system (here and on later occasions) is not to endorse the interpretation of essential processes and institutions which comprise the ‘system’ as systematic, integrated or internally consistent.

48

The globalisation of crime

done much more to popular representations of crime than simply remove the entertainment locus from the imaginary to the actual. It has generated an expectation amongst the viewing public that it is their right to observe, participate and pass judgement. Additionally, there has emerged a requirement in the exercise of criminal justice that it be both media ‘friendly’ and entertaining. Crime is no longer hidden in dark alleys, smoky interrogation rooms or gloomy prison cells. It is up for sale to the networks and it is there at the dinner table. It cannot exist without glib commentary from reporters and presenters who are there to provide a link with the crime situation and to represent the opinions of the viewers. Still, the barrier of the television screen and the abstraction of the ‘moralist’ news commentary ensures that the ‘diVerence’ of crime and the criminal is maintained. While we can view the relationship between crime and the controllers, we are almost always sure whose side we are on. Selective interpretation of crime Crime is a phenomenon which relies on a complex and often formal process of deWnition, identiWcation and reaction. In certain theories concerned with crime this process is referred to as labelling. Once the labelling process commences, either informally through community opinion, or at the formal level courtesy of state agencies and processes, then there exists the potential for the behaviour against which it is directed to be ampliWed (see Young, 1981). The interpretation of crime relies heavily on oYcial accounts which are investigated, recorded and judged by the agencies of criminal justice. To this extent crime labels must be set and imposed by bodies which retain the authority to make them stick. The agencies of criminal justice are usually empowered to exercise their labelling function with discretion. At the simplest level this can be explained by the fact that crime control resources are Wnite and are always set below the optimal level of need. Therefore, for the system of criminal justice to operate at all, law enforcement and criminal justice happen selectively. And this is so because criminal justice is expected to be discretionary – discretion is promoted for the eYciency of the process. The process of criminalisation is an inherently political exercise, reliant on legislative prohibitions being activated through administrative practice. Similar factors inXuence political decision-making in other contexts and will ensure that the interpretation of crime is a selective process. Add to this the fact that the public’s understanding of crime is heavily reliant on the selective reporting of the media and it is not surprising that interpretations of crime are hardly universal or value-free.

(Mis)representing crime

49

Drugs/crime link – representation of crime and control out of context A good example of the selective nature of crime is the manner in which drugs and crime are connected, particularly in modernised Western societies. The selective criminalisation of certain forms of recreational drug abuse has been a recent feature of crime control policy world-wide, and yet the logic of this can often only be appreciated at the level of international politics. For example, the nomination of some drugs rather than others to criminalise will be explained by the political history of twentieth-century drug control and not on the basis of pharmacological logic. Even ‘harm minimisation’ as the motivation for drug prevention and control policies cannot explain why certain drug use and sale practice is criminalised while similar behaviours are not. Governments, rather than doctors or police, determine what drugs of choice are to be criminalised. For example, if one follows the history of the criminalisation of heroin (see Ward and Dobinson, 1988) it becomes apparent that legislation and law-enforcement strategies have been motivated by a wide range of concerns, from harm minimisation to national security. The selective interpretation and criminalisation of certain drug practices has led to increases in other forms of crime, as well as the development of new crime control strategies. For instance, the increase in the market price of certain ‘street’ drugs such as heroin has motivated the involvement of drug addicts in a wide range of property crimes in order to service their drug habits. The prisons of developed countries are full of young male drug users sentenced for burglary and robbery. Perhaps more than any other process of criminalisation this century, the drugs/crime link has changed the face of criminal justice and the appreciation of crime threat…Õ like no other crime connection. Drug squads demand a large slice of policing budgets, trials frequently feature defendants with a drug history, and penal institutions are disproportionately occupied by drug abusers. The drugs/crime link in this way is a relatively recent phenomenon. Arguably, drug control practice is not so much concerned with crime control. Rather it is directed at the maintenance of certain moral and political boundaries which have been largely set at an international level and imposed on local jurisdictions (ibid.). Essential to the recent discourse on drugs and crime has been the representation of drug-traYcking as a principal money earner for organised crime. This has also rekindled the interest, generated initially by literature on the American MaWa in the 1930s, in crime organisations as threats to government. More recently the investigation of transnational …Õ For a detailed discussion of the development of crime threat, see chapter 6.

50

The globalisation of crime

crime has recognised the limitations of considering certain crime forms as dependent on particular enforcement practices and legislative deWnitions within individual jurisdictions.…Œ A new industry of crime control in the form of the conWscation of the proceeds of crime has grown up as a result of these representations. Organised crime mystique The popular and romanticised representation of organised crime exposes the distance between the social reality of crime and perception and representation. For example, the ‘Godfather’ version of MaWa organisation has promoted an understanding of relationships between crime and ethnicity and crime and the family. Organised crime in this way is profoundly mystiWed. A mythology is established that limits discourse, directs control strategies, and inXuences the representation of many forms of associated criminality. But why the creation of this mystique (see chapter 5)? One explanation may be that it is the community’s preferred perception of organised crime, and this serves as the justiWcation for state control. The MaWa mystique supports the community’s need for a distinction between the ‘real criminals’ and the rest of society (see Box, 1983). Such a distinction was shaped into a series of Wrm expectations about MaWa-style organised crime. By simplifying, generalising and thus mystifying organised crime, the complexity and ubiquitous inXuence of organised criminal activity, and its link with capital at all levels of American commercial and economic life, is obfuscated (Findlay, 1992). This MaWa image was produced through a mixture of real events and media reporting. There was a conscious eVort by ambitious public oYcials to create super-criminals, superseding the need to explain the state’s failure to control organised criminal activity. This had the consequence of further expanding state crime control mechanisms in the hope of achieving future success. Indicative of the realism which eventually characterised writings on the MaWa in the 1970s was the view that so long as exotic enemies are imagined in our midst, the actual social signiWcance of organised crime, which such villains are said to monopolise, will never be understood. The social relevance of the MaWa mystique, consistent with a more realistic deWnition of organised crime, depends on a broad re-evaluation of com…Œ Also, particularly with the conWscation of criminal assets as a mechanism of crime control, the distinction between criminal and civil jurisdictions had necessarily collapsed. The limitations inherent in the criminal sanction have meant that civil remedies may oVer a more convincing and eVective control result.

(Mis)representing crime

51

munity priorities. Therefore, organised crime is the product of forces that threaten values, not the cause of them. If society countenances violence, considers personal gain to be more important than equity, and is willing to bend the law in the pursuit of wealth, power and personal gratiWcation, then society itself will always be receptive to illicit enterprise, whether condoned, ignored or condemned. Such enterprise will become a reality whenever a group of people is willing to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities that arise as a result of selective law enforcement, violence or corruption in pursuit of their own wealth and power. Even the processes and institutions designed to regulate or eradicate crime which are reliant on syndicated and corrupt structures may go to create an environment which will eventually facilitate its development. As long as organised crime is understood as an alien conspiracy dominated by ethnic groups, it will remain diYcult to understand how it actually operates.

Transnational crime As mentioned previously, concepts of crime have traditionally relied on some cultural or jurisdictional context for their relevance and impact. Implicit in this is the expectation that crime stops at national borders, or at least that it has localised interests. The jurisdictional boundaries of crime, however, can only be explained in terms of legal convenience and legislative limits. As piracy, smuggling, abduction, gun-running and counterfeiting have been crime problems for centuries, so too the laws of individual nations have been powerless to control them. Transnational crime is new only for the manner in which law-enforcement and international agencies have recently identiWed it as a priority. Again, the selective political representation of crime is the explanation for such a trend. For instance, as governments realise the potential for criminal enterprise to endanger world market structures, capital transfer, national security, and international transport and communication, crime targets are selected out for collaborative action while others are ignored. Strategies have been developed, for example, to prevent and prosecute commodity futures fraud and abuses, but an international approach to crimes against the environment is yet to be convincingly settled. The other diVerence with transnational crime, represented as a recent problem for globalisation, is the manner in which crime control is reshaped in order to address the diYculties with jurisdiction. Crime control is, in this context, at least a bilateral endeavour. However, in many control strategies for transnational crime the bilateral eVorts are stimulated by globalised representations of crime and control priorities.

52

The globalisation of crime

Crime without sites The explosion of the internet as a market for information and consumerism presents novel challenges to traditional representations of crime and control. Not only through the internet is the crime situation ‘virtual’, but the site for its commission is the globe. Jurisdictional conceptions of crime and control fail to inform the existence of such a phenomenon. When neo-Nazi propagandists in Germany spread racial viliWcation and incite violence, where is the crime committed and what is the crime? The German authorities have recently moved to speciWcally criminalise the use of the net for this purpose so as to enable conventional control strategies to be activated. When a child pornographer sends information across the net from a state where both the broadcast material and the broadcast are not criminal, whose role is it to intervene? In the US some legislatures have criminalised the receipt of such information within their jurisdiction. When an Asian marriage broker advertises women in the West, and part of the connection arrangement relies on the violation of immigration regulations, whose morality is oVended and whose interests should the criminal law protect? By prosecuting the recipient of the information in the host state, or the party to the agreement who tries to subvert immigration requirements, the crime relationship (as selectively labelled) is only partially addressed. Where time and space have collapsed through the internet so too have the conventional representations of crime and control. Crime becomes a message with a contested meaning, without any rigid spatial context. The predator has a limitless population of victims across an indeterminate map. The danger in this is to demonise the means for communication rather than the contested message or the invisible messenger.

Crime, the media and moral panic Political decisions regarding crime and its representation are not only dependent on the interests of parties directly involved in the relationship. Community expectations about crime and its control may also inXuence the manner in which governments and enforcement agencies selectively respond to crime, and a crucial element in the creation of public opinion about crime is media representation. The manner in which the media report on crime will aVect a vast range of individuals who would otherwise have little immediate experience of it, as well as those connected to crime relationships. The impact of media reporting will obviously be greater where opinions are divided or other-

(Mis)representing crime

53

wise ambivalent about certain instances of crime and control. There seems little empirical evidence which would allow for conWdent statements on a relationship between values (moral or political) and delinquency. Even serious repeat delinquents appear to recognise generally accepted social standards, and often place a higher value on conventional accomplishments than on success at breaking the law. With what has been recently referred to as victimless crime (e.g. drug abuse; forms of consenting sexual activity) where community standards may be divided or ambivalent, the motivations and views of oVenders will be equally diverse. However, simply because someone commits a predatory crime, it cannot be interpreted as a profound rejection of consensual morality. Where the view of crime as an attack on fundamental public morality is widely held in media reporting of crime, and oYcial rhetoric surrounding reactions to crime (e.g. judicial pronouncements) align with this opinion, then the representation of the crime received by the public is clear. If this representation is accompanied by suggestions for reaction or response then governments and enforcement agencies face a more limited range of choices for action. When the media and the oYcial account feed oV one another in stimulating public reaction to crime, then a ‘moral panic’ may emerge within the wider community which may not only be out of all proportion to the reality of the phenomenon, but also may not require any reliance on this reality to galvanise an accepted representation of crime and demands for action. Crime and the state One area in which the representation of crime is complicated by the interests of authority is where crimes originate within state structures. These very structures, such as the police, the courts, the military and the prison service, may otherwise be responsible for authorising the oYcial account of particular crimes. If they are involved in the crime relationship as perpetrators, then who or what will have the authority to present a conXicting, but convincing oYcial account? In a formal sense, the institutions responsible for identifying and processing crime have their authority located in the state. If the state labels crime, then its own criminality will rarely be criminalised. In this respect the state plays an essential role in the formalisation of crime through its monopoly over criminal justice institutions and processes. Some labelling theorists would argue that without state deWnition mechanisms there could be no crime (Chambliss, 1984: Part I). Obvious-

54

The globalisation of crime

ly this is not intended to mean that criminal behaviours would accompany the disappearance of the state. Rather it implies that crime is so dependent on oYcial identiWcation, determination and enforcement processes that the social context of crime, at least in terms of the community appreciation of it, cannot be as it is without state intervention. The issue of state crime is perhaps more complex. Like any social institution possessed of power and authority, the state has the potential to make criminal choices. It can do this in three principal ways: (a) by setting up ‘boundaries of permission’ in the form of legal or moral regulations, where criminal choices may be fostered (e.g. diVerential taxation laws, selective criminalisation of drug abuse); (b) by engaging in activities which are themselves criminal (e.g. corruption of public oYcials); (c) by abusing the processes of criminal justice. The diYculty in examining state crime is exacerbated by the lack of clarity in the separation of state powers. When are the activities of state oYcials the activities of the state? Can the state be liable for contradictory initiatives and responses where crime is concerned? For example, if the government enacts prohibitions against the corruption of its oYcers, while at the same time permitting licensing or commercial tender practices which invite corruption, how is it to be held responsible? A particular dimension of state crime which is disturbingly prevalent in certain developing countries is that of extreme forms of state violence (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993). This is not to say, for instance, that the use of excessive force is the province of the police in developing nations alone. On the contrary, the technologies of force have been sophisticated to such an extent in Western states that the potential for state violence is enhanced. But in some developing settings the agents of criminal justice do not seem to be constrained by even the most basic conditions of human rights. This is obviously the case when street children are murdered by state police in Latin America and the police seem to be immune even from adverse local public opinion. Instances of illegal shortcuts by members of state criminal justice agencies in the pursuit of control objectives proliferate (see PNG–Australia Development Co-operation Programme, 1993). In such situations the police may express little faith in the courts to convict or the prisons to punish oVenders, and become frustrated with the perceived failure of the system to eVect a satisfactory outcome. Innocent bystanders become victims of state violence when police take the law into their own hands. Illegitimate force is directed against suspects and prisoners in order to get a ‘result’ with which the courts cannot disagree. Villages may be burnt

(Mis)representing crime

55

and citizens beaten or raped in order to exact penalties not open to the formal institutions of punishment. When practised in conjunction with reactive control policies which are incapable of preventing abuses of power before they occur, state violence will reinforce the solidarity of criminal and non-criminal groups against state authority as a common ‘enemy’. For example, the Rhondas in Peru carry out night patrols as much to protect their communities from the excesses of police and military violence as to prevent intra-community disorder (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993: ch. 5). This solidarity may also be evidenced by the disappearance of inter-gang conXict, such as occurs in the favellas of Brazil where crime groups will co-operate to resist the incursions of the state police (ibid.: ch. 6). Coincidentally, state violence erodes the willingness and ability of the average citizen to assist in the oYcial maintenance of social order. And what of a world where the state disappears as a viable site for the representation of crime and control? What of the context where the crime is against global interests and the perpetrator is a multinational? Again, a technique for analysis which is sympathetic to such transitional issues is the representation of crime as relationships rather than events bound within particular jurisdictions. Thus the predator and the victim can be extracted from unsuitable or outmoded social structures, and be considered in moral and functional terms as revealed through processes and outcomes of interaction. Crime and diVerence The unstated dimension in this discussion of crime and its representation is the potential for distinction and reaYrmation through criminalisation. By determining and representing certain relationships as criminal, the state is able to identify and exclude the illegitimate and to conWrm and celebrate the legitimate. As discussions of culture, society, morality and development depend on the often mute existence of their ‘alter’ or opposing states, representations of crime seem to require the maintenance of the divide between the ‘law-abiding’ and the deviant. The symbolic signiWcance of criminal justice is all about declaring diVerence. This is particularly telling at a global level where a commonality of criminal justice (like other features of harmonious culture) is as yet largely symbolic. This diVerentiation between criminal and non-criminal goes beyond the nature of crime and its representation. It is crucial for the context of crime within communities and culture. Becker (1973) identiWed the criminal as the outsider. Matza (1964) saw him as the drifter. Braithwaite

56

The globalisation of crime

more recently positions him at the cross-roads of re-integration or stigma. Each and every ‘serious’ representation of the criminal, and even the popular wisdom with which we are confronted daily, attempts to remove crime and the criminal from common contexts of socio-cultural presence. To emphasise the marginalisation and alienation of crime in its representation, the explanation of crime from within itself is denied. The world of the criminal and his motivations are delegitimised. The organisation of his ‘society’ is subordinated as ‘sub-culture’. The purpose of crime is declared as essentially in opposition to the features of community and culture which equate with peace, prosperity and harmony. Obviously these are the communities and cultures of power and authority which pre-determine, impose and maintain the boundaries of criminality. Finally, representations of crime are determined and broadcast in forms and fashions which prohibit genuine communication with their subject. As Richards says of literature, art and anthropology, which may as well relate to crime: ‘cultural representations . . . have, historically, been founded on the assumption that its discourse is unknown to the subjects of its analysis. Predicated upon the illiteracy of its subjects [the representation of crime] has been supremely and uniquely free to apply itself to an uncontested sphere of special, secret knowledge’ (1994: 4–5). To some degree the globalisation of crime problems has recognised, if disputed, the potential for crime and the criminal to insist on new visibility, and to articulate, repulse or redeWne the discourse which is essentially ‘about them’. Yet this remains at the level of biography or ethnographic case-study and has in no way progressed to the point where those involved in common or mundane crime relationships have a regular role in their representation. This book examines crime outside the charmed or demonic circles of Western cultural representations. Rather than unravelling the falsehoods of crime representation, we are interested in the premises of identity, language and culture on which they rely. The hegemonic impression surrounding popular representations can be challenged as well as endorsed through the context of globalisation and we intend to employ this context at least for the critical analysis of representations. The globalisation of crime problems is part of a process where the representation of social relationships is used to repossess the cultural materials they are said to undermine, and to represent them in diVerent terms. If crime causes fear, then the representation of crime as ‘controllable’ should reduce fear, but without addressing the features of culture which generate crime and fear. Global representations of the crime problem are particularly directed at reaYrming the values of modernisation

(Mis)representing crime

57

through the denial of crime’s place within it. In this way ‘the cultural materials are made to function according to diVerent criteria, given new meanings, new histories, new identities’ (Richards, 1994: 5). And about these a ‘global consensus’ regarding crime is assumed, applied and conWrmed. The measurement and representation of crime provides a new dimension from which crime as a dynamic social phenomenon may be considered. Having identiWed crime as some form of social problem, the next step in contextual analysis is to indicate social settings in which crime might become more or less apparent. Developmental phases provide such a focus. Features of social development can then be extracted and interrelated in a manner to test their connection, if any, with crime, and vice versa.

2

Crime and social development

Introduction The many social paradoxes accompanying and arising out of socioeconomic development… provide a fertile context for crime. This is not only because so many of the intended and unscheduled consequences of development have been identiWed as criminogenic. Crime presents another choice to individuals, communities and cultures marginalised through modernisation and responding to development politics. Crime is an essential result of modernisation and development, as much as socioeconomic disparity and marginalisation. Unfortunately, this recognition of the place of crime is too often constructed as dysfunctional rather than as a natural consequence of modernisation and development. The preferred, and advertised, dimension of these paradoxes favours development for its local and international economic beneWts. Strong proponents of development strategies (the global Wnancial institutions) are the driving force behind the world development agenda. More recently, institutions such as the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank have identiWed law and order issues as concerns for the structural adjustment of developing economies. This has been in terms of the deleterious eVects on economic conWdence, caused by crime and disorder, rather than their inherent connection with development paradigms. If crime is conceded as one of the behavioural or structurally negative consequences of development, then it is the pace, place or personalities of change which are conventionally regarded as responsible.  In so doing the advocates of development are able to deXect the ‘blame’ for any … I have chosen here to use the somewhat dated notion of ‘development’ rather than modernisation. The analysis in criminological literature which touches upon these issues considers development, and recognises the reality that many cultures (which have not even entered the earliest stages of modernisation) are embroiled in development politics and its consequences.   The case-studies discussed later in this chapter reveal occasions where crime and corruption are blamed on politicians utilising the context of development for their own advantage. The accompanying critique of development for fostering corrupt opportunities and relationships is not evident.

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crime/development correlation away from the necessary contextual features of development and on to corrupt bureaucrats, lazy politicians or uncommitted communities. This chapter examines the common imperatives behind contexts of development and relationships of crime. It is argued that the social and cultural paradoxes posed by modernisation and development are compatible with the pressures to globalise the crime problem in terms of international economic imperatives. However, it is suggested that a realistic consideration of these contexts of paradox will assist in an appreciation of crime that is a natural response to the pressures of development, rather than an impediment to the achievement of the goals of modernisation. In fact these goals may diVer little from those expected from crime relationships. With these realisations, global juxtapositions of crime as ‘bad’ and development as ‘good’ may be reconciled. International interests in selective socio-economic development share a similar terrain with selective criminalisation. The context of cultures in developmental transition are contexts of marginalisation and crime, as well as modernisation and wealth creation. Why then from a global perspective the problems of development and crime are represented in a paradoxical discourse is worthy of critical analysis. In order to advance such an analysis the obvious connections between development and crime will be identiWed. Their symbiosis is recognised in what follows and their contextual interaction and interdependence are explored. Finally the resilience of globalised misrepresentations of these connections, and even their mystiWcation, is located and addressed. Relationship between crime and development One way to minimise the problems facing a comparative analysis of something as subjective as crime is to look more closely at the social factors which aVect speciWc forms of criminality in diVerent cultural settings. In choosing ‘development’ as a signiWcant social factor, as well as a crucial cultural setting for crime choices, there is the potential to explore more general facilitators of crime as suggested in traditional deviancy theory such as economic and geographic opportunity, selective lawenforcement practice, and marginalisation (see Downes and Rock, 1995). It is the particular context of crime, like its place in development and modernisation, as much as its representations, which requires comparison if the social signiWcance of crime is to be appreciated. The global signiWcance of such contextual analysis is anticipated through imperatives towards development, regularly and extensively promoted by global

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The globalisation of crime

economic agencies, and yet remaining concealed or ignored within globalised political discourse. From the limited literature on crime and development the research appears to support the view that increasing crime rates, particularly as they relate to serious crime, are not simply a problem for developed societies. As Japan and other Asian and PaciWc rim nations reveal, crime rates may remain relatively low in contexts of sophisticated economic development provided that other bonds of socialisation remain strong. In the case of the United States of America, however, where socio-economic development is advanced but selective, and marginalisation is ever present, crime is a serious and growing problem. In some developed societies, while the absolute rate of reported crime is increasing, there exist interesting shifts in the crimes of choice and areas of criminality in which both the seriousness of the behaviour and its prevalence in the overall crime picture are decreasing (see Braithwaite, 1989; Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984; Zehr, 1976). As mentioned earlier, the nature of property crime and its prevalence is inXuenced by the criminalisation of drug abuse, and motor vehicle theft is obviously a more signiWcant crime of choice in rapidly expanding urban settings. For developing countries the nature of the increase in the extent and seriousness of crime is less clear, and this is largely due to diYculties in recording the impact of criminal justice administration. However, the generalisation that property crime and crimes against the person are rapidly increasing in developing societies, no doubt due to the development of private property rights and relationships, is strongly supported (Clinard and Abbott, 1973; Sumner, 1982; Alvazzi del Frate et al., 1993). Sumner (1982) has proposed that the interaction between crime and development is confused by false conceptions of the nature, cause and direction of change in the underdeveloped world. The context of this confusion is a benign paradigm, presenting development through modernisation as essentially beneWcial for the majority of communities. What this fails to appreciate is that profound fractures are driven across traditional bonds of socialisation by the pace of change. Narrowly focusing on urban working-class crime and ignoring power structures responsible for criminalising the poor, or the criminogenic eVects of post-colonial capitalism (with its tendency towards further artiWcial divisions of labour and the fragmentation of material wealth), is consistent with a benign modernisation paradigm for social development. And even where development is eVected in an empathetic atmosphere, the cohesion implicated in many traditional cultures and communities will be challenged by the competitive and individualistic commitments of modern market economics (see case-studies, pp. 81–89).

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As crime develops along with social and economic modernisation, the state-centred structures of crime control are often introduced into traditional or customary modes of control, or to replace those whose legitimacy has been withdrawnÀ (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988). Cohen’s (1985) critique of crime control exposes the irrelevance of many formal criminal justice strategies for communities struggling with the imbalance between structures of justice and community expectations for it, made more acute through colonial and dependent development. For example, complex and foreign justice institutions which relied on a professional, expatriate class as administrators are often the Wrst casualties of reorganisation after independence.Ã In addition, those agencies of colonial control, such as the civil police, may transform into institutions of clan or state repression in the immediate post-colonial period (see Dinnen, 1995). Therefore, what in a modernised context might be expected to control crime, here becomes another key component in crime relationships. If social development is to provide a useful context for appreciating the dynamics of crime, then one must rely on speciWc paradigms of development which, whilst identifying various relevant causes of change and development, do not simply assume similar types of impact on culture and social structure (see Clegg and Whetton, 1993). The literature on social development is vast and it is well beyond the scope of the present work to introduce and apply the principal development paradigms to speciWc crime relationships and identiWed cultures in transition. However, that is the potential and impression oVered by this form of interactive analysis and we would be negligent to ignore its invitation even at the level of example. Therefore in what follows, economic modernisation (and its synthesis within globalisation) will generally be implied as the development paradigm for the sake of contextual inquiry. Development context for crime Clinard and Abbott (1973: 10) indicate that the development process includes industrialisation, urbanisation and ‘concomitant changes in the value structures of most social institutions’. They allege that in less À This might be seen as the process behind the assumption of prosecution prominence by the state where victims failed to represent wider community interests. In certain contexts the reverse has been the case, where state legitimacy has collapsed and crime control has turned to the community for legitimacy, for example the re-introduction of jury trial into the Russian criminal courts (see DuV and Findlay, 1977). Ã Interestingly, this may not be so where, as in the case of Hong Kong, the dependent territory was largely modernised or in an advanced state of capitalisation at the time of the handover.

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developed countries ‘serious asymmetries tend to appear as societies seek to propel themselves into the modern world’. These include: (a) an imbalance between the concentration of modernisation and economic power in urban areas, and the social and commercial ‘backwardness’ of the rural population; (b) an imbalance between population growth and the inability of the economy to create employment; (c) an imbalance between the demands for talent by the economic system and the development of skills; (d) in urban areas, the reduction of the role of the family and elders as the main socialising agents of youth without adequate social control replacement by other institutions, resulting in the development of behaviour patterns amongst youth that diVer radically from family expectations; and (e) changes in values that reject the fatalistic acceptance of the relatively impoverished conditions under which people have traditionally lived. If one accepts this as a broad base of socio-economic conditions of development, from which a variety of social pressures may emerge, crime will be one of these. If some degree of contextual inXuence is to be argued for between crime and any or all of these ‘asymmetries’, then certain truisms about crime require seeking out as being evident in these contexts. For example, it remains largely uncontested that most crimes with which the police are concerned are committed by young males. If it can also be shown that a signiWcant number of these young male oVenders are underemployed, underskilled in a marketable sense, recently migrated to the place of oVending, and without strong family ties, then similar social displacements of development may provide a context for criminality. The correlation between the individual and community consequences of development for young males and the social characteristics of their criminality cannot be explained away by random coincidence (BCS&R, 1991). It may be going too far, in general, to hold that urban drift causes crime. But to say that the recent migration of young males into an environment of factors which might otherwise be supportive of criminal behaviour, and may encourage their criminal choices, is far less problematic. Therefore, in discussing the context of crime we are not promoting an exercise of crude social determinism. Rather, it is a recognition that crime occurs somewhere in society and the structural and functional features of that ‘somewhere’ may support, or even be essential for crime choices. Further, it suggests that as certain consequences of development regularly emerge in particular contexts, crime may be part of a range of consequences like urban drift. Once the place of crime within the context

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of development is recognised beyond oversimpliWed allegations of crime as disease, then the next step of asking what leads to what, and which relationship leads to a criminal choice or outcome is available for consideration. It is important also to remember that the demographics of development will form a potent and clear inXuence over crime choices. The populations of developing countries are often young and on the move. Recalling the earlier mentioned truism that perhaps the most uncontroversial social indicators of crime are age and gender, if the population mix of a culture contains a large and expanding proportion of young males then this may increase the potential for an expansion of crime choices and relationships which are traditionally criminalised. As a consequence of development, crime in the context of young males drifting into urbanisation is not surprising. Add to this the context of mobility and population drift, with its associated fracture of social ties, and the crime context becomes less problematic. The dynamic nature of crime relationships and choices complements the social proWle of ‘developing’ cultures in transition. The modernisation paradigm for development, which has been selectively and sometimes uncritically promoted in recent eras of development studies, relegates crime to the position of an unfortunate or negative consequence of development. However, if the modernisation process is not marked by equitable economic growth (and in some situations poverty and inequality may have increased selectively under this development paradigm), then the link between crime and development is more than coincidental. If there is some causal connection between forms of crime and poverty and inequality (see Braithwaite, 1991), then the criminogenic inXuence of social development resides in the political and economic motivations of modernisation, as well as its consequences for all sectors of the community (particularly those which are comparatively disadvantaged by development). It is not enough simply to isolate one consequence of development, such as poverty or unemployment, as the discreet cause of crime without conceding that the politics of development may produce as much crime as poverty and unemployment. The analysis of social development should be no more ‘border bound’ than social development itself. In fact those examinations of social development which remain within state or regional frameworks tend to ignore (or at least diminish) the transnational signiWcance of features and consequences of development such as crime and criminalisation (see Clegg and Whetton, 1993). In addition, as the economic and cultural boundaries of development seem very much negotiable where societies are undergoing rapid change, so too the transitional nature of crime and its economies is apparent (see chapter 5). A useful example of this is with trade in illicit or

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The globalisation of crime

criminalised drugs. Neither the market for drugs as a commodity nor the choice of drug traYc as a substitute economy are apparent in countries without much interest in things like cash cropping, disposable income, export trade and material wealth. If access to any or all of these through legitimate market play is conditional and conWned, the value of drug traYc to marginalised groups in societies is obvious (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993). In case this analysis of the relationship between crime and development is to be criticised as having little to say on crimes of violence, a further example might be useful. The causal connection between violence and alcohol abuse is undeniable. A common context for the violent drunk is sites where alcohol is consumed. Amongst those most likely to be the victims and the perpetrators of violence in such settings are young males (BCS&R, 1996). Interesting and associated statistics are those which indicate a correlation between alcohol abuse amongst the young and contexts of modernisation. Further, there seems to be another inXuential correlation between a growth in alcohol outlets and modernisation. The link between modernisation and violence arises in a range of other domestic and instrumental contexts to which we will return later. Global interest in crime and development Recent global discourse focusing upon crime problems, and in particular crime control, is expressed in terms of an internationalist agenda of inXuence and sponsorship (Findlay, 1995; see also chapter 7). Interestingly, there are signiWcant and intended similarities between this discourse and the language of socio-economic development espoused by international agencies. And these similarities provoke common paradoxes. For instance: (i) Free-market economics must prevail over centralised and protectionist market structures, except where the trade and traYc is deWned by the international community as ‘illegitimate’. (ii) Materialism and proWt motive are acceptable market forces, except where the enterprise is identiWed by the international community as illegitimate. (iii) Capital must Xow to the best sites of proWt, and such sites must be rewarded by unrestricted access to capital, except where the international community designates such sites as criminogenic. (iv) Capital must be both competitive and likely to promote competitiveness, except where such capital is identiWed by the international community as the proceeds of crime.

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(v) Transnational commercial priorities must predominate over local, cultural preferences, except where transnational commerce is determined by the international community to emerge from the deviant industry and enterprise of particular crime cultures. (vi) Deregulation is essential for development, except where the international community intends to stigmatise certain market choices as criminal. Therefore, globalised agendas of development are promoted through international political and market structures. The crime choices which emerge as a natural consequence of some development scenarios tend to be regulated through international control agendas which otherwise appear contrary to the international discourse on development (see Findlay, 1994). Regulation protects deregulation, monopolies are created to enhance the free market, and protectionist barriers encircle legitimate enterprise. As we will see later (chapters 5 and 6) this is mirrored by the inXuence crime control may have in the construction and maintenance of market barriers within which criminal enterprise may Xourish. Pragmatically, the utility of crime control for development is frequently determined within the local development context. The crime consequences of development are cauterised locally, or denied for the good health of the global body politic, as well as to conceal the negative social consequences of development. However, the limitations of any parochial understanding of social development and its connection with crime are not surpassed by a generalised, internationalist or idealised discourse on development or its characteristics. United Nations congresses and agencies, for example, have been criticised for: the onset of deep pessimism about the value of much theory and methodology used in these [international] institutions over the last three decades. On a theoretical level this appears to be partly due to a curiously belated recognition by the international criminology network that the modernisation paradigm is Xawed . . . The implications of this are that the underlying premises on replications of patterns of development and, hence, the transferability of theories of the causes of crime and solutions are inadequate. On the methodological level, the search for global patterns of crime and its correlation with indices of development has proved to be a miserable failure partly due to the inadequacies of the initial hypotheses rooted in modernisation theory, and partly due to the unreliability of oYcial data and the technical and Wnancial diYculties in processing it (Clegg and Whetton, 1993: 2–3).

In the study of crime prevention (see Joutsen, 1994) and victimisation (see Alvazzi del Frate et al., 1993) internationalism is accepted both at the level of research and policy. As with social development, crime has

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moulded the discourse of globalisation in social control directions. In terms of crime control policy, the global dimensions of criminal enterprise – illicit drug-traYcking, money-laundering, illegal weapons marketing, cross-border terrorism, international sex exploitation, and the abuse of labour – have placed crime within the arena of global politics and development conditions. The endeavours in the 1970s to explore connections between crime and development on a local or regional level only are distinctly out of step with contemporary development theory and crime control policy. Now, when searching for the interaction between crime and social development, trends in globalisation cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, global perspectives on crime and development are currently control-focused (see chapter 7). In particular, where the crimes of the developing world impact on the social cohesion of the developed world or its market structures, global control interest is keen. For instance, money is directed towards assisting the opium farmers of the ‘golden triangle’ (Thailand, Burma and Laos) to move into other more legitimate forms of cash cropping. Because they are of greater beneWt to the developing economy? Perhaps not. Because they are consistent with the law-enforcement priorities of the developed world? Most deWnitely. A new agenda of social control to foster development issues may be challenged by a dialectic analysisÕ of crime in a global perspective. ( What inXuence does global communication have on the representation

of crime, the generation of crime fear, and the establishing of crime control agendas? ( How does the development of multinational commerce and internationalised capital inXuence criminal enterprise? ( What eVect has the recent destruction of certain political blocks had over trends in crime and the development in criminal networks? ( How has the diVusion of materialist cultural inXuences and values transformed crime opportunities? While a global contextualisation of the relationship between crime and development can prepare the way for useful research into such questions, the reality of crime as a particular issue for people and places is the essential starting point from which all analysis must radiate. This is the Õ The model analytical structure would be essentially comparative and contextual. The global context would provide opportunities for comparative analysis within that context (e.g. globalisation as harmony and globalisation as paradox). Further, a comparison of the global as against the local would be ongoing. As for the dialectic, the analysis would grow out of an interactive approach to context and build on a critical structure of engagement.

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diYculty facing a balanced appreciation of crime as a comparative concept or a trend in development and crime as a local problem. Yet individual features of any context, global or local, are not unequivocal or even crucial analytical keys. Whereas global communication transmits a wider realisation of the common impact and inXuence of crime, it is not the most useful context from which to examine community crime fears or local crime priorities. Criminal enterprise works down to the ‘street’ level and while a global appreciation of organised crime, for instance, will say much about its commercial viability, there remains the need to control its manifestations within speciWc legal and cultural situations. The discussion of crime syndicates resulting out of the repositioning of political organisation might be convincing, but the tendency to universalise crime against general political and social movements may overlook the peculiar characteristics of crime within new market structures. To talk of ‘the Russian MaWa’, for example, is to conXate a particular local or transnational opportunity setting (transitional black markets) with a broad global crime mythology (the syndicated and ethnic crime family) in a manner which does not advance the understanding of criminal enterprise in such newly deregulated market economies (see Rosner, 1995). The cultural abstraction of the terminology itself speaks for its symbolic rather than representative value. Common social indicators of crime and development One of the dangers inherent in an analysis of crime which sees crime relationships and crime choices as a product of particular social inXuences, is to overassume the potential of causal theory. Transformed social, political or economic contexts do not necessarily generate or create crime. The way crime is perceived during such dynamic periods might suggest the opposite. Rather, the process of transformation may see new players enter the market, new proWt motivations arise, and new ways of representing relationships and phenomena emerge. Black markets and organised crime (in Russia, for example) were not caused by the collapse of the centralised economy, or by the inWltration of foreign crime syndicates. As the political, social and economic context of Russia is being transformed, the entrepreneurs responsible for both illegitimate and legitimate commerce have moved from and within government into the private sector. New proWt structures are possible and therefore foreign capital is attracted to legitimate and illegitimate commercial ventures. New law-enforcement priorities and attitudes to regulation mean that opportunities for crime have shifted, and the manner in

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which crime is represented by the state has changed (see Findlay, 1994). In this way innovations and developments in crime are as much a feature of social transition in Russia as are innovations and developments in most other commercial relationships. To appreciate more accurately the position of crime in contemporary Russia is not to search for causes in political change alone but to examine crime relationships and criminal enterprise as part of an emerging market context. An interactive analysis which engages the displacement of existing structures and relationships as well as the replacement of others (and the spirals of inXuence which result) is more productive than chasing simple causal links.ΠAgain, this is where the connection between crime and development holds out a potential to recognise common social indicators without an overreliance on unconvincing models of causation. For instance, development may lead to marginalisation, and contexts of marginalisation may stimulate and order preferences for crime choices. This is not to say that either development or marginalisation causes crime. Rather it is a recognition of the interaction of certain social inXuences on the way to making a crime choice. Any sophisticated analysis of such a transition will appreciate other commitment levels of social inXuence at work on crime choices which emphasise the complex and interactive causes of crime, cautioning against an overly simplistic or single-cause approach. Crime, modernisation and economic disparity An important given for crime causation, prevailing without much empirical justiWcation (see Braithwaite, 1979; also chapter 1), is the assumed connection between crime and poverty. Property crime rates are said to go up during periods of economic recession, and unemployment is said to have a direct inXuence on crime. After all, any socio-economic analysis of current Western prison populations reveals an overrepresentation of offenders with poor work histories and low levels of material attainment. Therefore, does this not signify that the poor and unemployed are more likely to make criminal choices than those with a secure work history? In keeping with our earlier approach to the interactive nature of social indicators of crime, this suggested correlation proves more complex to establish and maintain. In fact, Wgures fail to consistently support poverty as a cause of crime (see Braithwaite, 1981). The continued justiWcations for such a view work from the assumption that a rational choice model of crime anticiΠThe theoretical perspective of displacement and replacement is elaborated in chapter 7.

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pates crime choices in response to the social determinants of poverty and unemployment. For example, in those economic models of social development which see unemployment and consequent poverty as a factor of the marketability of labour, the choice to participate in crime as work is pre-determined by the same social conditions as other choices of occupation. If opportunities for legitimate employment are denied, then the unemployed will steal to feed their families in the same way they might previously have used their wages from labour, or so the story goes. However, it would appear that individual responses to economic recession and unemployment are either not so rational or not simply materially driven. The unemployed and the poor are more likely to turn to theft in order to satisfy the frustrations of material disparity than to feed hungry mouths when wage labour is withdrawn (see Braithwaite, 1979). In addition, the reality that certain criminal justice processes seem more directed against certain types of crime – and consequently, certain classes of oVender – remains ignored in this argument. For example, if police resources are inordinately directed against public order situations and minor property oVences, then the control net is more likely to draw in certain classes of oVender. The assumptions about the crime/poverty nexus are concentrated inordinately on property crime. Accordingly, the poor commit theft because they have to, they are compelled to, they want to, or they are too morally weak not to. Interestingly, there may be a stronger case for such a correlation if poverty and domestic violence are causally tested. It would seem that violence rather than theft is signiWcantly linked to socio-economic disadvantage (see BCS&R, 1991). This overemphasis on property crime as the most signiWcant problem for crime control in developing countries exaggerates the anticipated signiWcance of poverty as a cause of crime. In addition, it fails to recognise the relative insigniWcance of private property in pre-developed states,œ as compared with the signiWcance accorded private property relationships in the crime discourse of modernisation. Comparative to this was the case with policing priorities in the early industrial revolution of Europe and America, when measured against the selective nature of private property interests, and their advancement in the politics of industrialisation (see Reiner, 1985). Braithwaite (1979) reWned the crime/poverty nexus to a discussion of property oVending and economic disparity. His research revealed a signiWcant causal relationship, for example, between theft and situations œ This is borne out by the comparative international victim data which place crimes against the person and crimes by the state in a position of prominence for the respondents from developing countries and cities, when contrasted with the modernised respondents (see Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate, 1995).

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where wealth is obviously unevenly distributed. This complements a more sophisticated theory of crime causation which emphasises the foreclosure of opportunity, rather than greed and need, or the moral depravity of the ‘dangerous classes’. It also explains why the vast majority of the poor do not get involved in theft, and why certain forms of property crime in certain situations of development are not intra-class phenomena (see UNDP/ILO, 1993). Social development in many of its ‘materialist’ paradigms was expected to reduce poverty in the long term (and was often sold as such by international Wnancial agencies). If social planners continue to accept that there is a direct connection between crime and poverty, and at the same time accept a poverty-reduction expectation for development, then at that causal level crime control (and reduced crime rates) might be claimed as another consequence of social development. The reality is not quite so simple. Crime and urban drift One of the most obvious features of social development through modernisation has been the establishment and growth of the city, replacing rural life. Urban environments provide one of the clearest contexts within which the connections between crime and youth, crime and gender, and crime and economic disparity might be explored. As both crime and urbanisation are dynamic social phenomena, their relationship has been widely discussed in terms of ‘drift’ (Matza, 1964; Downes, 1989). Fluid commitments to crime are often demonstrated in similar ways to the choices made by young unemployed males to move to the city. It should be remembered that despite the ambivalent context of drift we are not describing what Morrison (1995) refers to as routinisation.– Within drift, there is a consideration by the individual of his actions. Such consideration is Xuid, qualiWed, and on occasions neutralised, by the pressures of constrained opportunity and routine closure. Drift has parameters and those who drift are not borderless or robotic. Choice over actions remains, however, disjunctive. The urban drift in developing societies largely features young males. As crime is similarly the province of young males, the link here is not surprising. However, it is not so much the process of drift, but its subsequent social dislocation, which is the important contextual consequence of drift for crime. For newly independent states in particular, the gradual dismantling of – ‘Routinisation destroys the processes which diVerentiate the strange from the normal thus preventing the individuals involved from confronting the true meaning of the events’ (Morrison, 1995: 208).

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colonial laws restricting movement and access to towns, or the lifting of residency and occupation constraints (for example, those restrictions enforced in the closed, centralised economies of Eastern Europe), have stimulated population mobility in developing countries. Add to this the shift in rural populations, due to famine, war and ‘ethnic cleansing’, and urban drift has rapidly developed as one of the great migratory characteristics of modern social development. By contrast, a Xight from the city has become a migratory pattern of developed countries. Decentralisation policies and inner-city decay leave the city as little more than a business precinct, denuded of residents. The depopulation of the cities takes the form of a daily migration, where nightfall sees the routine shift of workers out into the suburbs. The fear of crime, now one essence of modern city life, is an important stimulus for the exodus. Furthermore, it alters the image of the city in terms of crime danger and vulnerability. Urbanisation trends in developing countries tend to reXect the popular perceptions of the relatively limited developmental opportunities in rural areas. City populations explode as a result, and the limited services within these centres in turn rapidly negate those opportunities which may have once existed. In addition, the newly arrived resident is disconnected from familiar rural life supports and is unfamiliar with the formal, institutional welfare alternatives which the city aVords, limited as these might be. To the diYcult socio-cultural adaptations required of young rural migrants is added the economic reality of restricted employment opportunities, shortages of accommodation and the relatively high cost of urban living. Further, the immigrant worker often does not bring with him those skills and training essential for wage labour in an emerging city. Is it surprising in such a context that crime becomes ‘work’? In the squatter settlements which are an invariable feature of developing cities, the following contextual features are apparent, and conducive to crime: ( ( ( ( (

Legitimate— employment opportunities are scarce. Living costs are relatively high. The settlements are overpopulated with young males. Alcoholism and drug abuse are common. The features of community obligation prevail from rural cultures, but divorced from their ‘communitarian’ context they act as further pressures towards sub-cultural development and dislocation.…» ( Youth gangs are common. — The measuring stick for legitimacy here is wage labour within state-condoned commercial environments. …» This is an interesting example of how a particular sense of community obligation will produce distinctly diVerent social structures and consequences depending on the context in which it operates.

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( Relationships between the formal criminal justice agencies and the

settlements are hostile. ( Certain forms of crime are tolerated or condoned in settlement culture

(see Findlay and Zvekic, 1994). Urban drift might best be seen in certain developing contexts as a progress of frustration and eventual violent dislocation from one context of blocked opportunity to another of diminished or distorted opportunity. These are clearly criminogenic conditions. Crime and urbanisation Local and comparative victimisation surveys have recently shown signiWcant correlations between urbanisation and crime (see Walker, 1993). It is more likely that one will become a victim of crime in cities than in rural settlements. The rate of reported crime also tends to rise along with increases in rates of urbanisation. Walker also examines the opportunities for crime which are oVered in an urbanised environment. Many such opportunities are particularly attractive to groups in society which might be overrepresented in crime populations or criminogenic proWles: ( There has been a switch from public to independent modes of trans-

port, with the private motor vehicle becoming the connection to employment, and a requirement for freedom and mobility from suburban isolation. Both the cost of cars, and the fact that they are often left in public places for predictable periods of time, create an opportunity for car theft or vandalism, an opportunity taken by young unemployed males who look on the car as a symbol of status and freedom. ( The development of two-income households increases private material wealth. Further, the location of a large amount of that wealth is left unattended for routine periods of time. In addition, children of the household may be left unattended throughout certain periods of the day, when minor property crimes and street oVences are likely. ( The breakdown of the extended family (as the city becomes the focus for those who are employed) means that many traditional networks of socialisation are broken down. ( The physical separation between locations of residence, employment and recreation mean that large parts of the city are left vacant and unattended during routine periods of the day or night. This provides further opportunities for theft and vandalism, as well as locations for violence, as people move from one location to the other.

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( A system of uniform and guaranteed salary scales renders it more

( ( ( (

(

diYcult for young people to acquire gainful employment, and thereby the assumption of adult responsibilities such as home-ownership, family creation and material security is delayed. Young people may turn to drug abuse, theft or violence in order to give vent to the frustrations which they face. The increased use of ‘self-serve’ retailing provides obvious temptations for theft. The reduced staYng of services and utilities, particularly at night, makes them more vulnerable locations for crime. The increased availability of alcohol at all hours and in varied locations. The development of ‘user-pays’ public facilities alienates a greater number of young people from what were previously considered universal opportunities for education and recreation. There is a reduced tendency for individuals to become responsible for, and involved in, a range of crime prevention activities where their property is otherwise ‘protected’, together with the promotion of insurance facilities to restore property and make good losses occasioned through crime.

Crime is linked to patterns of social disjuncture such as unemployment, family breakdown and drug abuse. The suggested direct and simple correlation between crime and urbanisation conceals evidence for the argument earlier expressed in this section. It is not so much that urbanisation causes crime. Rather, the social disorganisation and dislocation which is generated by particular situations of urbanisation is a social context which is criminogenic. Wirth’s diagrammatic representation of urbanisation (see Berry, 1973: 16) clearly suggests how structural (social) and individual (personal) imperatives generate the context (social and individual) for deviance. Heterogeneity, selection, diVerentiation, mobility, integration, and alienation are phases of urban development (within the wider context of social development) which correlate with essential issues for crime choice (see Wgure 1). It is not simply urbanisation but the rapidity of social change which inXuences criminality. Crime is related to the complexity of developments associated with the world-wide process of industrialisation and consequent urbanisation. SigniWcant population growth and the many powerful social pressures which arise through modernisation lead to the oscillating nature of rural to urban migration. Developing countries are much more likely to experience rapid and unmanaged urbanisation and its attendant social disorganisation. Developed societies in turn face the

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Figure 1

The process of urbanisation.

criminogenic environments of cities in decay and the unravelling of urbanisation. Either way, the urbanisation/crime link is apparent, and as such the deleterious consequences of urbanisation should be matters for crime control as well as broad social policy. The diVerences between urbanisation in developed and developing countries are not just those of rates of change. Associated economic growth patterns, infrastructure development, ‘over-urbanisation’, overcentralisation, and adjacent locations of wealth and poverty each tend to exaggerate the criminogenic context of urbanisation in developing countries. The over-concentration of crime and victimisation in urban areas is also dependent on the nature of migration which feeds the growth of cities. If the urban drift consists mainly of young single males coming to an urban life of high unemployment and limited diVerential material opportunity, the criminogenic context is not any city, but rather urban development itself, which fosters speciWc criminogenic social connections such as youth gangs and secret societies which in turn may facilitate crime choice (see Clinard and Abbott, 1973). One of the perceived attractions of an urban environment is access to commercial opportunity. The trade and commerce of the city is another force for diVerentiation through divisions of capital and labour. The

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restriction of opportunity to access these can distort the material expectations of crime choices. So along with economic disparity and poverty, another level of social indication towards crime is urbanisation and urban drift. The place where these themes intersect is more likely to be a site of crime choice. The motivation behind such choice is all too often the same as that which determines commercial decisions in a development setting, legitimate or otherwise. Crime and commerce How is the legitimacy of commercial enterprise determined and ensured? Smith (1980) in his critical evaluation of ‘business’ crime suggests that the line between legitimate and illegitimate commerce is deliberately indistinct and transient. He identiWes several Xawed assumptions that maintain artiWcial distinctions between business and crime: ( that business and crime are distinct categories; ( that business is best described by the labels of legal undertakings; ( that within an industrial classiWcation the principal distinctions are size

and ownership; ( that business equals professionally managed corporations; ( that the corporate model can be projected on to organised crime.

In order to avoid false dichotomies between business and crime, which in turn feed into the mythologies surrounding organised crime (see Findlay, 1993), an ‘enterprise model’ is helpful for analysing crime relationships directed towards commercial objectives (see BurchWeld, 1978). The enterprise model builds on three basic assumptions: (a) that enterprise takes place across a spectrum which includes both business and certain types of crime; (b) that behavioural theory regarding organisations in general, and business in particular, can be applied to the entire spectrum; and (c) that while theories about conspiracy and ethnicity have some pertinence for organised crime, they are clearly subordinate to a theory of enterprise. By applying this enterprise spectrum one can appreciate, as with Matza’s (1964) discussion of delinquency and drift, how business activity can straddle legitimate and illegitimate commerce. Enterprise perspectives on crime not only provide a more realistic understanding of corporate and organised crime (and their connections), but they also enable a uniquely commercial analysis of crime economies.

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The suggestion here is not that commerce is necessarily criminogenic. Particularly in economic systems where the principal motivation is proWt, criminal enterprise may arise as a proWtable commercial choice as readily as may legitimate commercial practice. Where choice is constrained by proWt as the overriding consideration, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate commerce may become more diYcult to maintain. This is of vital signiWcance for cultures where, due to the strains of development, two levels of market structure, capital Xow, and government regulation seem to operate concurrently – one open and apparent, the other ‘black’. It is not only black-market commerce which is an obvious feature of selective social development. The intersection between legitimate capital and commerce and criminal enterprise becomes more frequent, proliWc and acceptable. Crime syndicates and marketing criminal enterprise Development through modernisation is ‘market-driven’ according to certain forms of development theory. Crime as a commercial enterprise may beneWt from the same market potentials as other forms of commerce in developing economies. If one such potential is syndication, then particularly those forms of criminal enterprise such as drug-traYcking, which service a market of absolute demand in a context of high proWt/high risk, may beneWt through syndication via stages or networks of associated criminal enterprise. As is the case with multinational commercial empires, proWtable ideas for crime can be syndicated. And as multinational commerce colonises developing economies, so too will lucrative crime ventures permeate these economies. Recently, this has become apparent in developing social contexts such as the transitional economies of Eastern Europe, where enterprise has moved from structures of centralisation and relative isolation to situations of competition where regulation is weak and capital scarce. Here certain criminal enterprises which rely on cross-border trade have been syndicated from capital-rich criminal organisations in Western Europe, or the techniques of criminality have been syndicated and adapted to the less rigid market structures. The representations of this crime ‘colonisation’ are also syndicated through the multinational media (see Freedom Forum, 1994). In addition, any consideration of syndicated crime should not ignore the transference of crime schemes and crime ‘ideas’. Many of the fraud and corruption scams which travel the world rely for their marketability on the fact that they have been previously successful in particular market contexts (see case-studies to follow, pp. 81–89).

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Some forms of criminal enterprise, because of the capital base on which they draw, and the trade and market patterns on which they rely, will be more susceptible to syndication. The traYcking of narcotics is an example of this. In addition, there is a tendency for the trade in drugs to globalise, and at the same time monopolise, under the regulation of corruption and violence. Those in control of the trade take on the same protectionist role as the marketers of lucrative trademarks or franchises in legitimate commerce. In this respect the proWtability of syndication, legitimate or criminal, relies on protectionist market regulation and the opportunity for monopolised market structures. While the mythologies surrounding organised crime almost suggest that all organised criminal enterprise is syndicated, such a view should be cautiously exploited. Simply because certain crimes appear in a variety of diVerent social settings does not suYciently evidence crime syndication. What distinguishes a crime syndicate from other forms of criminal enterprise is the network of interconnected stages towards the fulWlment of the enterprise. There must be more than the common opportunity for crime choices. These choices must arise through some connected commercial network or hierarchy for syndication to be present. In addition, when considering the development context of criminal enterprise, relationships of corruption formed to achieve the goals of modernisation provide an interesting focus for analysing the criminogenic consequences of development. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to exploring such relationships within transitional cultures. In this regard, the interface between the customary and the introduced, the local and the global, is crucial for an understanding of the presence of crime within modernising cultures – cultures misshapen through the interests, priorities and paradox of globalisation. Case-studies of crime and development in cultures in transition: corruption and criminal enterprise in two small PaciWc island states Both the particular contexts of socio-economic development, and the unique post-colonial/post-independence agendas of small states in the PaciWc, present predictable invitations for the creation of corruption relationships. The two case-studies which follow provide scenarios common to this region wherein customary structures of power and inXuence converge on modern commercial institutions and instruments to produce corrupt consequences. However, the contextual analysis of these as corruption, from a developed or global perspective, is neither straightforward nor uncontested. And the challenge inherent in their regulation is problematic. The integration of such relationships within deeply rooted

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and accepted customary authority structures qualiWes their description as corrupt, and tends towards a process of re-interpretation and denial which prevents the eVective intervention of regulation and control processes. The integration of these relationships within otherwise legitimate structures of economic development and promotion makes their perpetuation likely, and even their exposure largely inconsequential in conventional control or sanctioning terms. Important for the consideration of corruption relationships as opportunities for criminal enterprise and crime choice (see chapter 6) are those issues which tend to confuse corruption and compromise control. The connections between corruption and the early stages of economic development are well known. Not so often considered is the impact which traditional structures of social control may have on newly emerging commercial contexts, corrupt or otherwise, for cultures in transition. Political imperatives which generate and rely on what in other contexts would be determined as corruption relationships underlie these casestudy situations. Characteristics of customary obligation are seen to counter and confuse claims of corruption. The processes through which such claims are made themselves reveal interesting conXicts between custom and constitutional legality. Even the conventional economic regulators such as bank boards and law-enforcement institutions, including the police and commercial crime investigators, are involved in the perpetuation of these connections. These contradictory relationships, at least in conventional commercial and political contexts, are analysed in the following case-studies. The globalisation both of economic development paradigms and associated corruption scenarios is indicated, in these case-study contexts, as having a potentially signiWcant impact on corruption in small states. The contextual understanding of corruption in these states therefore should not remain bound to custom or local politics. As international Wnance impinges on the economic strategies and commitments of small states, international discourse on corruption and regulation agendas can inXuence the way small states re-deWne traditional relationships and obligations. In small PaciWc states there seem to be common imperatives behind contexts of development and relationships of crime. Often similar forms of relationships also exist as strong structural features of customary social organisation and obligation. For instance, the ‘big man’ in Melanesian village governance is the principal power player in provincial or national politics and a beneWciary of the corrupt rewards of economic development (see Dinnen, 1993a). The complex and concrete loyalties of chieXy politics in Polynesian society are consistent from the village council to the

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national parliament and the corporate boardroom. As such they conceal corruption in government commerce, countering such labels and arguments for its control. Global juxtapositions of corruption as ‘bad’ and development as ‘good’ fail to appreciate or reconcile their commonality in particular cultural contexts such as those which prevail in the politics of small PaciWc states. International interests in selective socio-economic development often share a similar terrain with the selective criminalisation of corruption in development. The contexts of cultures in developmental transition are contexts of marginalisation and crime as well as modernisation and wealth creation. Why then, from a global perspective, are the problems of development and crime represented by control agencies at least in a paradoxical discourse? In small PaciWc states, the contextual interaction and interdependence between customary social structures and modes of development, development and corruption, and corruption and customary social structures, are issues which are strangely absent from both criminology and development studies. In addition, the resilience of both local and globalised misrepresentations of the consequences of development in terms of custom and corruption merit explanation. Looking at both economic development and corruption as being integral to markets and enterprise where customary structures prevail is a useful predicate to further analysis of corruption in small states (see chapter 5). The principal motivation for commercial enterprise, legitimate or otherwise, is proWt. ProWt through enterprise is realised under speciWc market conditions. A market is a framework of commercial relationships, and corruption can form just one such relationship.…… Globalised eVorts at controlling corruption and criminal enterprise generally fail to recognise their consequent eVect on market regulation, and speciWcally on opportunities for the development of further criminal enterprise. Controlling criminal enterprise involves the eVective closure of proWt opportunities for some, while supply and demand environments in particular may mean an expansion and diversiWcation of market share for others. For instance, police activity against street prostitution may make the more unobtrusive environment of the brothel more attractive to the client and to law-enforcement policy-makers. Market regulation may create new opportunities for proWtable enterprise. The regulation of any enterprise (and the control of crime in particular) through adjusting market conditions can generate new crimi…… For a development of the issues raised here, in the context of crime economies, see chapter 5.

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nal opportunities. The potency of the corruption relationships which arise to grease these opportunities may alter the market situation of the criminal enterprise wherein the law enforcers themselves may move as commercial players. While crime control may act as a market regulator for corrupt relationships, its eVectiveness and that of any market regulator will depend on the overall structure of the market. In small PaciWc states no market structure can operate without the inXuence (and recognition of the inXuence) of customary obligation. Structures of such obligation determine market parameters and the boundaries of proWtability, legitimate or otherwise. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the nature of most commercial enterprise within the PaciWc, and the form of its regulation, will be essentially pre-determined by structures of customary obligation. If commercial relationships become corrupt within enterprise, then these relationships will also evidence the inXuence of custom. Corruption as a commercial phenomenon goes beyond markets which centre on crime. Wherever proWt opportunities exist under regulated conditions which favour restricted access to proWt opportunities, and where the accountability of regulators is limited or highly conditional, then criminal enterprise (because of its structure) will have a competitive edge over legitimate business. This is because criminal enterprise is also not bound by the legitimate regulations of the market. Further, the market/opportunity context in small PaciWc states will be a ‘custom’-centred…  context, despite the reWnement of the politics of development and modernisation. As both government and private sector enterprise in small PaciWc states recognise structures and personalities of customary obligation, and where status and proWtability within enterprise relies on custom, then corruption may be supported by or provide a support to custom. Naturally this produces a commercial ‘edge’. Structures of customary obligation, in turn, will insulate the commercial enterprise and its participants from the slur of corruption or attempts at its control. Corruption is a relationship of power and inXuence existing within, and taking its form from, speciWc environments of opportunity. In small PaciWc states, opportunity in so many situations is pre-determined by custom status and obligation. Opportunity is further designated by the aspirations for power relationships and the structures and processes at work towards their regulation. Opportunities for corruption, and market opportunities advanced through corrupt relationships, are essentially dependent on the market …  For a discussion of ‘custom’ in a PaciWc context, see Findlay (1997).

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context of illicit enterprise. Police corruption, for instance, usually takes the form of bribing individual oYcers with money or favours in order that their enforcement activities might favour a particular criminal enterprise. Because the exercise of police discretion is often on a ‘one-to-one’ level, away from public view, the beneWts resulting from the bribery of individual oYcers may be considerable. Such contexts are deWned by frameworks of regulation, and corruption control mechanisms are important within these (Findlay, 1993). Commercial enterprise in small developing states often forges, and relies on, corrupt relationships within the mechanisms which regulate the market. These mechanisms include government and the agencies of criminal justice. In order to attack this connection between commercial enterprise and corruption it is essential to engage and change the dimensions of the market so that a corrupt relationship is no longer a proWtable commercial choice. ProWt structures need to be undermined, and in order to achieve this the nature and form of market regulation must move away from monopolistic supply and inelastic demand situations. In the case-studies which follow, the complexity of this appeal becomes apparent. As the characteristics of certain markets are shaped by both traditional and newly emergent commercial custom, regulation and control strategies built on respect for custom Wnd it diYcult (if not impossible) to protect the requirements of legitimate commerce against corruption fostered and redeWned through custom. Case 1: The failure of the National Bank of Fiji (NBF) – re-interpreting corruption In July 1995 The Review, the principal business magazine in the Republic of Fiji, ran a series of feature articles under the title ‘The Chaos at the NBF’. This was the Wrst major expose´ of what many in the commercial community in Fiji had suspected for months, if not years: that due to incompetence and shady dealing the government-owned bank was insolvent. Quoted in one article, a recent World Bank review of the state of the NBF referred to its completely inadequate management information systems: ‘it would be like driving at high speed on a highway in a car without a dashboard and a steering wheel’. The bank had no real idea of the state of loan provisioning, bad debts and cash Xow. With a paid-up capital of $15 million (Fijian) and $450 million in deposits, the bank had $300 million out in loans, of which up to $120 million had been assessed as non-recoverable. In particular, $40 million in loans had been granted to bank employees or were extended to companies in which employees had an interest. For instance, a loan out of the Rotuma…À branch of the

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bank (which had around $5 million in loan accounts outstanding and only a little over $150,000 invested in savings) for around $2 million was held by a company in which the chief executive oYcer of the NBF was a director. It would not be fair to say that all these staV loans were corrupt. However, ample evidence of the disadvantageous terms of these loans from the bank’s perspective brought into question the motivations of branch managers and loans oYcers.…Ã Their incompetence in the exercise of considerable discretion seemed to be beyond what might be explained away in terms of loose bank practice. The repayment of loans from overdrawn current accounts, the absence of requirements that loans be insured, or the issuance of further loans to cover these premiums, were the types of practices which led the bank in October 1995 to create a new code on self-dealing. It also meant that staV were sacked, demoted or repositioned as part of the bank’s restructuring. The Wnancial chaos at the bank has also been put down to undue political interference. Such an allegation is not surprising when one considers the circumstances surrounding the appointment of the recently removed and prosecuted Chief Manager of the NBF. During his 1987 military coup the Prime Minister of Fiji, Major-General Rabuka, appointed a branch manager of the bank to head the NBF. Apparently, on 2 December 1987 the coup leader’s appointee entered NBF headquarters with a group of soldiers to announce that he had been installed as the Chief Manager. The expatriate incumbent was turned out. The new appointment was one of which even the then Minister for Finance had no knowledge. The Review (July 1995: 21) quoted NBF ‘insiders’ as agreeing that the crisis was partly due to a ‘higher level of political consideration in lending’. While no clear evidence has emerged that there was direct political pressure to approve loans, ‘sometimes you got the message’, admitted the former deputy manager of the NBF. When asked about nepotism and political interference in the bank’s dealings, a previous chairman of the NBF board stated: ‘there are always these factors coming into any decision situations and you play it as you see it at the time’ (ibid.: 28). A further complication when considering the relationship between politics and the NBF is the corporate aim for the NBF to advance the …À Rotuma is an island province in the north of the Fiji island group with a distinctly separate racial population. …Ã For instance, a staV member was given a loan that required monthly repayments of $692. His monthly salary with the bank was $700. When he could not meet his repayments a loan review was carried out. The outcome was his consideration for a pay rise (see The Review, July 1995: 22).

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national interest which surfaced after the coup. Of this the present Finance Minister has said: ‘Government cannot expect the NBF to be viable by asking it to pursue national objectives. I do not know who actually deWned the NBF’s goal as to act in the national interest. DeWnitely we do not want this to mean losing money’ (ibid.: 22). The present chairman of the bank board, however, agrees that one of the bank’s functions is to pursue the national interest. When asked to what extent, he conceded ‘it depends on how one deWnes national interest’ (ibid.: 32). This issue of national interest clearly seems to have taken on a partial interpretation since the coups. Following the military takeover the Chief Manager developed bank lending and investment policy and practice to favour indigenous Fijians and Rotumans. The NBF acted more like a development bank for many Fijian enterprises, and continued to prop them up as their commercial fortunes faltered. A signiWcant number of these were connected to prominent Fijian politicians, past and present, and leading chiefs. When it came to the review and pursuit of defaulted loans the response of the bank and the government continued to discriminate. Firms with indigenous Fijian interests at their heart have largely been spared, while a signiWcant Indo-Fijian enterprise was recently handed over to the receivers. In the case of prominent individual defaulters, the normal civil claims have largely been ignored. When pressed, the Minister for Finance revealed that the NBF debacle ‘could even lead to some people being declared bankrupt’ (ibid.: 23). Regarding the national interests of taxpayers (who after all are the real shareholders in a state bank), these are compromised on two fronts. Initially the public and investors have seen bank proWts squandered through the NBF subsidising (with taxpayers’ funds) the operations of some borrowers which should have folded. Furthermore, the government may now be called to invest over $100 million dollars as part of a rescue package for the bank over the next two years. The money is to be found through skimming oV funds from otherwise proWtable government enterprises or through their sale. The regulation scenario is another tale of political interference and prevarication. Conventional market regulators such as the AuditorGeneral, the bank board, and the Reserve Bank of Fiji have each been criticised for being tardy in their oversight and failing to intervene early enough. The government has resisted repeated calls for a public inquiry into the NBF despite a recent opinion poll which revealed that over two-thirds of respondents favoured this outcome. The police have investigated but their report appears to have stalled at the oYce of the Director of Public Prosecutions. One year after the commencement of their

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investigation the police commissioner felt constrained to hold a press conference and, against the background of concern over the cost of the investigation, to indicate that charges against the Chief Manager had to await the processing of convictions of other employees. The recent demise of a serious fraud bill has been linked to the interests of those in parliament with an interest in the NBF. The Reserve Bank is investigating, but the Minister for Finance has said that its report will not be made public. One year after the original Review expose´ the Fiji Times newspaper published what it claimed was a full list of loan accounts in default with the bank. Amongst the names were the President and other past presidents of Fiji, and many prominent members of the SVT, the ruling political party. In the letters to the editor which followed, some correspondents decried the disgrace that these people who had given so much to their country should be exposed to such public scrutiny. The inference was that this slice of the national pie was small and legitimate recompense for high public oYce. Below the list in the Fiji Times was a court report concerning an NBF employee who was being prosecuted for fraud in the form of dealings which in many other contexts had either been ignored or justiWed in terms of the bank’s ‘national interest’ practice. The government negotiated redundancies with NBF staV in order to save the bank, and its branches are regularly closed due to national industrial action. The Director of Public Prosecutions in Fiji openly admits that successful prosecutions of those in high places who have beneWted from the virtual collapse of the bank will be a long time coming. Despite selective civil proceedings, some prosecutions of minor staV, and a clutch of inquiries, the most powerful Wgures in Fijian custom society retain their beneWts from the bank’s collapse and have not been called to account. The case-study which follows is not so much a situation where an intricate network of custom status and obligation can pervert globalised Wnancial conventions and distort the interpretation of corrupt behaviour within a transitional customary context. It deals with the perversion of globalised Wnancial pathways and the corruption of modernised commercial opportunity while relying on custom immunity to resist the accountability of credible government. While both examples expose the negotiable nature of criminality from within localised custom and globalised Wnancial contexts, what follows adds the dimension of democratic governance under strain to the concern for international Wnancial best practice being undermined.

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Case 2: Bank guarantees from the Republic of Vanuatu – disclosing and decoding corruption Early in July 1996 the Ombudsman of Vanuatu published a report in which she described a ‘scam’ that the report alleged ‘could lead to the bankruptcy of the Republic of Vanuatu’.…Õ The Ombudsman had been investigating this matter for several months prior to the publication of her report and despite the preliminary nature of her Wndings, the absence of conWrmation for many of the crucial facts on which her conclusions relied, and the existence of contemporaneous and ongoing criminal proceedings against a principal player in the scam, she felt compelled ‘to try and cut through the complexities of international Wnance and leave the maze of legal technicalities to be unravelled by the appropriate authorities’ (Ombudsman of Vanuatu, 1996: 1). It is useful to understand the relationship between the Ombudsman and the politically powerful in Vanuatu. Over the two years of her oYce prior to this investigation the Ombudsman publicly criticised prime ministers and ministers, and was taken to court on a number of occasions in eVorts to contain her public reporting function. In her words, ‘since the appointment of the Ombudsman it has become increasingly obvious that many – indeed most – of our oYcials and oYce-holders have very little idea of two things: Wrstly the realistic demands of the job they have been allocated, and secondly, the moral and ethical standards by which the public is entitled to be served’ (ibid.: 2). More than this she alleges that her oYce and investigations are dogged by ‘many obstructions’ and ‘hostility’. Regularly ‘promises of co-operation are made, only to be followed by unwillingness to be open with the truth’ (ibid.). However, with almost religious zeal, the Ombudsman in Vanuatu has interpreted her responsibilities as being to protect the people from their governments. But such protection is deemed to implicate the people in the vigilance essential for their own protection. If the people of Vanuatu really wish the oYce of the Ombudsman to be an eVective one, they themselves will need to ascertain where truth and justice are being served, and to be vigilant in ensuring that oVenders are eVectively dealt with. It is easy to become bored by oYcial reports and legal technicalities, but the prosperity and future of the country depends in the long run on the quality of leadership which the people select (ibid:3). …Õ Republic of Vanuatu OYce of the Ombudsman, Public Report: The Provision of Bank Guarantees Given in the Sum of US$100,000,000 in Breach of the Leadership Code and Section 14 of the Ombudsman Act and Related Matters Thereto, on the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of the Republic of Vanuatu and the First Secretary to the Minister of Finance (1996: 3).

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Almost as if anticipating the criticism which was to be levelled against her by those named in her report, the Ombudsman continued: It is commonplace for the Ombudsman to get accused of personal bias, or political partisanship, or Colonialist mentality etc. when conducting investigations. The public should have no diYculty in knowing why these personal charges are made by those being investigated (ibid.: 3).

The relevant investigation centred on a fraudulent Wnancial scheme which was disturbingly similar to that which recently bankrupted the Cook Islands. Simply, it involved the issuing of bank guarantees by government oYcials which were then to be transacted by a Wnancial adviser through secondary markets with major world banks. It was alleged by the promoters of the scheme that vast proWts would be realised with little or no Wnancial risk. Of this inducement the Report observed: It appears that the country’s leaders were duped into believing that a visiting group of so-called ‘promoters’ or ‘investment managers’ were able to secure vast proWts for Vanuatu . . . for whatever reasons – whether ignorance or greed or both – our leaders at the highest level went along with this incredible plot – even to the extent of issuing some of these foreign adventurers with Vanuatu Diplomatic Passports, in order to make their dubious transactions more credible. As a result, there are at this very moment oYcial Vanuatu ‘IOUs’ circulating in unknown hands among the international community, amounting to more than twice the total foreign reserves of the Vanuatu people (ibid.: 1).

The Ombudsman ranged her criticism of the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu from ‘pitiful ignorance’ to ‘criminal neglect’. On the strength of the Report there seems little doubt that the four oYcials who signed and issued the bank guarantees were acting beyond their authority and even against the law. The guarantee transaction had been examined by the Attorney-General and the Governor of the Reserve Bank. The Attorney-General advised that it was illegal. The Governor of the Reserve Bank took the view that the ‘trading programme’ in respect of which the bank guarantees had been issued was a scam and could lead to the bankruptcy of the Republic of Vanuatu. This did not, however, stop the Governor from co-signing the guarantees. The Wnancier who promoted the scheme, a discharged bankrupt with questionable Wnancial credentials in Australia, initially convinced the Minister of Finance of the scheme’s viability. As a result, the Minister had the guarantees drafted and directed them to be signed by the Prime Minister, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, and the First Secretary of his Ministry. During the initial period of the transactions, the Minister became a co-director of a company, ‘New Resources Group Vanuatu Ltd’, through which the guarantees would pass during one stage of their transaction,

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and proWts were to result and be paid to the company. Another director was the Australian Wnancier (the scheme’s promoter). Shareholders were designated as the national government and a provincial government of Vanuatu, and two shelf trust companies (registered with false addresses). The Minister also issued to the promoter a power of attorney to transact for the government.…Œ During the Ombudsman’s inquiry, some conXict of recall emerged between the Prime Minister and the Governor of the Reserve Bank regarding their authorisation of the bank guarantees. The Prime Minister indicated to the Ombudsman that when the bank guarantees were presented to him by the Finance Minister for his signature he refused until the Governor of the Reserve Bank had signed and thus indicated his approval. Once this was done the Prime Minister signed. The Governor of the Reserve Bank contradicted this view, saying that his signature only came after the others had signed. Of this the Ombudsman has commented: [The signatories] must all be taken as having been purposeful in the actions by them given that the documents involve the largest sum of money ever committed by Vanuatu. Not one of them can deny liability by saying that they signed because the others did and thus assumed that the proper procedures had been gone through. To do so would be an abrogation of responsibility and of their high oYce (ibid.: 19).

As part of its furtherance and authorisation, neither the Minister for Finance nor the Prime Minister presented information on the scheme to their Council of Ministers, nor to parliament as a whole, which both law and convention require.…œ The Prime Minister later argued that parliament is often asked to retrospectively approve and authorise loan arrangements or other Wnancial dealings and that this would be just such an instance. The Ombudsman did not agree that this was a common practice amongst other Commonwealth countries, and reiterated that the legislation of Vanuatu does not permit such retrospective authorisation. Besides the criticisms about breaches of the Leadership Code and the laws of Vanuatu, the Ombudsman suggested that the actions of these top oYcials had brought Vanuatu’s international Wnancial standing into dis…Œ The Ombudsman sought from the Minister information on this power of attorney and he refused to answer her questions or to answer a summons to appear and respond. …œ For instance, section 13 of the Public Finance Act requires that such guarantees be authorised by Parliament. In addition, the Ombudsman reports that terms of the Reserve Bank Act and the Economic and Social Development Act were breached. There was no consideration or authorisation by the Board of the Reserve Bank for the bank to jointly issue the guarantees. The Attorney-General advised that the guarantees were void ab initio because of the failure to comply with the domestic laws of the Republic.

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repute. She considered this to be particularly serious when put against the country’s eVorts to establish itself as an attractive and legitimate Wnancial centre: ‘Vanuatu will now be regarded as a money laundering centre by its involvement in this scam through the participation of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance’ (ibid.: 17). Aligned with these concerns was the belief that global Wnancial agencies which signiWcantly support the Vanuatu budget reserves would lose conWdence: ‘The Prime Minister and Minister of Finance have brought Vanuatu into international disrepute and thereby forever damaged its hitherto good Wnancial reputation in general and with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and all the donors to Vanuatu’ (ibid.: 20). In this way the context of corruption had shifted from a local fraud, the nature and consequences of which were in contest, to a national scandal the responsibility for which was denied, to an international conspiracy the interpretation of which was in contest, to a global concern where the conWdence of donor agencies and world Wnancial institutions was in jeopardy. Within each of these contexts traditional alliances and custom obligation were employed to challenge the deWnitional and reactionary impact of public accountability and crime control agencies. For instance, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance were signiWcantly placed within fragmented but prominent political parties crucial to a slender coalition government. The power and authority of these political organisations essentially depended on feudal/tribal allegiances. The eventual survival or demise of these two politicians became not so much a factor of the scandal itself, the demands of good governance, or even of the overarching requirements of world Wnance. It came down to the intransigence and resilience of custom obligation and localised loyalties. The Ombudsman’s Report recommended that for his part in the scam the Minister of Finance be dismissed from his ministerial function. The Prime Minister should be reprimanded by the President and dealt with by parliament. The Governor of the Reserve Bank and the First Secretary of Finance should be dismissed from oYce. The Minister of Finance greeted the report with derision, alleging that the Ombudsman was partial, biased and ill informed. He denied that his actions were illegal or improper and expressed conWdence in the legitimacy of the Wnancial dealings. He chose not to answer in detail any of the Report’s allegations. The Prime Minister held a press conference at which he attacked the factual accuracy of the Report and denied that Vanuatu and its Wnancial reserves had been put at risk. He stopped short of further endorsing the scheme or expressing conWdence in any of its participants.

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The Australian Wnancier was arrested and later prosecuted in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. The Minister of Finance was demoted to a lesser ministry, and eventually removed from government after the formation of a new coalition which used the scandal of political corruption as one of its platforms for power. At the time of writing the Minister now holds the position of deputy Prime Minister in a new government. The original bank guarantees were eventually intercepted by Scotland Yard in London and returned to the government of Vanuatu. Corruption and control in the context of cultures in transition In diVering contexts of intersection between the local and the global these two case-studies establish: (a) that the identiWcation and conWrmation of certain commercial relationships as corrupt or otherwise is culturally relative; (b) that political power, where it is inextricably dependent on complex networks of Wlial support and custom obligation, will challenge international notions of good governance and Wnancial probity; (c) that politics and commerce are inextricably linked in states where modernisation is rapid and sporadic; (d) that in these transitional cultures crucial relationships within politics and commerce are inXuenced and shaped by pre-existing custom obligations; (e) that the custom obligation may create opportunities for corrupt relationships to Xourish, while in the local context being re-deWned; (f) that the bonds of custom obligation which underpin political and commercial relationships in these transitional cultures may also stand in the way of regulating and controlling corruption; (g) that besides (and regardless of) custom obligation, the public, politicians and the commercial community are sensitised to the dangers of corruption through its potential to undermine national credibility which is essential to economic development; (h) that even so, where global concerns for good governance and commercial probity intersect with custom obligation and feudal loyalties in transitional cultures, the process of criminalisation and crime control is problematised, and (i) that economic development within unchallenged contexts of custom obligation can simultaneously stimulate corrupt and commercially viable relationships. These realisations have important implications for corruption regulation and its impact, particularly in development contexts such as those

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prevailing in the case-study cultures. In the globalised context they demonstrate the capacity for fostering corruption where custom obligation and feudal loyalties (local) adapt and distort international Wnancial practice and commercial/political priorities (global). Identifying and labelling corrupt relationships Attempts to regulate corruption are unlikely to come to much where either the deWnitions of corruption or their application to persons and relationships are contested within environments of powerful, competing obligation. The localised and prevailing nature of these environments is crucial to the question of making labels stick. Despite the signiWcance of universal labels and labelling agencies external to these environments of obligation, the likelihood that they will be rejected or re-interpreted remains high where the labels challenge the personalities and connections crucial to environments of obligation. The dichotomous and sometimes paradoxical analysis of globalisation advanced in this book is supported by this. Corruption as crime is a product of modernisation. In local contexts, opportunities for corruption are stimulated through modernisation, as well as being fostered and concealed by the established networks of obligation and loyalty which are the custom of the local community. The localised context of commerce and corruption is not static. It is caught up in the transition of globalisation. As part of this transition, the governing global agencies require custom to confront the themes of good governance and commercial probity. At the same time the preference of these agencies for modernisation paradigms and the politics of obligation sends supportive messages to the forces for corruption. As transitional cultures learned and mastered in the eras of colonisation and post-independence, duplicity and paradox seem to be features of the globalised agenda. ProWt maximisation and commodity marketing are promoted as the new ‘custom’ and the preferred motives for obligation. Indigenous custom is rewarded insofar as it seems compatible with modernisation. However, custom obligation and loyalty become equally compatible with the criminal consequences of modernisation, which also have proWt and commodiWcation as their goals. In this respect custom develops in opposition to crime control. Relevance of regulation agencies In small transitional cultures conventional law-enforcement and regulatory agencies are not removed from the structures and inXuence of custom obligation. In some instances they are relied upon to endorse and

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protect such obligation. Therefore it is simplistic and suspect to assume that these agencies can eVectively enforce corruption regulation policies arrived at and sponsored outside the structures of custom. Specialist investigation agencies such as the oYce of Ombudsman possess a greater likelihood for success in this regard, not only because they appear more focused in their exploration of corruption but also because the structures of their institution are less inXuenced by, and less likely to reXect, the structures of customary obligation. Having said this, the control message needs to be unambiguous to be successful. This might explain why the corruption prevention eVorts of global Wnancial agencies have been so unsuccessful. The cult of individualism within local custom contexts of intricate and collective obligation appears to be promoted by these agencies in the name of good business. Such an approach at a localised level seems diYcult to distinguish from individualised enterprises reliant on corrupt relationships, well oiled through the same networks of obligation. A useful example of this paradox is with international money-laundering. Transitional cultures are encouraged by world commerce to develop as Wnancial centres. As a consequence of this, oV-shore trust operations Xourish and ‘black’ money starts Xowing through these centres. In order to control such developments, world bodies such as the Commonwealth Secretariat promote uniform asset management and cash reporting legislation. Anti-money-laundering codes are actively promoted.…– Reliance on commercial viability rather than public morality as a measure of the consequences of corruption In small PaciWc states, challenges to corruption based on public morality seem generally unpersuasive. Competing interpretations of public morality and national interest take the steam out of arguments tending to reXect on codes of conduct or objective and model moralities in high oYce. However, where forms of corruption are represented as blatant selfinterest, which tends to endanger the wealth of the nation, the potency of corruption as a trigger for regulation and control is enhanced and enlarged. Claims that conditions and institutions which promote socioeconomic development on a national level are also adversely aVected by the corruption of the few and the powerful certainly engenders more eVective political concern than relying on purely local perspectives of national interest. Interpol enlists the services of local law enforcement to …– Note the recent series of conferences held in small states, by the legal division of the Commonwealth Secretariat in order to promote the adoption of model money-laundering legislation.

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police world commerce. However, the aims of the international Wnancial organisations to curb money-laundering might appear to those in the local context comparable to those which promote and consolidate cash market commodiWcation. Against this, control agencies have a particularly diYcult task in confronting the protective dimension of custom obligation and loyalty. At the global level, regulatory bodies have to argue for an artiWcial, often political, distinction between legitimate business and criminal enterprise, favoured market practice and corruption. In order to implicate the community in corruption regulation in small transitional cultures, the cost must be shown to outweigh any reXex recourse to customary obligation. Also, the danger posed to traditional networks of loyalty by the cult of individualism, when criminalised, requires emphasis. Globalising the context of corruption relationships If corruption remains conceived of, and controlled within the context of small transitional cultures, then the reactionary inXuence of customary obligation will prevail above other national interest and social cost issues. Considerations of corruption need to be projected beyond the inXuence of customary obligation into settings where the national identity of the state relies on globalised interpretations and deWnitions. In such an expanded context the involvement and inXuence of international commercial, development and regulatory agencies need to be orchestrated against the re-interpretative power of customary obligation and authority. For these control initiatives to make sense in the context of transitional cultures, where pressures for modernisation are brought hard up against culture, the paradoxical messages of globalisation require recognition and analysis. This climate of paradox is fertile for crime choice and control compromise, particularly where crime and enterprise are concerned. Having examined the relationship between social development and crime, and having discussed the ways in which common social indicators inXuence crime relationships in a context of social development, it is both logical and important to develop the suggestion that crime is a necessary (and not simply a negative) consequence of development strategies. In this way the global incentives for development and the global discourse on the crime problem must collide. Most social development paradigms admit the possibility that instances or degrees of social dysfunction may occur through stages of development. Social dysfunction may be characterised by, or appear as, a range of

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phenomena or behaviours which, I suggest, may also signiWcantly inXuence the dynamics of crime. The chapter which follows speciWcally employs the context of social dysfunction in order to identify the dynamic interaction between socioeconomic development and crime. This is done beyond an analysis of common indicators and shared inXuences; the chapter endeavours to construct a multifaceted understanding of crime and development as social dysfunction evolves.

3

Crime and social dysfunction

Crime and dysfunction Social disorganisation, social pathology or social dysfunction… are analytical contexts in which the determinist relationship between crime and society are clearly suggested (see Young, 1981). In the literature of crime theory, social disorganisation is a comparative state where the structures and relationships of society are said not to reXect those of modern, middle-class, materialist communities. Social pathology is coined in settings where particular features of disorganisation are taken by promoters of the dominant morality to indicate a ‘sick society’. Social dysfunction assumes that the operational product of social relationships should work towards an organised and healthy society. This is when measured against the dominant morality, and form of social order compatible with the expectations of modernisation and development. Obviously, each of these descriptions is an oversimpliWcation of how complex societies operate and indicates much about the conceptual assumptions of the theories in which it (social dysfunction) is employed. Where socio-economic development, moving towards modernisation, is a creed of global commerce, transnational Wnance, and free-market politics, ‘underdevelopment’ or ‘third-world’ status stigmatises cultures in contexts preceding modernisation. Cultural and social dysfunction is evidenced in choices which are not compatible with a development paradigm. As the bonds of global socialisation seem currently dependent on the ideologies of democracy, market economics and development, the traits of dysfunction are seen as challenging such ideologies. Westernisation equates with the functional society, and Western values are those to be … For this analysis social dysfunction might be identiWed as dysfunctional societies, or sites of dysfunction within societies. Galtung’s discussion of ‘social disintegration’ (1995) is useful when considering the consequences of social dysfunction in the contexts of nature, humanity, society, the world, time and culture.

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held by the functioning citizen.  At the same time the Wnancial and economic paradigms which drive global development celebrate and individualise materialism at the expense of communal ownership. Rights are individualised through international legal conventions and social/communitarian rights are deemed third generation. Crime too is individualised, even if control strategies recognise its global import. Social theory has long accepted that bonds of socialisation such as those arising out of clear moral regulation may be weakened by rapid social change and in periods of cultural transition. Further, any disjuncture between institutionalised aspirations (goals) and the availability of access to legitimate opportunities (means) may also be seen as criminogenic (Hester and Elgin, 1992: 6). When individuals and communities are exposed to deWnitions or interpretations favourable to the violation of the law (in situations where social dysfunction makes such deWnitions more acceptable), then crime is magniWed (see Lemert, 1972). In this respect the propensity towards criminal behaviour is not simply a matter of individual weakness or the failure of conventional activities and beliefs. For instance, youth gangs can come together in situations of violence and delinquency where the meanings conferred by the subcultureÀ value those forms of delinquency for the same reasons that the wider society might condemn them. Further, because of this proposed ‘causal link’ between crime and social disorganisation, disjuncture or dysfunction, crime (in social disorganisation theory) is viewed as an indicator of social pathology. If crime can also arise as a consequence of development and modernisation, this simple correlation between crime and social pathology may require reinterpretation in the political context of globalisation (see Robertson, 1992). Perhaps a more convincing interpretation of the relationship between crime and disorganisation is arrived at by appreciating that the trend towards modernisation is prone to emphasise discontinuity before global uniWcation. Cultural discontinuities such as religion, and growing economic disparities across the development divide ‘cleave the world into two dimensions characterised by the compass points’ (Waters, 1995: 41). The East/West division of culture, and the North/South economic divide currently oVer contexts where inequitable and exploitative dependencies generate social disorganisation and destabilisation. What uniWcation is   ‘One of the techniques which [global political, economic and military leaders] use is to sell Western domination as the universalising process of modernisation which increases its palatability’ (Waters, 1995: 25). À The concept of sub-culture is here employed with some reservations. It is not intended to distinguish a group or social structure as necessarily fractured from a dominant culture, opposed to it, or even operating under the expectations of the dominant culture. It simply refers to collective entities within the dominant culture.

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presently possible on a global level is without integration and has the potential to exacerbate dependency and discontinuity.à Crime operates as any other ‘risk’ in the unstable contexts of transition. Crime as a risk tends to universalise through common threat and equalise through standard penalty. In this way crime as risk will globalise by presenting harmonious threats and uniform outcomes. Paradoxically, crime as risk endangers globalisation by feeding oV social disorganisation and reproducing it for its own purposes (see Beck, 1992). The speciWcs of crime and disorganisation As discussed in the preceding chapter, crime is commonly identiWed as a causal consequence of social disjuncture such as unemployment, or as a product of dysfunctional contexts such as drug abuse, family breakdown or domestic violence. In this chapter we will consider these popular wisdoms and the assumptions about the relationship between crime and the ‘healthy’ society on which they rely. In addition, the preferred representation of crime as dysfunctional will be examined against contexts in which crime appears to co-exist with social states which are said to be the antithesis of individual and universal dysfunction. Throughout, the complexity of interactive social relationships in which crime is a dynamic is invoked to reveal the inadequacy of any simple comparative analysis which employs polar opposites of functionality in the understanding of crime. Even so, these prevail as common-sense wisdoms and as such stand as measures against which the ‘reality’ of alternative explanations of crime are measured (see Hogg, 1983). Crime and unemployment A common consequence of recent economic strategies, or the failure of these in modernised societies, is youth unemployment. In some situations the structural rationalisation required by monetarist economics, and the contraction of recessionary economies under its inXuence, have ensured that youth unemployment is seen as a long-term and inevitable feature of social development as well as of social decay. The existence of signiWcant levels of unemployment is justiWed in the discourse of economic rationalà An example of this is the division arising out of attempts to form a single currency within the political and economic conXuence which is the European Union. In fact the uniWcation of Europe in a commercial and Wnancial sense is maintained through both symbolic institutions and economic relationships of domination and dependency. The moves towards a single currency, and the terms struck for admission to the currency, have the potential to heighten dependency and discontinuity in the name of mutual interests and further uniWcation.

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ism as being a necessary consequence of tight Wscal management and low inXation. Perpetual (or more euphemistically ‘structural’) unemployment (particularly as a mechanism of a further artiWcially dividing modernised society) is explained away as a long-term and institutional indicator of necessary economic restructuring. At the same time, the causal relationship between crime and unemployment is advertised, and has been ever since the early social statisticians and moral ethnographers attempted to identify and marginalise the dangerous classes (see Taylor et al., 1972). There is nothing new in the suggestion that crime is the province of the unemployed, or that criminalisation is necessary for the jobless. The vagrancy laws which were a feature of pre-industrial Europe were as much about the punishment and control of the ‘indolent’ as they were for the regulation of the labourforce. However, the more recent connection between crime and unemployment is less to do with moral condemnation than it is with being a celebration of the work ethic. Cynical as it seems, in the era of structural unemployment there are still those who temper unemployment as a consequence of tight Wscal policy by alleging that people do not want to work. These are the same opinions which would oppose the suggestion that crime choices could also stand as work, or might necessarily be made under similar determinants which lead to unemployment. There is an approach to unemployment as a context of crime which is a more subtle and dispassionate development of the discourse of ‘crime and diVerence’.Õ The overtones of unemployment and crime as signiWers of the ‘dangerous classes’ have recently re-emerged in global politics to disenfranchise the criminal and the jobless from the ‘legitimate’ economic fruits of modernisation (similar to what occurred during the industrial revolution – see Hay et al. (1975)). And the recognition of this as an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of development has featured in the language of social control. Now diversion, or neutralisation, is proposed for those populations most at riskŒ before they make crime choices or turn to crime labour and crime careers. Persistent mass unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s has invited social comparisons with the 1930s. Are the causes of contemporary unemployment novel conditions of post-capitalist or developed societies, Õ Put simply, the ‘crime and diVerence’ discussion holds that crime labelling (criminalisation) is a vital force in the social processes of discrimination. Œ Recent criminology theory which evolves from the criminal careers perspective, and rational choice interests, has argued for the identiWcation of crime risk populations. This is suggested as an initial step in a structural crime-prevention policy which engineers a range of social determinants which might otherwise be conducive to later criminality. Early intervention, re-education and the neutralisation of environments which foster crime are all proposed.

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or have familiar, unresolved or unresolvable problems of labour and capital re-emerged to become magniWed in the context of late modernisation? If unemployment is a necessary feature of capitalist market structures in transition, what does the future hold for the social bonds within the ‘new democracies’ where free-market economics is reborn and capitalist-led recovery is eagerly anticipated? Such questions take on a more critical dimension when the variable of ‘youth’ seems inextricably bound both to crime and unemployment. If unemployment is to suggest a new and more worrying potential for the relationship between crime and jobless youth, then the causes, connections and consequences of both crime and unemployment cannot be neutralised or dismissed as unfortunate, universal, unavoidable and endemic consequences of modernisation. As essential by-products of development, the responsibility for both crime and unemployment should in part be borne by the promoters of modernisation. The long-term unemployed cannot be viewed as adapting to the inevitable (Downes 1989: 89). To think this would require state agencies to apportion responsibility for crime as an ‘adaptation’ to unemployment. This would complicate the determination of criminal liability and should impact on determinations of sanction – even to the point of removing the crime/unemployment nexus out of crime control entirely. However, this is unlikely to eventuate, not least because the crime/unemployment nexus is diYcult to defuse of the moral overtones implied by individual rational choice. In addition, governments will not accept that their economic policies could be criminogenic. Unemployment as a global concern, ravaging both developed and developing countries, has magniWed the need to consider its relationship with crime. If unemployment is causally signiWcant for crime, as much as it is a universal characteristic of individual and global societies, then the impact of this realisation on control strategies at all levels could be profound. The truth that young men are more likely to commit crime and more likely to be unemployed compounds the problem for social regulation. At which end of the issue do the regulators direct their energies? Unemployment masks other forces at work in society which possess a keener and clearer inXuence over ‘choice’, for crime or otherwise. These forces, such as marginalisation, polarisation and disparity produce unemployment, are produced by it, and in contexts of development, consistently stimulate crime choices as well. The social polarisation which develops as kids head from school to the dole oYce adds to the criminogenic eVect of economic disparity. The marginalisation of youth towards unemployment produces a polarisation in socio-economic opportunity which is both legitimate and criminal.

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The contraction of legitimate labour opportunities and the consequent attraction of crime as work feature in the relocation of unemployed youth within legitimate and illegitimate market structures. Long-term unemployment tends to run through families as it does through schools, suburbs and sectors of the community. These are also the sites in which the crimes of traditional concern for policing are focused (see BCS&R, 1991). In high-unemployment contexts, all age groups face greater risks and motivations towards crime choices than is the case where social integration and investment is high. Unemployment does not foster family or community contexts which promote high educational attainment or social solidarity where the implication in legitimate relationships of cohesion and integration are the norm. The experience of unemployment may unite generations in the appreciation of limited or distorted opportunity. Having said this, unemployment appears to undermine rather than strengthen conventional bonds which are a feature of nuclear family relationships, even though it may be a common and shared problem. Along with other associated contextual inXuences, such as drug abuse and domestic violence, unemployment contributes to social breakdown and crime. Where unemployment seems more causally connected with crime is, tragically, not merely in those choices which relate to material gain, but with reactions (choices) of violence bred of frustration and despair. Property crime is not as clear and predictable a result of unemployment as is domestic violence (ibid.).œ Research results seem inconclusive as to whether crime choices are a preferred way for young people to cope with the social disadvantage of unemployment: Cross-sectional studies show that the unemployed in all age groups are more likely to become detected oVenders than the employed workforce. Reported crime rates are highest in areas of high unemployment. However trends in recorded crime over time do not mirror unemployment peaks and troughs (Downes, 1989: 102).

A known criminal history is a handicap when seeking work and therefore unemployment and crime may inXuence each other in a cyclical form. Whether unemployment precedes crime choices, however, will depend on other elements of social context. Parental encouragement to œ In a recently released seven-year study of homicides, the Australian Institute of Criminology conWrmed the disturbing Wnding that a signiWcant proportion of homicides occurred in the domestic setting, the majority of perpetrators were male and unemployed, and a signiWcant proportion of their victims were their intimate female partners, also unemployed (see James and Carcach, 1997).

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remain in school, for example, may militate against crime choices in later life, whereas an absence of parental involvement may be replaced by peer group pressure where delinquency is already rife: Lack of work leaves young people at risk, on the streets, and desperate for ‘bread’ and things to do throughout the day, seven days a week. Moreover, and perhaps most insidiously, unemployment supplies a vocabulary of motive. Parents, teachers and youth workers echo young peoples’ protests that, in the absence of legal routes to the good life, crime is too tempting to be resisted (ibid.: 103).

Law-breaking for young unemployed males can provide a way of seeking to overturn those rules and social structures in which they have little faith, and which seem so stacked against them. Crime choices oVer a means where power can be assumed and asserted. Members of sub-cultures drawn together as a consequence of the discrimination and unfairness of the labour system, or more simply through a desire to Xex their masculinity without the beneWt of more conventional work-centred behaviours (such as union membership, or work-based clubs and recreation), may condone crime choices and play an important role in nurturing them. However, unemployed citizens are as likely to be the victims of street crime as its perpetrators (BCS&R, 1996). It is unbalanced and wrong to empower or glamorise the alternative choice structure oVered by crime in the context of the unemployed. Long-standing community patterns are being undermined rather than reinforced through crime and victimisation (just as they are by unemployment). And despite the exhilaration, liberation and fun experienced through some crime, this is more generally matched by the repressive relationships between unemployed youths and the agents of criminal justice, or the initial rejection from legitimate paths to material wealth. The complexity of the crime/unemployment nexus was identiWed by Bonger (1916) as a factor of the economic condition, and by Merton (1938) as reinterpreted within a reaction to social structure. By directing the analytical gaze away from unemployment as some direct and explicit cause of crime (and deviant as such), the conXict and the opportunity theorists sought to present a common motivation behind work and crime. Materialist attainment and wealth were there for the employed, whether in work or crime. The dysfunction lay in unemployment and therefore the absence of opportunity to achieve the beneWts of enterprise, legitimate or otherwise. It is not so much that unemployment is dysfunctional in that it may lead to crime. Rather, it removes the jobless beyond patterns of economic advancement. Economic and enterprise crime may redress this, as recognised by those who analyse criminal careers (see Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). As such, property crime becomes a form of employment with similar aspirations and consequences to work. Crime as work defeats unemployment rather than being caused by it.

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Globalisation discourse does not cherish employment of itself. Rather it derides low levels of productivity which impede consumption. Criminal enterprise is an answer to foreclosed paths of productivity. The crucial nexus here is between crime and the division of labour, crime and the monopoly of capital, crime and market structure. Criminal enterprise in an international context may be a re-employment of labour and capital rather than a crude reaction to ‘unemployment’. Theft and other forms of criminal enterprise are perhaps more convincingly viewed as either illegitimate employment or a commercial answer to unemployment. In this respect, property crime may be part of the division of labour and the structure of access to capital. It is violence which might more directly be criticised as a consequence of unemployment. Drugs/crime and proWt Bearing in mind that the drugs/crime connection receives detailed discussion in later chapters (chapters 4 and 5; also see Dobinson and Ward, 1985 and 1987), what follows here in our discussion of the criminal consequences of the frustrations of unemployment, is the cyclical pattern of social disjuncture, drug abuse, the selective criminalisation of drug abuse, drug economies, and social disjuncture. The spiral of deviance in this setting, and of its ampliWcation (see Wgure 2) is unusually simple and convincing in a causal sense. This may be due to the fact that behaviours associated with drug abuse are less equivocal than other criminalised behaviours (see Young, 1971: 34). Drug abuse, youth, unemployment and marginalisation are interconnected. In addition, the economic imperatives which surround the drug trade, and are to some extent fostered by associated law-enforcement strategies, mean that it is easier to see the way crime choice becomes the link between supply and demand in an inelastic market setting. In Young’s classic representation of deviancy ampliWcation, the signiWcance of crime choice is often underemphasised. The causal relationship between individual deviancy and control reaction is structured around choice. What lends inXuence to the ampliWcation cycle is the context within which choices are made, i.e. where secondary deviancy emerges out of the social alienation and isolation produced as a result of criminalisation. Therefore, social dysfunction as a context which emerges out of control responses and deviancy choices becomes the crucial explanation for the pace and scope of deviancy ampliWcation. The complication in discussing the drugs/crime link in the context of social dysfunction relates to victimisation. In more conventional property crimes and crimes of violence, the victim is usually innocent and drawn into the dysfunction through the crime relationship. With drug abuse and

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Figure 2

The deviancy ampliWcation cycle.

traYc the distinction between victim and participant, innocent and guilty, is blurred. What in fact makes the drugs/crime link dysfunctional is more likely to be the intervention of control agencies and criminalisation than the identiWcation of unwarranted harm to the ‘victim’. Nowhere is the market nature of criminal enterprise and the market signiWcance of criminalisation more apparent than with drug law enforcement. In addition, recreational drug use and drug law enforcement are phenomena linked through political priorities more than social necessity. Therefore, with drugs and crime it is hard to argue that the consequences of social disjuncture and crime choice are logically linked beyond political intervention and designation. This is conWrmed by the examination of other social control settings where, for example, particular forms of drug use are regulated by medical treatment rather than the criminal sanction (see Ward and Dobinson, 1988). In addition, there seems to be no more apparent and distinctly political connection between the priorities of globalisation and criminalisation than with the drugs/crime link. The history of the criminalisation of particular drugs in recent times is inextricably bound up with the creation of globalised power structures and the networks of power and domination on which globalisation now relies. The uniWcation of global culture is politically motivated through Westernised priorities. One such is the eradication of recreational drug abuse. Whether in a medical or social order context this common view is enforced even in cultures where traditions diVer from the modernised West

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when it comes to drug production and consumption. In addition, the commercial realities which inXuence developing agrarian economies may generate an alternative commercial expedient in drug production and export. In these settings international crime control priorities may not make good economic sense. Drug crime operates in a highly selective and discretionary political and social context. This context is essential to the perpetuation of drug economies, as it is to the maintenance of international political priorities. Without criminalisation the proWt motive behind drug-traYcking would not be ensured. Without criminalisation the creation of international law-enforcement policies under the authority of uniform legal prohibitions would not be possible. Governments would therefore have to expose their drug control politics to a more sensitive form of analysis, not be diverted or distracted by neutral and universal concepts of crime and punishment. Criminalisation is an essential element within this discretionary and selective enforcement context. Without it, the meaning of the supply and demand stages of drug economies would be ambiguous. In fact, the whole monopolistic structure of drug markets, and the distortions of price and purity of supply which arise as a result of market regulation, would not be prevalent without the globalised and selective criminalisation of drug sale and use patterns. This has led to an internationalised trade (supply and demand) structure, where global prohibitions create global market conditions to exploit regional supply and national demand through transnational enterprise. As suggested earlier, the criminalisation of drugs and the drug trade on an international level provides one of the clearest indications of crime’s importance for global politics. For example, the recent history of the criminalisation of opiate abuse and trade (see Ward and Dobinson, 1988) is all about international inXuence (political and medical). Even today the agenda for the ‘war on drugs’ is as colonial and imperialist as any recent military excursion.– The hypocrisy of the global drugs/crime problem does not stop at the slippage between medical mission and political intervention.— Global – The recent employment by the US government of the Central Intelligence Agency, along with military aircraft and personnel, to collaborate with Colombian authorities in raids against the cocaine cartels is an example of the politicisation and militarisation of drug law enforcement. — Chambliss has alleged that the construction and implementation of US foreign policy in South East Asia (during and after the Vietnam War) was built around the government’s manipulation of the heroin trade. In this regard, he argues, that the US was acting as a major crime organisation to dominate components of the narcotics market in the furtherance of its domination over Asian states and economies. In many respects this reXected the actions of the British government in China during the Opium Wars (see Chambliss, 1989).

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economic priorities almost force agrarian-based developing economies to grow cash crops. The markets for legitimate cash cropping (such as coVee, sugar and cotton) are reliant on the Wckle tastes of the developed world. One such market which is uniquely stable and growing is the drugs market. The principal producers of the fashionable drugs of choice are in the developing world, and the vast markets for these lucrative cash crops are in the developed world. Yet, where in other economic contexts such supply and demand relationships would be fuelled by legitimate (rather than illegitimate) capital, and barriers to free trade would be attacked, with criminalised drugs the opposite is the case. Global development and economic theory is ignored, or reversed, for the sake of political and health control agendas. Yet even in the context of criminalisation, consistency is sacriWced. Multinational economic priorities determine that alcohol and tobacco are legitimate while cannabis and opiates are not. Interestingly, it is in the developing world, where the crime and health consequences of tobacco and alcohol are most acutely felt, that the argument behind their aggressive marketing rests in unbridled free-marketeering. The same approach and motivation is criminalised when dealing in proscribed drugs. As with the connection between unemployment and crime, the drugs/crime link is negotiated in contexts of violence. Violence, therefore, is a signiWcant variable when evaluating the place of crime within situations of social dysfunction. Violence may play a role in maintaining such dysfunction, but paradoxically through the enforcement of deviant authority and order.

Crime, violence and domination An essential element of crime as a relationship is the diVerential power positions of the participants. As we observed with the drugs/crime discussion, relationships of power and domination develop from individual crime relationships to global criminalisation priorities. An obvious and important indicator of such relative power/domination status is violence. In this respect violence reveals a multidimensional potential for analysis: ( ( ( ( (

Violence is crime. Violence is crime choice. Violence is crime relationships. Violence is victimisation. Violence is the context of crime and victimisation.

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( Violence is the context within which crime/victimisation choices are

made. ( Violence is the context within which crime/victimisation relationships

are created and maintained. ( Violence is a signiWcant theme for crime as power and authority. ( Violence is the common theme through which local and global dimen-

sions of crime as power and authority intersect. Violence can be crime of itself; it can be the mechanism through which crime is caused, or may form a serious consequence of crime. Violence is a signiWcant context within which a variety of crimes arise and violent behaviours all too often are a characteristic of other social relationships or settings which become dysfunctional (e.g. domestic violence). Yet degrees of violence do not necessarily provide a straightforward or deWnitive measure of crime seriousness, or indicate the essential response of lawenforcement agencies. For instance, violence against prostitutes or rape in marriage may not even be deemed criminal in certain cultural settings. This is not because the resultant harm diVers from similar occasions of violence, but because of the nature of the perpetrator and the status of the victim. Whether violence is evidence of individual or social dysfunction, therefore, is a question of context. The same might be said when evaluating violence as a means of ensuring authority and the legitimacy of the authority it ensures. Some commentators view violence as a cultural…» trait and therefore anticipate that violence will become a more regular contextual feature of crime occurring in such cultures (Quinney, 1970: 249). How violence is ingrained in culture is a question beyond the limits of this work (see Dinnen, 1993a). But the impact of violence on crime’s place within culture is not diYcult to observe, even through the popular representations of crime and law enforcement. Cultures of violence, or violent cultures, are dependent on crime representation and crime relationships.…… The correlation between violence and culture is also inXuenced by strategies of control. Fundamental considerations of justice have come to incorporate violence as much as has crime, and this is apparent from the …» In these arguments culture is usually treated either as stereotypical or as synonymous with the celebration of violence. In this way both violence and culture are used to conWrm ‘diVerence’. …… It is worthy of recognition that crime is one of the major subjects of popular culture, media interest in particular, with violent crime predominating. This ranges from children’s cartoons to investigative journalism. Violence also has a position of prominence in certain ‘counter deWnitions’ of justice. These are revealed in the Hollywood rogue-cop Wlm genre.

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village to the global context. Violence is, both in mythological and contemporary representations, essential to control. Theories of deviance have examined violence from the point of view of individual behaviour, collective social reaction and designated cultural determinants. In particular, there seems to be ample evidence that the means for eVecting violence is dependent on convenient opportunity. However, the style and context of violent behaviour will shift when a more functional and available facility for violence is provided.…  Where cheap arms proliferate, as they may in societies suVering from war, the mechanism for violence (from suicide through to murder) will be the gun, and its use will range across ethnic and age divides. The social and cultural context of violence as compared to non-violent crime, or the degree to which the same crimes are coloured by violence, is important for understanding the place of violence within culture and crime. This is particularly so for cultures in rapid transition, where the forms and formations of violence may represent an indicator of the pace and direction of transition. As domestic violence often demonstrates, persons who act in a singularly violent way in a speciWc situation may not be involved with the law in other parts of their lives. This having been said, violence in a domestic setting may indicate a learning pattern where violence is presented either as an appropriate or necessary technique of conXict resolution. The potential is there for an aggressor so trained to manifest violence in other contexts. Opportunity, including means and setting, reveals much about violence as a context for crime and about crime itself. The contextual generators of violent behaviour are crucial for understanding its activation. Why violent youth crime in Los Angeles centres on the use of guns, and in Hong Kong similar crime is committed with knives and cleavers, is not simply explained through cultural preference. If guns are cheap and available within a community, or knifes are within reach in a domestic or commercial setting, where extortion or robbery arises they will emerge as the weapons of choice. Patterns of violence are formulated by much more than the availability of means or a preferred setting.…À Violence as a social relationship rather …  For instance, the preferred use of guns by Chinese secret societies in America and not in Hong Kong. …À What makes this more diYcult to appreciate is the popular misunderstanding perpetuated about violence. For example, fear of violent assault and even homicide is focused by popular culture on strange locations and stranger aggressors. In fact, common domestic locations and familiar aggressors are more the norm (see James and Carcach, 1997). Location and means of violence may therefore reveal spontaneous and erratic rather than sinister and premeditated behaviour.

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than a criminal event is a more fertile context for critical analysis. Because of the presence of interaction between persons in situations of violence, the victim is a crucial agent in the action that is taken. It is even said that certain victims in particular contexts of abuse tend to precipitate their own victimisation (Quinney, 1970: 250). The existence of previous interpersonal relationships between murderers and victims, for example, is often ignored in the common portrayal of murder as a ‘stranger’ threat in a strange context (Wallace, 1986; BCS&R, 1992). Many criminalised violent behaviours occur within otherwise routine and mundane social contexts. Violence may arise (and be perceived) as a common and legitimised alternative to other forms of dispute resolution in situations of interpersonal conXict. External referents, such as peer approval for the aggressor and learned helplessness from the victim, will play an important deWnitional role for the participants even where social reaction may be more removed from the incident. Violence within criminal justice is another example of a social context where diVerential power positions may be criminogenic even if not so identiWed. State terrorism, repression of dissent, violation of human rights, and the selective regulation of minorities are all too often reliant on the mechanisms of violence for their ‘success’ (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993). Violence, in turn, becomes institutionalised within certain state agencies and the nature of its exercise indicates the claims to authority of such agencies, and their political positioning within the state. Crimes of violence, particularly those with a sex/power dimension, reveal that crime is essentially discriminatory. It demeans and endangers women, children and the elderly. Even if the actual threat posed by violent crime is not as great as that which is anticipated or perceived by such classes of victim, the fear of crime may be an equally powerful discriminator and have debilitating consequences for the quality of life of those under its sway. Common-sense speculation on the connection between violent crime and violence in the media is diYcult to conWrm or deny. What does seem clear, however, is that the discrimination which often precedes violence may be set and maintained through media representations (see Young, 1996). Persons resorting to violence in order to resolve social conXict express the view that the representation of violence by the media as a legitimate choice has an impact on them making that choice (see French, 1996). While generalisations on the impact of the media when it comes to violence might remain unconvincing, research has shown that certain recipients of the media message are more likely to be inXuenced by it than others (see Erickson et al., 1987). The relationship between the media and violence reveals interesting

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patterns in the representation of crime. While the media have a powerful role in constructing the appropriate boundaries of violence, they also play a role in decoding political messages on violence. Recently the home and family have been exposed as dangerous and violent. Along with shifts in law-enforcement policy, the media’s interest in domestic violence has tended to challenge taboos surrounding patriarchy and the sanctity of the home. Crime and domestic fracture It is too simplistic to see ‘broken’ families as a cause of crime. In particular, in those cultures where the extended family is the primary context for childhood socialisation (as opposed to the more narrow ‘Western’ notions of the ‘nuclear’ family unit in that role), the range of ‘carer’ relationships is more varied and diverse. Therefore, the simple distinction between ‘broken’ and ‘whole’ families may bear less relevance, even at the level of ideology, than is the case with the advertised and preferred family unit in developed societies. However, it is diYcult to deny the correlation between those individuals (particularly youth oVenders) who are processed through criminal justice agencies and those who have grown up in single-parent families, foster homes, youth institutions, or domestic situations where they suVered some form of violent abuse. In addition, the relationship between violent and abusive ‘carers’ and victims of such abuse is disturbingly apparent. The home is one of the earliest and most profound situations of socialisation. But, as noted earlier, actual domestic relationships and structures of care and inXuence are also acutely culturally speciWc. One of the fallacies of linking such relationships causally with crime is to utilise ‘model families’ as points of comparison. For instance, criminal justice policy-makers in modernised Western societies are still too ready to impugn any domestic relationship which is not the ‘nuclear’ family – two heterosexual parents and resident children. When such attitudes are linked to broader welfare policies, the discriminatory consequences for otherwise vulnerable groups in the community can be cruel and alienating. The context of domestic fracture is one where the need to introduce other telling features of social disorganisation prior to attempting a crime connection is vital. Violence, drug abuse, unemployment, sexist power relations and poverty are just some additional indicators of social dysfunction which in combination with domestic fracture may provide a consistent context for crime and victimisation. In terms of opportunity, the home is a focus for certain types of crime.

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Murder, for example, is more likely to occur in a domestic setting, with the perpetrator and the victim being well known to each other, than it is stranger to stranger, in a strange place. Child abuse, incest and rape are of their nature crimes where the abuse of power is a feature, and the structures of power out of which they emerge are most common in a family setting. In this respect the home is unfortunately far from the crime-free context and safe haven suggested by the ‘model family’. However, the home as a criminogenic environment is an important ‘contra-story’ to the home as a protective environment for victims and as a cornerstone of crime prevention. Recent literature on crime prevention concentrates on healthy parenting (and early intervention for those without a positive family/home inXuence) as essential strategies (see Weatherburn and Lind, 1997: ch. 3). The argument goes that children of families exposed to social and economic stress are more likely to become involved in crime. The eVect is said not to be direct, but arises from lax parental supervision which is a product of stress. Weak parental bonding and erratic and inconsistent discipline regimes increase the risk of children being involved in crime. This theoretical position is weakened either by a failure to juxtapose the criminogenic dimension of the family (through association or parental/sibling criminality), or the realisation that the aggregate association between economic stress and crime may be mediated by other signiWcant variables beyond the parent and the family. Similar criticisms will be raised during the consideration of the restorative potential of the family (see Van Ness and Heetderks Strong, 1997). Much has been written on the connection between the breakdown of the extended family and crime opportunity. Particularly in the city (see Evans et al., 1992) the fact that grandparents or other resident carers are not present in the home during the day or at other times to supervise children, or where close relatives are not neighbours, means that one of the simplest situational crime prevention mechanisms is not available. Many of the apparent success stories in relatively crime-free societies and cultures such as Japan, where juvenile crime in particular is said to be rare, can be traced back to immediate, constant and intrusive networks of social surveillance and supervision – that is the extended family and the involved neighbourhood. Low crime rates seem to be not so much a product of community re-integration (as suggested by Braithwaite, 1989) but of the perpetual protection of family status and respect for routine and traditional institutions of authority (see Findlay, 1993). Other than crime, measures of fracture and dysfunction, such as suicide, tend to cast doubt on the re-integrative potential of surveillance, and the sacriWce of individual privacy and self-determination. Family fracture, and its obverse, the re-integrative potential of ‘whole’

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families, provides an interesting theoretical context in which to expose the dangers of viewing crime and its control in isolation. Crime may well be a signiWcant indicator of social dysfunction, but an absence of recorded crime may not equally demonstrate social harmony. In addition, crime control techniques may lead to social dysfunction as a consequence of attempts at social reintegration. For instance, Braithwaite argues that shaming or its threat has a profound re-integrative and crime preventive potential in communities where respect prevails (1989; see also Findlay, 1993). In the case of youth crime in Japan, an example he selects to support his thesis, he may appear correct. Where the simplicity of Braithwaite’s suggested correlation falls away is that social dysfunction requires a more sophisticated and lateral appreciation than oYcial crime Wgures may provide. Rigid regimes of respect, those networks of surveillance and associated structures of shame and praise, may alienate as easily as they appear to re-integrate. Crime is replaced as the deviancy choice by suicide. High youth suicide rates amongst young males in Japan are as much convincing evidence of social dysfunction as low crime rates are a conWrmation of social harmony. And it might be similar contexts of control which produce both these social indicators in the same community. It might be the fact that what seems re-integrative on one indicator of dysfunction is productive of another. Shaming reinforces majority values, but it still depends on an initial discrimination against the shamed and a behaviour of choice. Crime and discrimination The process of criminal justice in modernised jurisdictions evidences (and depends upon) a process which is largely discriminatory (Christie, 1993: chs. 8 and 9). This process is fuelled by a variety of discretionary practices which are themselves discriminatory: ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (

selective law enforcement on the part of the police; police stereotyping and the bias of police culture; pressures on the poor to plead guilty; limitations on the provision of legal aid; prosecutorial practice directed against street crime; sentencing practice which limits options available to the poor; imprisonment for intoxication or non-payment of Wnes; restriction on diversion only for oVenders who can demonstrate conventional social bonds (e.g. employment, family).

The disposition of criminal justice practice to political concerns with crime and the discriminatory cycle of criminalisation is magniWed. For example, the public perception of the danger posed by crime may concen-

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trate on household robbery, violence from strangers and public order disturbances. Responding to this, politicians may legislate and pressurise criminal justice agencies to concentrate on these forms of crime. Domestic burglaries may be largely carried out by young drug abusers and this type of oVender is simple to detect, hence the high representation of young drug abusers in prison populations, due to their potential to re-oVend, or the regularity with which they are apprehended. Domestic violence becomes less of a concern for a police force required to concentrate its energies on trying to uncover the relatively few ‘stranger’ predators. Corporate or environmental criminals are less likely to come to police attention than are rowdy street drunks in this scenario. The discriminatory trends inherent in crime representation, criminalisation and control policy are magniWed through selective enforcement and become self-fulWlling. Therefore, the prejudices behind community fear of crime may be conWrmed by the partial and discretionary operations of criminal justice and the political agendas of crime control lobbies. Discrimination will perpetuate as justice practice conWrms the discriminatory stereotypes promoted through administrative and political priorities. The complex social determinants which draw individuals into crime choices, and thereby represent a discrimination network through deWnition and regulation, are compounded by crime control strategies. This has a signiWcant impact on victims of crime as well as on perpetrators. Crime victims are very often comparable in age, gender or race with the perpetrators. To some extent crime preys on the disadvantaged, the marginalised and the discriminated against. This has recently been recognised through studies revealing the intra-class nature of crimes such as domestic violence which seem from reported statistics to be located in lower socio-economic strata (see BCS&R, 1991).…Ã Furthermore, that crime and criminalisation are designed to magnify the material and economic disparity in developed societies is fundamentally discriminatory. Corporate crime, for instance, aVects the small local investor as much as the large multinational company. However, the ramiWcations for the former may be comparatively far more devastating. The location of crime is one of the clearest indicators of its discriminatory capacity. Most homicides are committed in the home, most violence is domestic, most instances of theft are petty and street-centred, but by far the most all-pervasive harms…Õ to a community are posed by the illegitimate practices of the corporate sector. Whether corporate oVences …Ã It might also be argued that domestic violence is a feature of partner encounters within other socio-demographic groupings, but due to under-reporting to the police these are not fairly reXected in criminal justice statistics. …Õ Here the notion of harm encompasses materialist as well as personal safety concerns.

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take the form of fraud, environmental pollution, market interference, corruption, occupational health and safety oVences or tax evasion, the potential for such crime to victimise signiWcant classes of society, often without their immediate knowledge, makes the corporate board-room and not the street the most dangerous situation of social harm. It would also seem clear that corporate crime in all its forms has blossomed in developing countries as a consequence of the deregulation market policies of the 1980s. Specialised national and international law-enforcement agencies have recently been developed in a number of Western countries in order to reduce the economic attractiveness of crime choice for corporations. Money-laundering in particular has been targeted by such agencies, and cash management reporting is now a far more common feature of modern commercial regulation. The apparent failure to equate crime, harm and control has led to discriminatory consequences. Despite the fact that the social harm posed by corporate or environmental crimes may outweigh personal property oVences, it is those involved in the latter who occupy police interest, take up the time of the criminal courts and Wll prisons. As mentioned in chapter 1, a signiWcant motivation behind criminalisation is the maintenance of diVerence. The criminal justice process is occupied with this task daily. The distinctions are not only between good and bad, legitimate and illegitimate, criminal and non-criminal. The perpetrator versus victim scenario is crucial to the public appreciation of crime. The ‘harm to safety’ continuum, and the fear which moves along with it, is interconnected with the maintenance of diVerence. Fear of crime Fear of crime may be both injurious to social harmony and indicative of a breakdown in the necessary elements required for this harmony. Such fear is more likely to emerge in social environments which are disorganised and disjunctive than in stable or well-serviced communities (NIJ, 1996). A popular gauge of the quality of life, particularly in large urban environments, is the guarantee of personal safety and the associated fear of crime. Public concern about criminality is an alternative measure of the crime situation of a designated culture. The news media remain an important means of transmitting public anxieties. These anxieties are more likely to fuel the fear spiral than to act as a reliable barometer of public opinion. Expressions of public sentiment about crime, however conveyed, will usually reXect an expansion in the awareness or apprehension of crime amongst the vulnerable in society, rather than a general or unambiguous

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increase in crime. The media both feed oV and fuel the fear of crime, particularly in the elderly, racial minorities and women. The apprehensions of vulnerable groups in society are often represented as wide-reaching social dangers, and in this way control priorities may be distorted. These expressions of sentiment are crucial in the ampliWcation of fear through the intervention and discourse of criminal justice agencies. From a policy point of view, it is signiWcant to appreciate that certain crime prevention initiatives, particularly those directed at altering the situational context of crime, may have an impact on the fear of crime victimisation while producing little impact on reported crime or actual victimisation rates (see Nair et al., 1993). For example, programmes to improve street lighting, to ‘humanise’ housing estates, to involve more residents in the ownership of their properties, to divert traYc around residential areas, and to oversee sites of public education and recreation are all nominated as having a reductive inXuence over certain forms of crime. Yet in many cases these measures are more likely to improve the attitude and expectations of the community than to measurably reduce crime incidents. This emphasises the necessity to analyse crime contexts as both social realities and community expectations. After all, the crime threat may produce the same consequences for the quality of life as instances of actual victimisation. The disparity between fear and crime threat has prompted a wave of empirical investigation.…Œ Part of this interest may be to put crime into perspective and to minimise the symbolic fear-generating potential of crime. From the perspective of the criminal justice process, the measurement of fear levels has been taken either as signiWcant for the formulation of policy response or the measurement of ‘consumer’ satisfaction. Fear of crime thrives on social division. It seems to be distorted by dysfunctional representations, and is fuelled by dislocated control responses. Through social disjuncture, often portrayed as the unexpected consequence of phases of social development, individual and collective marginalisation will follow. As Waters would have it (1995: ch. 3), while dependency and other social linkages of integration tend to globalise, marginalisation works against a uniWcation of culture and hence globalisation. Particular responses to the eVects of marginalisation are also said to have a criminogenic potential. These potentials will globalise or marginalise depending on the context in which they are represented and given eVect. Other theoretical explanations of crime contend that the closed oppor…Œ Note the correlation between ‘crime, fear and disorder’ in the sub-title of the National Institute of Justice’s research bulletin ‘Measuring What Matters’ (NIJ, 1996).

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tunities and resultant frustrations which emerge through marginalisation lead directly to the creation and activation of crime choices, which in turn ensure the creation and perpetuation of crime relationships. Modernisation tends to marginalise as a consequence of material disparity, and crime relationships tend to re-integrate within either adjusted or disjunctive social arrangements. In the following chapter we explore this divergence of inXuence towards and away from globalisation through the evolution of crime relationships in speciWc contexts of modernisation.

4

Marginalisation and crime relationships

Social dysfunction, as discussed in chapter 3, may, through interactive analysis, reveal the interconnections of crime and context. More than this, the understanding of crime as choice, where contexts evolve out of dysfunction and subsequent marginalisation, presents possibilities for such an analysis beyond causal and functional models for explaining crime. Through this analysis our understanding of crime need not be driven by preconceptions of crime as dysfunctional, or of human nature as pathologically susceptible to it. Crime in contexts of social dysfunction seems never far away from situations of marginalisation and situations of constrained opportunity. The dynamics of crime as choice become more apparent in response to marginalisation. Crime relationships can be viewed as a restorative reaction to the contracted opportunities which characterise situations and states of marginalisation. Yet rather than its traditional representation as an indicator of social dysfunction or individual marginalisation, seeing crime as choice, and as relationships generated through choice, reshapes contextual analysis so that the integrative and functional directions of crime are appreciated. This chapter will begin by exploring the social connections towards crime choices through marginalisation. Although some of the features of dysfunction touched upon in previous chapters will be revisited, we do so in order to identify their interconnection, interaction and dynamics within the context of marginalisation. From this it is both obvious and logical to imagine crime as an essential and explicatory response to marginalisation. The relationships of crime which tend to eventuate out of marginalisation, and the social disorganisation with which it is associated, tend to reveal the ‘choice’ dimension of crime in more detail. This is a dimension which exists and operates through relationships rather than the moral or rational predispositions of the ‘individual’ out of context. Choice is not conceived of here in terms of classical theory, reliant on ‘free will’ and rationality to explain choice. Rather it occurs within a range of contextual 115

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determinants, only one of which (but not essentially) may well be individual predisposition, which create the nature and range of choice. The marginalisation of the individual or the group within particular social contexts, and the inXuence this has over the development of crime choices and relationships, is examined in what follows. The ultimate transformation of the context of crime through the passage of ‘choice’ is a further focus for analysis. The marginalising potential of globalisation The proposed nexus between globalisation and development (modernisation) highlights the essential paradox within globalisation theory. This views globalisation either as a unifying or discriminating inXuence on the evolution of cultural relationships.… The fact that globalisation represents a radical repositioning of relationships, contexts of power and authority, would tend to suggest that its capacity either to marginalise or re-integrate may depend on the place an individual or institution takes within these relationships. Crime relationships oVer this tendency. This conWrms globalisation and its consequences as dependent on contextual location for analysis, in the same fashion that globalisation is important for the constitution of such a context. For instance, the recent transmogriWcation of victimisation (and the repositioning of the victim in Western criminal justice) is picked up and reXected in current global discourse on crime and control. Whether it be the victimisation of democratic revolution and the free market by organised crime in Eastern Europe, or the destruction of moral and cultural integrity in North America as a consequence of international drug-trafWcking, the victim now assumes a more signiWcant and generic status in local, jurisdictional and international criminal justice resolutions. What diVers about the international victim focus is the manner in which it justiWes political, economic and cultural imperatives well outside immediate crime control concerns. The globalised victim becomes a reason for economic restructuring and cultural contact, as well as a result of political intervention. The fate of the globalised victim seems to depend on their utility in wider agendas for globalisation. Individual drug oVenders on either side … As will be argued later in this book, globalisation presents layers of paradox; where harmony may conceal dissonance, and diVerence may disguise commonality. An example of the former is the representation of the narcotics trade as a uniWed world problem, whereas it might as well be seen as contested national interest and political morality. In the latter layer, an atempt to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate recreational drug use overlooks the common commercial motives behind their exploitation.

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of the trade are viliWed while the discriminatory social contexts essential for the Xourishing drugs economy are represented as innocent and worthy of all protective eVorts. Even higher international ideologies such as the sanctity of individual rights, fail to unmask the realities of crime victimisation in a globalised context. SpeciWc structures of relative power and domination within globalised contexts pre-determine the marginalisation of some crime victims and the integration of others. Globalisation has been identiWed as a process towards the uniWcation and universalisation of culture. To achieve any such state appears to involve cycles of displacement and replacement in which crime choices are an ever-present feature. Bearing in mind the later elaboration of this process (see chapter 6), it is suYcient to accept that the recasting of crime relationships into a globalised context involves marginalisation as well as re-integration. The stage at which these relationships are represented as marginal will depend on the impact that crime choices (upon which such relationships are dependent) have on much more far-reaching global politics. Crime and culture Prior to investigating the nexus between crime and marginalisation it is appropriate at least to Xag the question which this chapter poses – marginalised from what? In much of the interactive theory of deviance literature, crime occurs in the contexts of sub-cultures, and crime by implication stands outside the given dominant culture. While the interactive facility of sub-cultural analysis is attractive and not to be rejected out of hand, it is an oversimpliWcation to see crime as either ‘acultural’ or as necessarily opposed to the dominant culture. This form of binary analysis puts crime alongside other reactionary reference points for culture studies: native and migrant, indigenous and introduced, local and global. Yet as with any binary analysis there resides behind the allure of its simplicity a world of interconnection and continuation. Consistent with our discussion of crime and economy in the next chapter, it is perhaps easier to deal with ‘cultures of crime’ than with the place of crime within culture. Crime in culture may represent a signiWcant component of relationships and interconnections which comprise or delineate culture. It is not intended here to enter into any complex debate about the nature of culture. For the purposes of this discussion, culture is a range of interconnections in a delimited social space. Crime relationships, and the patterns of stigmatisation and exclusion which feature in criminalisation, are some such interconnections. SuYcient for the present purpose, and consistent with crime analysis, is to take culture at least

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as an accepted referent in crime theorising, and to explore the sub-texts which surround it. One such sub-text is the generation of authority within culture, and the challenge to it which crime may pose. Where culture is viewed as retrospective and customary (see chapter 7), authority may be claimed through mysticism, iconography, genealogy and diVerence, as well as more conventional and prevailing reliance on force. Thus in the case-studies selected for the later analysis of crime control (chapter 7), authority is custom-based while power is shared between institutions of traditional governance and introduced constitutional legality. The place of crime within these competing contexts of power and authority is largely distracted or denied. As the case-studies in chapter 2 suggest, the structures and personalities which comprise the authority of customary obligation tend to conceal the crime choices and crime relationships which such authority may foster. The omission of crime from within abstract and idealised interpretations of culture is evidence of their representational nature and symbolic presence. This is not to say that culture as symbols does not feature in contexts of crime. On the contrary, crime as both an actual and symbolic force may play an important role in the transformation of cultures as they are seen and known. The power to manage, or at least to distinguish and determine, what is crime from within cultures (or the absence of such power) provides a tangible indication of the structures of authority and domination at work within a culture. The expulsion of crime from dominant culture is a profound step in the celebration of the diVerence which is criminalisation. Where culture confronts and converges with multimedia and corporate cultural iconography, crime can assume forms and values consistent with any of the prevailing and universal material components of globalised society. Even in the most primitive or protected social settings the materialist dimensions of crime are subjected to the consumerist inXuences of multinational and multimedia economies. As such it is today unreasonable and unrealistic to limit a cultural context for crime to localised cultural relativity alone. Within even simple paradigms of culture, crime relationships emerge from and recognise local and global interests and presence. Crime/cultural analysis requires both a local and globalised dimension if it is to account for the pervasive inXuence of Western consumerist cultures. The globalised cultural context for crime relationships has special relevance for the analysis of criminal enterprise as economies of trade (see chapter 5). Crime may contradict an ideology which is essential to the existence and enunciation of culture. This will occur both at the communal and global

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levels. In this respect, the ‘sub-cultural’ (or micro-cultural) consideration has its place. Here crime as choice is seen as an inversion of general morality, a challenge to the work ethic and a substitute for conventional structures of attainment. However, it is common for crime sub-cultures to be idealised in this form of analysis, as much as pastorale notions of culture in contemporary settings may be for present-day society. The culture and sub-culture divide conWrms representations of diVerence as contexts for crime and criminalisation when contrasted with legitimate processes of attainment. If culture is convention and crime is a feature of sub-culture, then crime is diVerence. This is not to say that crime cannot provide a mechanism through which authority is claimed (either within or outside the dominant culture). Authority here is not denied simply as diVerence; rather it can be endorsed as such. For example, the explanation of crime through diVerential association (see Sutherland, 1924) asserts the selection of ‘signiWcant others’, and the empowerment they provide, through the utility which crime and deviance oVers in response to foreclosed dominant cultures. The authority of the ‘signiWcant other’ is therefore crucial to the explanation. To this extent it is possible to utilise simple paradigms of culture to understand representations of crime: (a) within a binary analysis of culture, crime as diVerence makes sense as a feature of cultural diVerentiation, stratiWcation and exclusion; even for more recent theorising on crime and re-integration the process of conWrming crime as diVerence (criminalisation) is a necessary trigger for re-integration; and (b) within a rethinking of culture as complex relationships, and in turn the place of diVerence within interactive analysis of culture and its components, representations of crime can be juxtaposed for the purpose of understanding the motives behind them and the interests within culture which they represent. Either approach invests in culture a greater signiWcance for crime analysis than merely a backdrop for crime relationships and criminalisation. As cultures are remodelled, restored and rejuvenated through conXict, so too crime is revealed as a focus and feature of conXict. Cultural authority reasserts itself through conXict, and crime is a resolution which conXict oVers up. While culturation is a process through which community bonds are traditionally claimed, criminalisation is equally the declaration of diVerence. Sub-culture analysis provides an explanation for a counter-response to the rejection of crime from culture. The criminalised create their own culture as an answer to marginalisation. This, however,

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assumes that the criminalised value a place within a culture, or that such a place may be renegotiated through new or adapted structures of choice. Where now the indelibility of culture? What has preceded and will follow does not reject binary or simpliWed approaches either to crime as diVerence, or cultures as local and global. Through the recognition of the technical utility of this analysis (and its signiWcance for representations of crime) we are at the same time informed and forewarned by a more profound appreciation of the interconnections in social space which is culture. Further, our meta-analysis assumes culture as a dynamic state, which is currently being transformed into a globalised and universal condition. Crime connections through marginalisation Crime, marginalisation and social disorganisation are constant concerns for the sociology of deviance. The development suggested here is the connection between marginalisation and crime as choice, and between the relationships of crime (which are inXuenced by marginalisation) and crime control strategies (which tend to marginalise further). Again, the passage of choice, and the relationships which develop to facilitate it, may explain the place of crime in transforming contexts of marginalisation into those of integration. In crime, a cycle of marginalisation seems to develop, linking marginalisation with structures of opportunity: with crime as choice; with supportive relationships; with control strategies; with revised structures of opportunity; with further and opposing contexts of integration and marginalisation (see Wgure 3). Instances of this cycle can be seen in the following contextual connections. Crime as a factor of youth, gender and social status To say that crime is a factor of age is, while undeniably true, profoundly unhelpful as a point from which to construct any interactive analysis of crime. As Matza suggests (1964), it may be as interesting to question why certain young males do not engage in crime as to ask why others do. In addition, he points out that as crime is a dynamic and developing social phenomenon young criminals spend time at both criminal and noncriminal activity, and in most cases drift out of crime the older they get. Why so? If marginalisation is a feature of social context which has a signiWcant connection with crime, and if age and crime are integrally linked, perhaps social marginalisation has some greater impact on the young, both in

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Figure 3

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Cycles of marginalisation.

terms of their participation in crime relationships and their victimisation as a result of these. The literature on youth crime and juvenile delinquency tends to conWrm this (see Cunneen and White, 1995). Demographic analysis in many situations of social development indicates that the most signiWcant age and gender groups represented in urban drift are young males. The drift often tends to be away from conventional situations of close social bonding and obligation (e.g. school, family, employment) into looser arrangements of community connection. These males are moving from situations of underemployment or rural occupation into states of urban unemployment. A motivation for the participation of young single males in urban drift is the expectation for material betterment. The opportunity for material

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betterment in their village or rural setting may be viewed by them as minimal, at least in terms of the materialist satisfaction and attainment which modernisation advertises (see Bonger, 1916). The opportunity for these young males to participate in this attainment in the city may be illusory, but nevertheless it continues to motivate drift throughout generations of socio-economic development. The choice structures presented to young males on the move may work towards their original materialist expectations, but not necessarily as part of the legitimate agenda of opportunity and achievement within modernisation. Even so, these young males may employ similar relationship structures to realise their materialist choices, legitimate or otherwise (see Dinnen, 1993a). In already established urban populations, or modernised social settings, the drift in which young males are engaged is more likely to be away from institutions and social structures than physical locations. The rejection of the relevance of school, church or community involvement is a feature of the marginalisation of urban youth today. Therefore, these institutions lose their impact as socialisers and may be replaced by organisations and sub-cultures which tolerate or promote crime choice. Other forms of drift may be away from abusive families. Youth homelessness has become a tragic feature of most big cities today. For females, in particular, such homelessness provides situational crime opportunities, or constraints over crime choice, and victimisation. It is naive to assume that for a sexually abused young person to move from a domestic environment where the abuser is a real and daily threat to situations of homelessness and street life is simply a transition from one context of victimisation to another. The decision to leave home is a choice, constrained and determined as it may be. The ‘deviant’ or ‘dysfunctional’ lifestyle of homelessness in the city presents potentials for victimisation but also choices through which certain contexts of victimisation might be transformed. Homeless kids connect, and the relationships which ensue support crime choices and challenge the disempowerment which may have driven the young person on to the street in the Wrst place. This cannot be ignored in the rush to ensure child ‘welfare’ or protect the family unit. Dysfunction in this respect is relative, and crime choices and crime relationships may indicate another direction of meaning when dealing with marginalisation and re-integration. The rejection by the young, or by government regulators, of ‘slave labour’ conditions for youth employment on the one hand, and the closure of opportunities for any lucrative work for the young in the regulated job market on the other, have led to the reality of long-term unemployment. Such is the lot of young single men, disproportionately from lower socio-economic backgrounds. In this respect the disciplinary

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and socially inclusive dimensions of paid labour, such as superannuation, credit availability, taxation and occupational loyalty are lost to these young males. Involvement in recreational drug abuse amongst young, unemployed and socially dislocated males is a ‘drift’ from the daily stark reality of failure and exclusion from cash economies. Without paid work the material pleasures of ‘success’ elude those who prefer the inclusion available through drug cultures. If one interconnects many of these features of marginalisation with young males the proWle of juvenile oVenders is easier to establish. However, it is not a conclusive proWle, and marginalisation alone does not explain the gender/age/crime relationship. Sexist power relations, subcultural association, and reconstructed opportunity are some of the other contextual elements beyond marginalisation which arguably play a part. Victimisation as a factor of age, gender, status and location The other side of age, gender and status as inXuences towards the perpetration of crime is victimisation. While young single males are disproportionately likely to come to the attention of criminal justice agencies as crime actors, young females, the elderly and certain racial minorities more commonly comprise victimisation Wgures. Again, marginalisation has a place in the explanation of the position of victims in the crime relationship, but it appears to be marginalisation of a diVerent type. Powerlessness is a feature of crime victimisation. Whether power here is measured in terms of physical or emotional dominance, material control, or political inXuence, women, the elderly and racial minorities may individually or collectively appear marginalised in many social contexts. We speak here not only of marginalisation within the wider community of power, but alienation from criminal justice services and state protection which compounds the vulnerability of these groups. While victims are marginalised from power, authority and protection, otherwise marginalised perpetrators may claim power, authority and dominance through the exploitation of status and social location (such as in the home or the work-place). The domination relationship, positioning oVender over victim, sees both parties inextricably linked within a context where power is negotiated and abused. This is particularly the case in locations such as a domestic setting where both the marginalised victim and perpetrator are forced to interact regularly. It is clear that both within, and as a consequence of, social marginalisation, crime relationships feature. Whether the causal connection between crime and marginalisation is either simple or unidirectional, there can be little doubt that when individuals and organisations negotiate from mar-

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ginalised positions (or contexts of marginalisation), crime presents a more signiWcant opportunity to minimise the other negative social and economic consequences of marginalisation. Crime in response to marginalisation Marginalisation is a predictable feature and consequence of social development. It aVects certain individuals and groups within a culture more directly and extensively than others. Susceptibility to marginalisation may be indicated by many of the factors which are also nominated as criminogenic: youth, unemployment, lack of education, poverty, homelessness, etc. However, marginalisation is a relative concept and depends largely on the context within which it is assessed. For example, the company fraudster might feel more marginalised from his corporate culture than would a pick-pocket from his peers. Discussing crime in terms of responses here, to marginalisation in particular, we are viewing crime as choice. Too often considerations of crime are conWned to a context of oYcial and institutional reactions in a labelling sense from within state agencies. Obviously the intervention of criminal justice agencies into crime situations is designed to marginalise criminal behaviour and actors. However, the choices made by individuals, utilising crime to enhance opportunity, may themselves develop from contexts of marginalisation, and may in turn develop or diminish such contexts. When speaking of ‘choice’ in the context of marginalisation, it is necessary to appreciate the forces at work to either promote or constrain certain ranges of choice. This is opportunity. Important inXuences over opportunity are strategies of crime control (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988; 1993). Responses to crime such as control agendas obviously qualify choice and inXuence the context within which choices are made, criminal or otherwise. Not only is marginalisation contextually relative, but it takes form through the reactions of others. In this respect the choices which are structured within marginalised relationships are governed by the consequence of any choice in further marginalising the actor. For example, if a woman is victimised through domestic violence she may Wnd that her choices to relieve such violence themselves focus on violence. Many of the structures of choice for crime will be designed to counteract the consequences of further marginalisation, at least from within a group or sub-culture. Therefore, while a choice of crime may have marginalising consequences in the wider society, it may also tend to draw together and encapsulate a sub-culture. It is this dual direction of social

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marginalisation and sub-cultural integration which needs to be addressed if control strategies are to prove eVective. The following contexts demonstrate how choices for crime and crime choices work to counter marginalisation, while adopting their structural and functional form through the processes of marginalisation. Youth gangs Cloward and Ohlin (1960) argued that involvement in youth crime depends on opportunities and career structures in much the same way as in legitimate occupations. These structures are diVerentially available, and admission to them in large part depends on pre-existing social structures and sub-cultures. Gangs themselves may form a rudimentary style of social organisation where the necessary skills are learnt, contacts are developed, safety is provided, and limited opportunities and social controls are exploited. The gang becomes the context within which available choice is maximised, whether criminal or not. Adult sub-cultures are important in shaping youth criminality. In many respects the delinquent gang models itself on similar structures and values which are espoused and promoted in the military, sporting associations, monastic life and the police force. Even the signiWcance of violence is paralleled in legitimate male collectives in other social settings. What makes a gang delinquent is not so much its structure, or even the behaviours which it exhibits, but the manner in which both these are interpreted and reacted to by state authority. In certain contexts, ‘lifestyle’ characteristics of young people in groups, such as ‘hanging out’, smoking, truancy, staying out late, and associating in unsupervised venues are interpreted by state authorities as precursors to juvenile delinquency or gang involvement. The kids pursuing these behaviours may interpret them in an entirely diVerent manner, and more than likely will associate for quite harmless reasons. However, the meanings ascribed to such behaviours by the participants are deemed less valid than the ‘oYcial account’, and when they come into conXict oYcial interpretations will colour the behaviour for a wide range of other observers. Youth gangs are not self-contained social units, existing beyond more general community inXuences and aspirations. Rarely are they developed and designed for entirely criminal participation. More recent research on youth sub-cultures (see Hall and JeVerson, 1976; Williams, 1989; Wyn and White, 1997) suggests that they come together not so much in reaction to, or in rebellion against, value systems towards which they are hostile or which they invert. This has been the conventional explanation for the forming of youth sub-cultures (Cohen, 1955). It would seem that

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youth gangs are more a response to ‘dissociation’: they withdraw from interests in school, work, parliamentary politics or whatever social institution because they do not feel constructively involved in such realms or, more signiWcantly, they do not feel that the status criteria which these legitimate interests espouse are open to them. Within the social context of urban drift and rapid population growth, organised criminal gangs initially emerge in urban settings and then tend to radiate out into other transitional or disorganised physical environments. The evolution of youth gangs often evidences a development in organisation rather than presence, so that what may start out as a loose support group of young male migrants may emerge into a highly eYcient criminal organisation operating with little fear of apprehension across a designated and defended territory. Continual adaptation to urban conditions amongst street gangs in a number of developing cities has led to their expansion. Urban youth, faced with few opportunities for legitimate advancement, Wnds that the gang provides an accessible, well-adapted and rewarding means of survival in town. Extremely low chances of apprehension in societies where criminal justice is ineVective add to the attractions of the gang alternative. For a generation of urbanised youth, the gang can provide an important support role in the absence of either subsistence agriculture or organised welfare to fall back on. Furthermore, crowded and under-resourced prisons have themselves become fertile sources of gang recruitment and socialisation. However, gang structures are not simply a reXection of criminogenic organisation. They may in fact represent and rely on the same genderspeciWc power relations advocated within certain family models, cultural heritages and enterprise environments. The same misunderstandings which prevail around the ethnic and family contexts of organised crime infect popular representations of delinquent gangs. Recently, the literature on youth gangs in urban settings has been interested in the connection between these gangs and organised crime. In relation to drug-traYcking, for example, the role of youth gangs in the market chain is now signiWcant for the development of control strategies. But in many respects the employment of tight and available gang structures as base levels of drug commerce is no more diYcult to appreciate (in commercial terms) than the adaptation of family loyalties towards the success of criminal enterprise. There is no magic and mystery in the familial context of organised crime or the ‘gang’ context of juvenile drug runners. It is simply proof of the reactions against the marginalisation of racism or ageism as a context for crime choice.

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Organised crime The connection between crime and organisation is important in at least three ways: (1) the manner in which crime is organised; (2) the nature of organisations centred on criminal enterprise; and (3) the form which crime takes within a context of organisation. Almost any form of criminality beyond minor delinquency, or those behaviours which are essentially individual, is organised. The form or degree of organisation should determine the social harm posed by the behaviour which emerges out of the organisation, but this is not necessarily the perceived wisdom on organised crime. A mystique has grown up around organised crime that focuses on such issues as ethnicity, secret societies, conspiracy, alternative government and so on, far more than concentrating on the speciWc diversity of criminal organisations (see Findlay, 1993). Crime is largely organised around material gain. Therefore, organisation towards such an objective may mirror those commercial and enterprise structures which operate legitimate business relationships. What sets organised crime apart from legitimate commercial structures is: the covert nature of its operations; its reliance on violence and intimidation to protect and develop its market share; its access to capital which is not necessarily encumbered as in legitimate Wnancial dealings; its interests in monopoly market structures; the use of corruption to strengthen its market relationships; and its resistance to external regulation. Crime organisations may have a marginalising inXuence within a particular crime context. Some criminal enterprises adopt a certain organisational form in order to dominate a market and reduce competition from other players in the enterprise. As we discuss later, crime control strategies may become unwittingly implicated in such market re-ordering. Depending on the aspiration of the criminal enterprise and the nature of its players, organised crime may operate alongside or instead of legitimate business, or it may be grafted on to or sit within such business. In this respect the separation between legitimate and illegitimate commerce may not be neat. Even so, progression into organised crime increasingly isolates the oVender from conventional commercial society. Despite the common proWt motives, and the adoption of market techniques, organised criminals remain committed to crime, wherein lie their prestige, power and earning capacity. Organised crime should be viewed in terms of its crucial relationship to the legal system. The existence of organised crime so often depends on the way in which the criminal law is enforced and administered. Organised crime must rely on degrees of immunity from the law to continue

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its operations. These immunities may be invoked and maintained through networks of corruption, intimidation and self-interest in which criminal justice agencies may act as crucial facilitators. EVective world-order control strategies against organised crime recognise these corruption sites or relationships, which may initially galvanise against external interference. Nationalist political resistance has the potential to promote this nexus between crime and corruption. For instance, certain political movements in recent times have relied on illegitimate capital to fund their resistance. Where a transnational criminal enterprise requires corrupt and beneWcial relationships with local government oYcials or police authorities in order to secure its market position and Wx the price of its commodities, global attacks against the enterprise will meet local resistance. Within each jurisdiction where corruption is strong, its partners will protect their common interests against both internal and external interference. This protection might take the form of selective policing, non-co-operation in extradition, or concealment of evidence. In addition, the control reaction to organised crime, particularly within the discourse of globalisation, works to endorse marginalisation through criminalisation. As BurchWeld suggests (1978), governments and their control agencies attempt to reaYrm the rigid distinction between business and crime by utilising the mystique of organised crime, and all the ethnic discrimination on which it relies, to assert the fundamental diVerence between legitimate and criminal enterprise. This is less than convincing when crime is analysed as choice within a commercial context where commodities may be prohibited, markets may be proscribed, but proWt motives and capital availability are constant (see Findlay, 1994). Crime as capital A particularly worrying feature of organised crime (both locally and transnationally) is its ability to inWltrate the capital market or create sources of capital which are signiWcantly more open, accessible and attractive to marginal or criminal enterprise than are legitimate capital sources. Crime proWts as capital, standing as they do outside the tax and regulatory structures of government, not only tend to leach out consolidated revenue, but form an attractive lure for legitimate commerce to become tainted through Wnancial obligation to criminal enterprise. As in certain development scenarios (where national debts are prohibitive or political and commercial structures are corrupt and irresponsible), business or state organisations become marginalised from the world banking system, either through debt structures or protectionism. An

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attractive opportunity then exists for criminal enterprise to colonise such states or businesses by the oVer of capital. Action against money-laundering and the conWscation of proWts from criminal enterprise is only one way of avoiding such a trend. A wider economic strategy of restructuring and assistance must be contemplated by the world community which is neither constrained by burdensome conditions, nor so imperialist in its stance that independent states and enterprises Wnd crime money and crime trade more attractive (McRae, 1994). Crime in the world economy can only be combated when it becomes uncompetitive, and regulation or prohibition alone is not a suYciently sophisticated strategy to succeed. If policy-makers and Wnancial administrators were to realise the signiWcance of crime choice, particularly in vulnerable developing commercial contexts, they might be more willing to participate in regulating such choice as part of their conventional and ongoing economic strategies. Further, if crime is recognised as commercial choice, then the activities of legitimate market regulators which inXuence such choice may be enhanced to reduce, rather than require, such choice (see Findlay, 1994). Marginalisation as a consequence of responses to crime It is misleading to represent the connection between marginalisation and crime as uni-directional. It is not surprising to suggest that crime is more likely to arise out of contexts of social marginalisation than those where integrative and re-integrative bonds are strong. More controversial may be the assertion that crime itself, as a consequence of marginalisation, can also be a force to counter its alienating consequences. Crime does not exist long in any modern social context without generating reaction. Crime control strategies, at least in their preventive proWles, may be thought to precede certain crime situations and to be motivated by community apprehension about crime. However, even with crime prevention, the motivations behind such strategies are constructed out of contexts where crime is deemed to necessitate a response. And the response to crime contributes signiWcantly to cycles of marginalisation and crime choice. Marginalisation through selective law enforcement Law enforcement is a selective process. It relies for its operation on various stages of discretionary decision-making. These instances present opportunities for cultures of discrimination to prevail. Take, for example, the police and the manner in which they exercise their discretion. The

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literature on policing in a variety of cultures (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993) is replete with examples of where police discretion endorses and broadcasts a culture of racial discrimination, sexism, homophobia, ageism and the abuse of power. These are recurrent features of contexts of social marginalisation (Fitzgerald Inquiry, 1989). In many cultures the selectivity and discrimination inherent in the structures of criminal justice are institutionalised within the law itself. This then makes any resultant discrimination through the operation of criminal justice not only possible but apparently authorised. Criminalisation is a marginalising process. Add to this the fact that selective labelling can reXect a range of social and cultural discrimination, and the process of criminalisation itself may have a criminogenic potential beyond the obvious abuses of state power and authority (see Lemert, 1951). Criminal justice is an inherently discriminatory process. ‘The rich get rich, and the poor get prison’ is more than a catchy phrase. As much as crime cannot simply be a factor of race, class or poverty, the socioeconomic imbalance of criminal justice populations cannot be explained apart from the process of criminalisation. One only needs to observe that indigenous and aboriginal people are vastly overrepresented in imprisonment rates everywhere in the world to conWrm the implied discriminatory potential of criminal justice and criminalisation. It appears that criminalisation as a fundamental reXection of state authority will remain a potent inXuence on crime trends despite recent Xirtations with popular justice in certain jurisdictions. This may be explained by the fact that the criminal sanction is seen as a convenient and a cheap means of guaranteeing legislative mandates. In addition, the agencies of criminal justice are usually responsive to political direction. They present a useful means of denying or concealing the complexity and scope of social problems through the direct, selective and unconditional enforcement of the criminal sanction. While state involvement in, and responsibility for, a vast range of social need and economic provision has been rolled back through recent decades of economic and political rationalism in many nations, the same cannot be said of the state’s position within crime control. It may be true in some countries that agencies and institutions of criminal justice have suVered a reduction in resourcing like all areas of government. However, in most states this has been proportionately less than in other areas of government responsibility. In developing nations such as Papua New Guinea, relatively large budget allocations for the ‘law and order’ sector have been supplemented by aid donor funding in order to maintain the pre-eminence of that state function, while other important areas of government spending have been cut back. In addition, states rarely concede

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responsibility for law and order even if they invite the investment of the private sector into that area of responsibility. Perhaps it is the political conception that state authority rests heavily on its power to criminalise and punish that makes any retreat from criminal justice unattractive to any state (see Garland, 1996: 445). This is particularly so for those relying on fear and force to ensure community compliance. Yet even within benign state structures, criminalisation is retained as a state province, while control and penalty may pass on and diversify throughout community structures and commercial enterprise. Criminalisation remains a principal mechanism of state socialisation. Its political signiWcance, and the problems connected with ensuring its accountability, will remain profound, no matter what form of state is considered and what level of economic stabilisation prevails. Crime relationships in contexts of social marginalisation As noted earlier, social disorganisation, and the marginalisation which eventuates from it, are features of the social context of crime which theories of crime and deviance have nominated as signiWcantly determinist. Characteristics of social disorganisation such as poverty, urban environments in decay and juvenile delinquency are singled out as criminogenic. The social determination of crime is a complex pattern of connections. It is not enough to attempt to link individual indices of social dysfunction with particular crime forms as paths of inextricable causation. The temporal sequence issue alone confounds simple explanations such as ‘drug abuse causes crime’ (see Dobinson and Ward, 1985). What is necessary in order to establish the signiWcance of social dysfunction for crime and vice versa is to present a detailed explanation of criminality as actual behaviour in terms of socio-structural diVerentiation and determinism, both in model and practical terms. In this respect strategies for crime control, or for social re-integration, can be seen as having important interactive impacts at the levels of both theoretical explanation and policy change. As Durkheim observed: Although we set out primarily to study reality, it does not follow that we do not wish to improve it; we should judge our researches to have no worth at all if they were to have only a speculative interest. If we separate carefully the theoretical from the practical problems it is not to the neglect of the latter; but, on the contrary to be in a better position to solve them (as in Hester and Elgin, 1992: 6–7).

Just as elements of social disorganisation are ripe for policy intervention, so too those features of social disorganisation which are common to the context of crime, are a sensible place at which to locate prevention and control strategies. For instance, the regulation and control of youth gangs

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seems possible only if the strategy centres on the gang environment. Random raids by police on gang locations are distinctly unsuccessful as control practices when compared with regulation strategies, which operate recognising the needs and conditions of gang life. Whether it is the crime/control equation, or rather a consideration of the causal links suggested for crime in various contexts, there are popular expectations about the way crime relates to society. The concept of crime ‘relationships’ becomes crucial for any understanding of the dynamics of crime. Such relationships involve people (perpetrator and victim), institutions (crime and control agencies) and processes (criminal enterprise and market forces), as well as contexts (foreclosed opportunity structures and choice). Any convincing understanding of crime relationships at their various levels of interaction enables analysts as context permits to debunk oversimpliWcation in favour of a picture wherein crime is as dynamic a feature as are social bonds and distance. Crime and poverty Poverty in most social settings is an issue of social rather than individual pathology. Having said this, the poor are not some pathological manifestation of social ills but are a product of consistent and deeply rooted structural inequalities. In the modern city, for instance, these inequalities may focus on chronic unemployment and unemployability. In developing urban settings the focus might be more on educational deprivation or slum housing. Whatever the focus, such structural inequality highlights the marginalisation of the poor: ‘The poor are not so much marginal as marginalised within the productive process and the political system. Most studies clearly lead to the conclusion that very few of the poor ever escape their poverty, and the disappearance of poverty itself will require fundamental changes in the social order’ (Birbeck 1982: 162). Certain forms of crime have traditionally been the province of the poor and the disadvantaged (see Mayhew, 1862). This is especially so when particular forces of disadvantage such as discrimination and disability conspire to marginalise the oVender. Thus young female drug abusers who, due to a variety of social conditions which ensure that they are poor, make up a signiWcant population amongst street prostitutes in the modern city. Prison populations are overrepresented with the illiterate. But this observation does not, except in particular instances, conWrm a causal connection between crime and poverty. Rather, it suggests that contexts of poverty, which themselves arise out of speciWc social arrangements, are marginalised. Those poor who operate within such contexts will face marginalised opportunities and choices.

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Poverty does not conclusively cause theft. The number of poor people in all contexts who do not steal far outnumber those who do. What is inXuential in the poverty/crime connection is the signiWcance of theft as opportunity and the consequences of such choice. The importance of marginalisation as an inXuence over choice can help explain the crimes of the rich as well as the poor. Thus certain forms of credit fraud are only possible for those with access to credit facilities, while the embezzling of company proWts may occur to an accountant as his own occupational status and security within the company becomes marginalised. Therefore, not only opportunities for crime choice, but a lack of inhibition through inadequate structures of professional ethics, will account for crime here. Also, the absence of attractive compliance options may see deviance assume the place of compliance (see Fisse and Braithwaite, 1988). Thus, in the social context of wealth and poverty, the intersection and strata of economic disparity need to be viewed against marginalisation. For a more sophisticated understanding of the connection between crime and poverty one needs to inquire into who is committing particular types of crime within what context and out of which structures of opportunity. The same needs to be done for those in similar contexts taking non-crime choices. Only then can the particular social context of low-income criminals, and the place of poverty within it, prove instructive. In many jurisdictions, for instance, shop-lifting is largely a crime of choice for the female poor. Issues of opportunity, social role, structural responsibility and neutralisation will more adequately explain this phenomenon than some blanket reference to poverty or gender. In contrast, poverty is a limited social determinant in those crimes wherein both rich and poor participate (e.g. child abuse). An often overlooked dimension in the poverty/crime nexus is the role of crime in poor communities. As Birbeck (1982) reveals, it may be a complex question. While crimes of violence may be intra-class, and communities may have to protect themselves from predatory members, property crime plays something of a positive role in poor communities in that it may provide a source of cheap goods from higher income neighbourhoods for low income households, and the activities of criminals may bring other beneWts in relation to land, housing, services and security. In addition, the income of the criminal contributes to the maintenance of the local small scale economy which purveys drinks, food and often drugs and sex. Nevertheless such property crime is a double-edged sword (Birbeck, 1982: 189).

One thing clear for the poor criminal in a poor community is that crime rarely seems to provide a lasting course of upward social mobility. In fact,

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within certain social structures, the obligation to commit crime, or to share the proWts of theft, may make more rigid the accepted social hierarchy (see UNDP/ILO, 1993). The cultural determinants of poverty may be similar to those which constrain opportunities for crime and the full beneWt of its consequences. Delinquency and drift Matza (1964) suggested that the intervening variable between failure to integrate into an authorised status system and crime is ‘drift’. Thus a delinquent boy may exist within a limited social situation which allows, rather than requires, his participation in criminal activities: The delinquent is neither compelled nor committed to deeds nor freely choosing them; neither diVerent in any simple or fundamental sense from the law abiding, nor the same . . . He is committed neither to delinquent nor conventional enterprise . . . The delinquent transiently exists in a limbo between convention and crime, responding in turn to demands of each, Xirting now with one, now the other but postponing commitment, evading decision. Thus he drifts between criminal and conventional action (Matza, 1964: 28).

This drift in and out of delinquent behaviour is not simply a factor of age, although the powerlessness which is a dimension of failure in set status systems is more common for young people. Drift is heavily reliant on mechanisms of neutralisation which involve denial of responsibility for deviant acts; denial of injury caused by those acts; denial of a particular victim; condemnation of those who condemn; and appeals to higher loyalties. Features of social disorganisation may initiate or fuel this tendency to drift into delinquency, just as the onset of social responsibility or the adoption of particular forms of social obligation such as employment or family life, may draw individuals away from crime. Young, single, unemployed males are open to the temptations of crime choice in which they see the opportunity to replace poverty with material gain, powerlessness with prestige, alienation with status, and aimlessness with purpose in a delinquent sub-culture. The risks involved in crime choice (as well as the risk of making such choices in the Wrst place) increase and the beneWts held out through it become diminished when these individuals get a job, establish a family relationship, are reconciled within the wider community, or attain social status through education, community involvement or property ownership. Another insight available from an appreciation of crime relationships as drifting is that crime choices are not necessarily exclusive or exclusionary.

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As is the case with vandalism, illegitimate forms of public expression may be chosen to reXect certain pleasures and aspirations at certain stages of social development. This does not mean that the teenage vandal may not also participate in organised sport or other forms of legitimate creativity. Nor does it mean that the value structures and forms of expression espoused through vandalism are not similar to those of other styles of expression. In fact the ‘art’ in graYti, and the satisfaction which is generated through it, may easily equate with measures of legitimate ‘art’, at least in the eyes of the artist. Therefore, it is not a quantum leap from graYti to graphics, fraud to free-enterprise, and even murder to the military. Economic relationships in the costs of crime The social implications of crime have been talked about in terms of quantiWable ‘cost’ (see Chappell and Wilson, 1994). The currency in which such costs may be measured diVers relative to the location of the discourse on crime and the implications attributed to the harm caused. For example, when talking of juvenile crime, commentators not only refer to the ‘cost’ to the victim, but also the moral cost to the oVender and the community collectively. With so-called ‘victimless’ crime the social cost is often calculated with reference to those indirectly aVected by the oVender’s actions (e.g. partners, families, employers, care-givers). Within modernisation and economic rationalisation as important development paradigms, crime, like every other major social phenomenon, is called upon to be measured in material terms. Property crime, in particular, lends itself to costing in terms of the loss occasioned to victims. This Wgure might be sophisticated with the addition of insurance costs and the resources expended by criminal justice and civil recovery agencies in pursuing the theft. The assessment exercise is complicated through the inclusion of those costs which are either diYcult to designate or award monetary value. How does one measure the sense of violation experienced by the victim? How are the ancillary costs incurred to avoid further occasions of theft to be realistically measured? Another range of measurement open to cost evaluators of crime is the expense incurred in activating the criminal justice process. Points of measurement here might include: ( time taken by the legislature in debating and determining criminal law; ( administrative resources allocated to the creation of criminal justice

policy; ( cost incurred by police in investigating and prosecuting crime;

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( ( ( (

fees for prosecution and defence legal services; judge time and associated trial expenses; costs incurred in executing penalty; expenses involved in supplementing the oVender’s dependants’ welfare or in the re-integration of the oVender after punishment; ( victim’s compensation. The problems associated with this limited focus for evaluation is that it cannot embrace the costs created by the vast range of crimes which are not apprehended or do not come within the purview of the criminal justice process. OYcial audits of the ‘costs’ of crime usually concentrate on economic and human resource measures (see Walker, 1994). Despite the ‘rubbery’ nature of the Wgures on which such costings are estimated, they have in developed countries forced a reconsideration of social harm when it comes to particular styles of crime. In Australia, for instance: The major surprise, to most observers however, is the signiWcance of the costs of fraud, which even under the most conservative of estimates accounts for almost forty per cent of the total costs of crime . . . It also, to some extent, puts into perspective the relative costs of juvenile crimes, which, although very visible and numerous, pale into insigniWcance compared to the crimes which are clearly mostly committed by adults (e.g. homicides, frauds, and perhaps drug oVences) (Walker, 1994: 20).

Who bears the costs of crime? It is far too simple to say the victim or the community, or even society or public morality. Due to the complex nature of criminal responsibility and its consequences, any individual, community or institution touched by a crime relationship may identify some loss suVered or harm borne. How these are to be related, quantiWed and compensated goes well beyond questions of morals or money. At least some states, such as Australia, Great Britain and France, have recently accepted limited responsibility to compensate individual and community victims for the consequences of crime, and this is a development to be applauded, particularly when some of those social conditions which favour crime may be direct consequences of state development policies. It is diYcult to generalise convincingly on the process through which crime relationships evolve. No doubt there are common contextual environments and universal themes involving the transaction of power. But to identify milestones which are consistently met in the development and dynamics of crime relationships would in fact challenge the realisation that crime relationships are individual responses to particular situations.

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What we can say is this: (1) The original motor driving crime choice is marginalisation. (2) Crime choice is a signiWcant step towards the creation of multiple social networks. (3) Crime and crime relationships confront major sources of social power. (4) Such confrontations largely determine the means through which crime is organised and by which it relates to other interrelated institutional networks. (5) Crime choices promote relationships which tend towards institutionalisation. (6) Crime relationships generate interstitial networks of further social dynamism. (7) Where crime relationships are contextually integrative they stimulate globalisation. (8) Where the representation of crime and crime control is integrative it stimulates globalisation. Crime is about people pursuing their own goals. In some respects these involve the concentrated and coercive relationships of violence; in others the struggle is for the transcendence of ideology; still others are centralised and territorial or geopolitical – they are all social interactions towards the emergence of rival interpretations and the challenging of power networks. In the next chapter we will return to a consideration of crime in the context of globalisation, more particularly the economies of crime. In this regard economy is more a ‘circuit of praxis’ (Mann, 1986: 29) than a political aspiration or a cultural attainment.

5

Crime economies

Concern for the context of crime, particularly its Wnancial consequences, has stimulated speculation about the relationships between crime and enterprise, the organisational features of crime, and crime and market structures. With the emergence of ‘global economies’ and recent reXections on the capacity of modern industrialised societies to transform in the face of powerful political change, crime is receiving recognition as a signiWcant commercial determinant. Rapid technological change and associated explosions in communications media have led not only to an erosion of national economic boundaries but to a globalisation of market opportunities. Arguably crime is a feature of economic choice. The challenge facing global society is to advance socio-economic development in a manner which does not necessarily enhance crime. While wealth and prosperity remain in the hands of the few, and capital and resource disparity is rarely alleviated through development, crime will continue to exist within developing economies – as a consequence of such disparity, as well as a reaction to it. Disparity being a consistent feature of contemporary economies, crime and economy are thus inextricable. With crime’s potential to integrate marginalised elements within disparate economies, it exists as a selective force for globalisation. Here this selectivity relates to oscillating processes of empowerment and marginalisation which exist within the paradox of globalisation. Crime choices and relationships may also oscillate between contexts where marginalisation is exacerbated or reduced through empowering alternative opportunities. Many of these opportunities are economic in context and consequence. Selective integration and empowerment through crime choice as a potent inXuence in globalising economies is a focus for this chapter’s analysis. Why on the one hand crime and marginalisation are related, while crime also demonstrates an integrative economic capacity, will also be explored. Global economic interdependence presents signiWcant management problems for politicians and policy planners (see Gamble and Payne, 1993). Just as international treaties are becoming identiWed with such 138

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management initiatives, and crime is identiWed amongst the problems to be ‘managed’, so too the internationalisation of crime control is being promoted as a reaction to the assumed expansion of crime in a global economic context. ‘Control delivery’ is now a corresponding catch phrase when international crime problems are discussed. The economies of crime and crime control are now squarely within global political discourse. The transitional nature of modern economies is both a local and global reality. Therefore the discussion of crime in transition, and within contexts of transition, is advanced through considerations of the relationship between crime and economy and of ‘crime economies’. The principal organised-crime case-study which features later in this chapter shows how these considerations may be achieved. By merging the context of economy with crime in the present analysis it is intended to emphasise more than the Wnancial or utilitarian dimensions of crime, along with its commercial and market choice dimensions. The connotation of economy for crime denotes the interrelatedness of crime with other material and capital forms. The ‘economy’ image emphasises what Vagg identiWes as linkage (1993: 545): the ways in which apparently diVerent issues turn out in practice to be so closely related that it makes little explanatory sense to disentangle them. In some respects this is what contextual analysis makes possible – the disentangling as well as the repositioning. Crime as economy, crime in economy and crime economies each suggest linkages from where particular understandings of the material, market and commercial dimensions of crime may be disengaged. The disentangling as well as the repositioning of such linkages will be attempted in this chapter. An example of this linkage between economy and crime is what Smith sees as the inextricable connection between crime and business (1980). Through the application of economy models for crime, various forms of enterprise can be examined in a more sophisticated manner than the simple legitimate/illegitimate dichotomy. Enterprise may be positioned somewhere along a spectrum between legal and criminal, so the Xuctuations of legitimate and illegitimate business appear as ambiguous and as Xuid as in practice they often are. Therefore, simple dichotomies between legitimate and illegitimate commercial practice no longer need limit or confuse an understanding of where criminal choices exist and operate within the context of enterprise.

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Crime and economy Crime and market models A useful introduction into crime economies which avoids a reliance on complex economic theory is to consider crime relationships within model markets. Such an analysis complements our interest in globalisation by reXecting the dominant inXuence in contemporary economic restructuring in a post-communist world. In addition, it is consistent with simplistic representations of crime as proWt, marked by greed and self-interest. Market models of economic development are even more appropriate to the contextual study of crime, in that many of the rational choice assumptions which underpin such market models also appear in traditional, as well as more recent, explanations of crime (see Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). With choice being an essential component of market economics, and also for theories of crime as opportunity, limitations of choice, whether through structures and institutions of crime control or market regulation, will inXuence the analysis of crime and economy from a market perspective. For example, a crime choice may be to advance a commercial interest through relationships of corruption. Market regulation and crime control designed to thwart corruption may defeat certain corruption relationships, while at the same time creating market conditions in which other relationships of corruption may Xourish (see Findlay, 1994). Crime as economy emphasises the need to view crime as a process of interconnected relationships working towards the maximisation of proWt. This occurs within a context of set power structures and social constraints. As with other proWt ‘maximisers’, crime is dependent on market conditions such as competition. This is particularly so when it comes to the application of criminal enterprise within situations of opportunity. At least for crime and crime relationships (as structures and conditions of proWt), crime control may be viewed both as directed against market conditions and against criminal behaviours and crime relationships. To a certain extent, the interaction which is crime and economy substantiates Reiner’s fourfold framework for an analytical understanding of crime (see Morrison, 1995: 22): (a) as a legal category – where labels such as ‘legal’, ‘legitimate’ and ‘deviant’ delimit certain aspects of economic activity as being criminal; (b) as a motive – whereby a particular behaviour or relationship which has been labelled criminal is the preferred economic choice; (c) as an opportunity – wherein this choice is invited usually as a result of certain constrained or directed market conditions; and

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(d) as an absence of control – again in a market sense where internalised controls such as business ‘ethics’ or commercial ‘conscience’ are either compromised or re-interpreted, and where external or situational regulators make the crime choice both economically sensible and commercially proWtable.

Morrison suggests that by adopting an interactive analysis, such as with crime and economy, we must not separate ourselves from ‘meta theory of modern life and its problems – we must locate the domain of our study within modern life and its problems’ (Morrison, 1995: 22). Essential to such a meta theory of modern life, and perhaps one of its most signiWcant modern problems, are the material, Wnancial and opportunal disparities which emerge out of economic development. The position of crime in addressing such disparities itself presents problems for economic development, and may well emerge as a feature of it. Commercial enterprise as a way out of material and economic disadvantage is inherent within development and modernisation paradigms. Whether the market within which it emerges and Xourishes is legitimate or illegitimate does not take away from the shared economic aspirations for such enterprise, irrespective of the way in which they are achieved. Crime and enterprise Business enterprise is a distinguishing feature of modern economic life. Enterprise and the organisational structures which support it have recently become signiWcant for the economic context of contemporary crime relationships. The study of criminal enterprise, particularly within transitional market economies, whereby the connection between crime and economy is activated, is important. The principal motivation for criminal enterprise is proWt. ProWt through criminal enterprise is realised under speciWc market conditions. A market is a framework of commercial relationships and crime can form just one such relationship. Certain forms of criminal enterprise develop and Xourish under speciWc market conditions. For example, illicit drugtraYcking requires organised business arrangements which can operate within a highly regulated, monopolistic market relationship. Criminal enterprise relies on market conditions which may be regulated so as to diminish the viability of the enterprise for certain participants. Such regulation, however, diVers from that inXuencing legitimate business enterprise (e.g., the proWts of criminal enterprise, while not available for taxation, may be conWscated on identiWcation). While the regulation of criminal enterprise is largely set apart from that which inXuences legitimate commerce, the consequences of both forms of regulation may be

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similar. This is instanced where there is a contraction in market players, increased market risk, increased governmental participation in the market, and pressures for deregulation. Traditionally, criminal enterprise is regulated and controlled through the criminal sanction. While directed against individuals and behaviour, the criminal sanction, and more particularly law-enforcement practices, may also inXuence market conditions. For example, the selective prohibition of drugs determines issues of distribution, product purity and ‘street price’ in an atmosphere of absolute or inelastic demand. Where criminal sanctions do not result in the total prohibition of a criminal enterprise, such sanctions will add to the market regulation of those criminal enterprises which remain. Continuing the example: where the law generally prohibits trade in a particular drug, but law enforcement concentrates on the lower end of the distribution chain, small-time drug dealers are squeezed out of the market to the beneWt of the betterorganised and capital-resourced traders. Crime control and enterprise EVorts at controlling criminal enterprise need to recognise their consequent eVect on market regulation, and speciWcally on opportunities for criminal enterprise (see Findlay, 1993). Controlling criminal enterprise involves the eVective closure of proWt opportunities for some, which in particular supply and demand environments may mean an expansion and diversiWcation of market share for others. For instance, police activity against street prostitution may make the more unobtrusive environment of the brothel more attractive to the client and to law-enforcement policy-makers. Market regulation may create new opportunities for proWtable enterprise. The regulation of any enterprise (and the control of crime in particular) by adjusting market conditions can generate new criminal opportunities. In this way, through the development of specialised policing institutions and methods directed against lucrative drug-traYcking, the invitation to corrupt conduct within police organisations becomes focused. The potency of the corruption relationships which arise may alter the market situation of drug-traYcking, wherein the law enforcers themselves may move into the chain of supply. For the control of criminal enterprise to be maximised, strategies should be directed against its proWtable market conditions. As suggested earlier, these conditions are not simply the province of suppliers and direct market players, but may even include forms of criminal sanction and the nature of selective law-enforcement practice. For instance, if

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policing initiatives work against one drug market they may increase the proWtability and market attractiveness of other drug products traded through similar networks. While the organisational structure of criminal enterprise is important for an understanding of the place of the enterprise within the market, the location of the enterprise as a market entity (rather than its structure) provides the most eVective focus for crime control initiatives. In this regard, it is useful to view drug-traYcking as the current enterprise of choice within certain market structures for criminal syndicates or organisations. If the intention of the control agency is to destroy the traYc in drugs, then it will be more eVective to move against its market proWtability rather than the structure or personnel of the criminal organisation involved. Other organisations will simply take over where ever the vast proWt incentive remains. Crime and structures of enterprise Organised crime and corruption as commercial phenomena go beyond markets which centre on crime. Wherever proWt opportunities exist under regulated conditions which favour restricted access to proWt opportunities, and where the accountability of regulators is limited or highly conditional, criminal enterprise, because of its structure, will have a competitive edge over legitimate business because it is not bound by the legitimate regulations of the market. EVective control strategies should work at neutralising the relationships and conditions which make corruption and criminal enterprise commercially viable. Corruption relationships Corruption is a relationship of power and inXuence existing within, and taking its form from, speciWc environments of opportunity. Opportunity is in turn designated by the aspirations for such a relationship, and structures and processes at work towards its regulation. Opportunities for corruption, and market opportunities advanced through corrupt relationships, are essentially dependent on the market context of illicit enterprise. Police corruption, for instance, usually takes the form of bribing individual oYcers with money or favours so that their enforcement activities might favour a particular criminal enterprise. Because the exercise of police discretion is often on a ‘one-to-one’ level, and it is often away from public view, the beneWts resulting from the bribery of individual oYcers may be considerable. Such contexts are deWned by frameworks of regulation, and corruption control mechanisms are important within these (Findlay, 1993).

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Relationships of corruption provide important market conditions for the proWtability of criminal enterprise. EVective crime control directed against corruption should attack the relationship (bribery), the participants in the relationship (personalities and corporations), the structures of the relationship (secrecy, discretion and authority), and the proWt produced through the relationship. Organised criminal enterprise forges, and relies on, corrupt relationships within the mechanisms which regulate the market. These mechanisms include government and the agencies of criminal justice. In order to attack this connection between organised crime and corruption (as well as corruption and legitimate business), it is essential to change the dimensions of the market so that a corrupt relationship is no longer a proWtable commercial choice. ProWt structures need to be undermined, and in order to achieve this the nature and form of market regulation must move away from monopolistic supply and inelastic demand situations. Repression alone will not remove corruption as a commercial option within a market structure. Deterrent and preventive strategies must be supported by codes of conduct, administrative review and civic involvement as market conditions (see Findlay and Stewart, 1991). Also the rewards for participating in legitimate public oYce and private enterprise should never drift so far away from the potential proWts of crime as to make resistance to the latter almost impossible, or at least commercially foolish. Crime networking Throughout their careers, criminals involved in crime as work, and who participate in organised criminal enterprises, establish contacts and associate regularly with other career criminals. In particular, this ‘networking’ takes place in prison – hence the popular aphorism ‘academies of crime’. These associations and the support received from them are provided by the very nature of organised crime. The crime syndicate which is organised to maintain a large criminal enterprise for the co-ordination and control of the provision of goods and services depends on the association of persons making similar ‘crime choices’. They may drift in and out of crime contexts, as required for the achievement of their enterprise. In this regard, crime networks span conventional distinctions between legitimate or illegitimate government, business and associations. Obviously, as with diVerential association theory, particular forms of criminal enterprise rely on networking more heavily than others. Recently, control theory (which sees crime as a consequence of weak control structures) has promoted the view that if this process of networking can be reversed (or neutralised), at least when it comes to the formulation

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and development of an individual’s criminal career, then crime will diminish. Such reversal or neutralisation might arise out of social reconstruction policies towards higher employment, a more equitable share of material wealth, or a strengthening of family ties. A problem with this view is the very structuralist assumptions regarding association and the nature of criminal motivation on which it rests. The immediate community is invited to act as social engineers where crime will be reduced incrementally with investments in conventional forms of socialisation. Were this so simple then politicians might have had an answer to crime long ago. More recently, the early intervention proponents have argued that a signiWcant approach to reducing entry into crime by young people from ‘risk groups’ is to work on their positive socialisation as children. This too inverts diVerential association theory, but misses the necessary connection with opportunity theory. Arguably, social networking can eventually be restructured away from crime, but only temporarily if legitimate opportunities remain constrained and the network revolves around a primary proWt motive. Where strong networks of communication and association already exist, and crime can inWltrate or operate through these, the signiWcance of networking is magniWed. The utilisation of state structures for criminal enterprise is just such a situation. Crime and state sponsorship There is considerable debate in criminology surrounding the issue of state responsibility for crime (see Chambliss, 1984). Whether the state can be considered to sponsor crime through its selective control strategies, or more directly by favouring forms of criminal enterprise, is also contentious. Before considering the opportunities for crime choices created through selective enforcement, it is useful to discuss the role of the state in maintaining ‘boundaries of permission’ within which a wide range of enterprises can Xourish. In market analysis, the market is a general ‘structure of permission’. What is implied by this concept is some structured ‘space’ within which behaviours, connections and consequences are either expressly or implicitly allowed and particular conditions for relationships fostered. It is a dynamic state where conditions vary within the perimeters of tolerance. The transaction of capital is an underlying and non-negotiable condition of the market. Mechanisms of accountability such as complaints tribunals, judicial review, consumer protection, trade practices bodies and parliamentary review procedures (usually established or managed by the state) connect

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with structures of permission in two principal ways. First, they form an important part of the perimeters of tolerance (the range within which certain behaviours will be accepted by a community). Requirements for accountability limit the nature and progress of market relationships like any other market condition, and may require the establishment and operation of structures of responsibility. Second, accountability can become a positive link between opportunity, market relationships, and their methods of regulation. For example, where a monopolised market creates the opportunity for a particular enterprise, and the enterprise is traditionally covert, corrupt relationships may arise to service the relationship. The state may be a key player in these relationships as well as maintaining the regulatory framework that permits and stimulates them. If the methods employed to regulate the enterprise rely on stages of accountability or identiWable and reviewable reporting occasions, then these have the potential to alter the conditions of the enterprise and its reliance on corruption. In any case, the state can be seen as a sponsor of the context, conditions and enterprise itself through the manner in which state regulation permits it to operate. While the connection between crime and economy can be established and analysed through an exploration of crime within market forms and structures, the most eVective way of viewing crime economies is through case-study. The archetypal crime economy is the organised crime ‘family’, and its image is the MaWa. In what follows the representations of the MaWa are deconstructed, as are its relationships with control agencies and the state, to reveal crime economies as enterprise, rather than romance. Crime economies So far the distinction between crime and economy and crime economies might be drawn between structure and process. Traditionally, when considered along with economy, crime is talked of as an illegitimate component part. In this way the ‘economic’ propensity of crime can be overlooked. Enterprise theory, which has been successfully turned towards understanding organised crime, de-emphasises considerations of form and structure in favour of process and outcome. Greater emphasis on these will re-orient much of the popular moral panic generated by mythologies such as the MaWa. As with most of the other contexts we have considered so far, the existence of crime economies cannot be separated from their representation, and nor can the control strategies directed against them. The representation of the social threat posed by crime economies has generated a symbiotic relationship with political reaction, which through its

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discourse has tended to universalise crime economies and at the same time distance them from the state. This will be tested in the following case-study. In popular crime culture two interconnected images are paramount: the crime ‘family’ and organised crime. In many respects these crime scenarios have created a demonology and a romance replete with racist and class overtones. The economic reality of crime ‘family’ structures and crime organisation has been largely overlooked within the mythology of organised crime. Taking the mystique of the MaWa as a case-study, the reasons behind this obfuscation process become apparent. Mystifying the ‘MaWa’ ‘MaWa is not an enemy which is outside the state and the institutions: on the contrary, it penetrates and permeates them . . . MaWa is not a hidden power despite the ostrich-like use which is made of the word. MaWa is manifest power’ (dalla Chiesa, 1984: 70). Until the 1970s (at least in the USA) the MaWa was perceived by researchers, the media and the public as a conspiracy of national crime syndicates. That ‘syndicate’ (in the American context) most frequently visited and represented comprised a largely invisible and omnipotent government of desperate expatriate Italians monopolising almost every organised operation of the underworld: ‘The Kefauver Committee hearings of 1950–51, the Appalachian meeting of underworld Wgures in 1957, the McClellan Committee hearings of 1958, the Valachi papers, Mario Puzo’s ‘‘The Godfather’’, and the Report of the United States President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice (1967), powerfully reinforced those beliefs’ (Doleschal et al., 1981: 1). In Theft of a Nation (1969), Cressey argues for the reality of such a conspiracy theory of the MaWa syndicate, and its essentially ‘family’focused institutional structure. Alan Block (1978), in a detailed analysis of the origins of Cressey’s thesis, identiWes as the source of its structural representation of the US MaWa the somewhat hazy recollections of Joseph Valachi. By the time Valachi elaborated on his limited local experiences as a New York mobster, the populist media, and even serious writers, were ready to universalise his experience to national proportions. The organisational dimensions of the MaWa, and the all-pervasive social threat which it posed, were fast becoming ‘fact’ in the mythology of organised crime. ‘Thus the myth of the ‘‘Godfather’’ was born, striking all as real because it conformed so perfectly to everyone’s fantasy’ (Doleschal et al., 1981: 2). Like the almost continuous parliamentary inquiries in Italy since uniWcation, the representation of the MaWa menace in the US had speciWc

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political origins. Moore (1974) describes how the activities of the Kefauver Crime Committee dominated the headlines in 1950–51 and swayed both professional and popular opinion toward an interpretation that major aspects of organised criminal activity were controlled and administered by a nation-wide conspiracy. The language and direction of the committee’s operations helped establish its chairman, in the public view of the day, as a symbol of bold, non-partisan action for controlling organised crime. Kefauver sought to exploit community concern about organised crime, fermented by print journalists and anti-gambling forces, in order to identify himself with a popular cause and promote the ideological purity of the political interests which he represented. The committee itself did little in the way of independent investigation, but merely dramatised the views of citizens’ crimes commissions, journalists and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, each of which had a vested interest in a simple MaWa stereotype. Investigative and enforcement interests were comfortable with ‘comic strip’ villains to Wght and expose. Any failure to destroy the ‘mob’ could similarly be explained against a background of secret societies, codes of silence and brotherhoods of crime. Moore establishes that although there was some evidence that organised crime Wgures from major cities occasionally conferred and invested jointly, the committee tended to exaggerate the degree of centralised planning within the underworld, and misread its own evidence in Wnding a cohesive national conspiracy. Moore distinguishes two interpretations of organised crime in the US; one socio-economic, one conspiratorial. The latter was signiWcantly and eVectively promoted by Kefauver. In so doing the committee ignored the sociological literature on which the former perspective relied. Moore observes that the Kefauver Committee’s evidence did not support its conclusions: ‘Its work was a study in misdirection, the strengthening of old myths that should have been laid to rest. The real failure of the Committee, however, was not so much its conclusions but its hesitancy, for essentially political reasons, to consider opposing judgements or signiWcant alternative interpretations of the nature of organised crime’ (ibid.: 280). More recent critical writing on the MaWa has turned its attention to the reality and the mystique of this phenomenon. While not arguing away the existence of certain criminals of Italian ancestry with a strong sense of kinship and a heritage of defying authority, it has been the images of the Godfather ruling over international networks of organised crime which have been called into question. Such images of the MaWa are not the product of historical accident. As Smith (1975) indicates, the ‘MaWa’ has staked out an enormous claim on the American public’s attention, a

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public appetite which in turn has been abundantly accommodated by congressional committee hearings, the press, popular Wction, the movies and so on. Law-enforcement agencies, in America in particular, continue their investment in such claims. For example, the US Department of Justice, in its recently published national strategy, Attacking Organised Crime (1991), identiWes, from information supplied by its ninety-four judicial districts, La Cosa Nostra as its most serious crime problem (ibid.: 5). The organised crime strategic plan of the New Jersey District elaborates on this: [I]n the universe of organised criminal groups, the racketeering activities of the LCN [La Cosa Nostra] are the most protracted and sustained, the most impacted and entrenched, the most expansive and proWtable, the most corrosive and deleterious to legitimate sectors of society, the most insinuating and subversive to government, the most resistant to enforcement eVorts generally, and the most resilient in the aftermath of any single enforcement eVort (ibid.: 7).

But why the creation of this mystique? Smith sees the explanation as resting with the community’s preferred perception of organised crime and the state’s justiWcation for its control. The MaWa fantasy supports the community’s need for a distinction between the ‘real criminals’ and the rest of society (see Box, 1983). Such a distinction was shaped into a series of Wrm expectations about MaWa-style organised crime. By simplifying and generalising organised crime under the guise of this MaWa mystique, the true complexity and all-pervasive inXuence of capitalised criminal activity at all levels of American commercial and economic life is obfuscated.… For Smith, the MaWa image was produced through a mixture of real events and media reporting. Promoters of this image needed to create super-criminals to account for the state’s failure to control the criminal activity such persons were said to organise, and to justify further expansion of the crime control mechanism to achieve future success. Indicative of the rationalism which characterised writings on the MaWa in the 1970s, Smith concludes that so long as we imagine exotic enemies in our midst we are never going to understand the actual social signiWcance of organised crime which such villains are said to monopolise. Smith’s attitude towards the social relevance of the MaWa mystique, consistent with a more realistic deWnition of organised crime, depends on a broad re-evaluation of community priorities. It is his view that organised … The demonisation of organised crime has more recently been qualiWed by an ‘anti-hero’ interest in the MaWa lifestyle. This is complemented by the ‘rogue cop’ and his individualised, rough-justice response to organised crime. In this context what might have been demonised by state agencies has become romanticised by a popular culture disillusioned with conventional law-and-order interpretations.

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crime is the product of forces that threaten values, not the cause of them. If society countenances violence, considers personal gain to be more important than equity, and is willing to bend the law in the pursuit of wealth, power and personal gratiWcation, then society itself will always be receptive to illicit enterprise, whether condoned, ignored or condemned. Such enterprise will become a reality whenever groups of people are willing to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities that entail selective law enforcement, violence or corruption in pursuit of their own wealth and power. Even the processes and institutions designed to regulate or eradicate syndicated crime and corruption may go to create an environment which will eventually facilitate their development (see Findlay, 1990). The new theses about the nature of organised crime and the MaWa role within it argue that for as long as organised crime is understood as an alien conspiracy dominated by ethnic groups its operational existence will remain mystiWed: ‘The old conspiracy theory fails to quash the ‘‘symbolic’’ relationship among the reciprocal services performed by professional criminals, customers, politicians and business men in most organised crime activities’ (Doleschal et al., 1981: 4). Constructing the reality of the MaWa in Italy American organised crime is the product of deep contradictions in American culture and commerce which are analogous to the conditions responsible for the emergence and endurance of the MaWa in Sicilian history. In this respect, a full understanding of the culturally speciWc historical reality of the MaWosi should preface any attempt to engage in its control (Block, 1980). It is important to be aware that, unlike the deWnitional debate in the US regarding what can be accurately referred to as MaWa, the reality of the MaWosi in Sicily is uncontested (Arlacchi, 1988). Even so this is not to imply that in Sicily the term ‘MaWa’ is not problematic: The phenomenon has always been too complex and elusive to be entirely closed within the limits of any theoretical scheme. The MaWa is notoriously two things, one of which, common to all Sicily, a subtle art of promoting one’s interests without killing anybody, should be written with a lower-case M; the other – the MaWa with the capital M, the Xuid organisation, the secret, far reaching elite which governs everything legal and illegal, visible and invisible, is to be found exclusively in the Western provinces of the island. The two MaWa are absolutely related. Surely one could be maWoso without being MaWoso, but a real MaWoso cannot acquire prestige and authority, and rise in the hierarchy of the organisation, without being at the same time, thoroughly maWoso (Barzini, 1971: 326).

While putting forward this explanation of the MaWa in Sicily, Barzini emphasises that, particularly where family status and respect within the

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community are concerned, the borderline between the two notions of MaWa is blurred ‘between a code of primitive behaviour and a criminal conspiracy. There is a point where a man becomes powerful enough to command the loyalty of thieves and killers and to live entirely without the law, obeying only his own primitive idea of justice. He is a MaWa leader’ (ibid.: 328). As with any historically based deWnition of a social phenomenon, there is a danger that its relevance will become outmoded as the society within which it originated develops and transforms. After discussing the unique origins of the Sicilian MaWa, Barzini observes that the old peasant MaWa is disappearing. One of the great qualities of the MaWa organisation is its adaptability. There is now a well-dressed, well-travelled, well-educated, slick, middle-class MaWa which knows how to ‘muscle in on big legitimate business deals, organise protective societies, and rake in billions of lire in cuts and kickbacks. Many of them, the best and the most powerful, have no visible connection with the MaWa, their legal past is without blemish’ (ibid.: 333). In his work The MaWa of a Sicilian Village, 1860–1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs (1974), Blok deals with the question of organisation. He emphasises the control characteristic of the Sicilian MaWa being the private use of unlicensed violence as a means of control in the public arena. Although real people use the violence, and some people are fulltime specialists in violent action, Sicily has never had any single organisation called the MaWa. As is the case with the American underworld syndicate, Blok argues that the image of the MaWa super-gang is a simplifying Wction, invented by journalists and oYcials charged with eliminating lawlessness. On the other hand there are real MaWosi, men wielding power through the systematic use of private violence, the sum of whose actions makes up the phenomenon called the MaWa. Developing this theme, Blok emphasises that the MaWosi are not simply the product of peculiarities of the Sicilian character. Rather they depend on a peculiar set of economic and political arrangements. In these terms, the problem posed for social control, whether through the use of the criminal sanction or otherwise, is not simply one of identifying the MaWosi or, in a more universal sense, the personalities of organised crime. It is to locate the connections between the prevalence of private violence and the structure of economic and political life which construct the need for such violence. Unfortunately such an exercise is alien to a Western notion of the objectives of the criminal justice system, aimed as it is at apportioning guilt and responsibility to an individual rather than to a structure of social operations. Hence the obsession with the Wgures of the MaWosi is exaggerated through the application of the criminal sanction.

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Like Barzini, Blok agrees that the MaWosi are in no way the residue of a lawless past. They are an outgrowth of the particular process of state formation in Italy, presumably from the expansion of national systems of power which failed to subsume and obliterate local quasi-feudal systems of power. For long periods of time, various central governments in Italy were forced to work with the rural landlords and the MaWosi whom they helped to create and patronise. The central government was continually compromised by the forces of traditional corruption and partisanship. What occurred in Sicily were in fact standard state-building processes: consolidation of control over the use of force, elimination of rivals, formation of coalitions, extensions of protection, and routine extraction of resources. If one network of MaWosi had been able to extend its control over all of Sicily, its actions would have become public instead of private, the national government would have had to deal with it, and insiders and outsiders alike would have begun to treat its chief as the legitimate authority. With the development of diVerentiated and centralised instruments of control, it would have become a state. The diYculty is that Sicily has many such proto-states. Sicily’s problem is not a shortage, but a surfeit, of government (ibid.).

Servadio, in his history of the MaWa in Sicily (1976), deals with the representation of the MaWa as a secret society. Were it a secret society, he suggests that it would have been defunct long ago. The MaWa in Sicily is far from secret. In fact it is a system of life and a living system which has developed and changed during the course of Sicilian history as an intricate network of social and economic attitudes and associations. The MaWosi may not be lying when they say that the MaWa is not an organisation to be exposed and defeated. The MaWa is ubiquitous – a state of mind, a system of thought and action. The MaWosi represent and pursue that way of life with very similar objectives to successful entrepreneurs and capitalists. Operating as an anti-social broker of power at whatever levels have been available, the MaWa has proved so successful and so Xexible that successive generations in Sicily have found it diYcult to recognise the continuity of the tradition. From such an analysis it would seem illogical to talk about eradicating the MaWa in Sicily. Both as an organisation and ethic of government, it has become an integral character within the operation of most social structures in Sicily, being tolerated by the political, legal and economic powers of the island. Objectifying the MaWa as a uniWed criminal threat The Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry on the Phenomenon of the MaWa in Sicily were established in 1962. The inquiry was not the Wrst in Italian history. As early as 1867, only six years after uniWcation and seven years after the expulsion of the Bourbons by Garibaldi, the Chamber of

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Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy established an investigation into an insurrection which took place in Palermo. Associated with this, the ‘common criminality in a population not yet accustomed to liberal institutions’ (Vassalli, 1974: 599) was observed. The second parliamentary inquiry ‘on the social/economic conditions of Sicily’ came closer to the problems of MaWa activities. It was established in legislation which also created exceptional measures for public safety aimed at combating what was called the ‘manutengolismo’ (the abetting of crimes through a conspiracy of silence – omerta`). Despite some useful accumulation of information on the MaWa, the inquiry allowed its conclusions to be inXuenced by those who saw the MaWa phenomenon ‘as a ‘‘moral disease’’ for which no other remedy was recognised than to inspire a ‘‘salutary’’ terror through repressive and police measure’ (ibid.: 600). The resultant ‘measures’ were often applied indiscriminately to people, even including very young children, who did not deserve punishment or police action. They were also turned against socialists and revolutionaries who had no connection with the MaWa. A third parliamentary inquiry between 1907 and 1910 examined ‘the conditions of the peasants in the Southern provinces of Sicily’. This inquiry inclined to the view that organised crime and the MaWa in Sicily grew out of the wider social conditions of the peasantry in whose ground the exploitative activities of the MaWosi took root. From this analysis the inquiry exposed the ineVectiveness of a control policy based on pure repression through the creation of special laws. Since World War II the various MaWa commissions have represented the problem of the MaWa, if not its resolution, within the traditional parameters of criminality. However, there has been an attempt to recognise a ‘power’ analysis of the MaWa, even if politicians are obviously unwilling to accept the consequences of such analysis. In spring 1972 the then convened parliamentary ‘anti-MaWa’ commission was compelled to draw the conclusion that: With its extraordinary adaptability, the MaWa has always known how to survive and prosper even in settings diVerent from that in which it originated, and it has been able to do this to the extent that it has continually represented itself as an exercise of autonomous extra legal power and has sought a close connection with all forms of power and in particular with public power, in order to draw near to it, utilise it for MaWa purposes or interpenetrate its very structures (As quoted in ibid.: 619).

It would be far less politically palatable for the state to ground its crime control strategy against organised crime within such a framework which recognises the MaWa/politics link than simply to accept a broad sociocultural analysis of the MaWa and its origins. To avoid the complexity

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(and ideological dilemmas) posed by either approach, the Italian state has endorsed an oYcial account of the MaWa as a pernicious criminal conspiracy which represents a blight on the nation’s honour. The principals of such an organisation become the proper objects of the state-centred control mechanism. In this account, the state Wnds support from the professional agencies of criminal justice, in whose interest it is that the exercise of the criminal sanction is nominated as the state’s principal legitimate response to any such social menace.  The methods law-enforcement oYcials use to produce knowledge about organised crime are shaped to no small extent by the particular and organisational interests of these law-enforcement specialists. Therefore, in the case of the police, it serves their operational interests to have the ‘enemy’ represented and identiWed in criminogenic and stereotypical form. Their investigative practices will endorse such a model and mould the deWnition of their crime control object to Wt the needs and requirements of the organisation whose task it is to control it. The dilemma arising out of an examination by politicians of the relationship between the MaWa and politics was more fundamental than that faced when recommending procedures for control. It went to the core of the distinction between a MaWa conspiracy and public/political corruption and corruptibility. The Parliamentary Commission often found itself asking if certain abuses, certain irregularities or certain unscrupulous modes of conduct on the part of public administrators, from whom MaWa members had drawn proWt, were the product of MaWa pressure or collusion; or rather were evidence of a more general decline in administrative morality (from which a large part of Italy suVers in many local administrations). The state, faced with such questions, relied on the Commission’s inability to be deWnitive, and preferred to locate the state’s disapproval on the MaWa rather than the more universal opportunities for corruption within the bureaucracy itself. When describing the self-generating and often moribund administrative morass which was a pervasive and on-going feature of Sicilian government, Vassalli observes: Here also it is diYcult to see if the meddling of speculators, ‘arrivistes’ and proWteers from public funds is linked to the MaWa or is an autonomous form in common with general opportunism and laxity. In this respect it is not out of place to note that the MaWa is a phenomenon characteristic of and exclusive to capitalist society, or that society which at least in certain sectors preserves the principles or institutions of the so-called mixed economy and of capitalist economy. It is clear,   As Kelly observes in his article ‘Organised Crime: A Study in the Production of Knowledge by Law Enforcement Specialists’ (1978), organised crime (as with the MaWa) is protean in character.

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in fact, that in a state with an exclusively socialist economy, in which land has been collectivised, in which it is not possible for real property to exist beyond certain minimal limits, and in which production, distribution and the market are entrusted exclusively to the state, a MaWa organisation would not even have the opportunity of birth, and in any case would soon be discovered and exposed. The MaWa is one of those purely parasitical forms of life that, as far as is known, have no chance of success in countries with a rigidly communist economic structure (ibid.: 607).

However, it was not the intersection between criminal and legitimate power structures on which the state chose to publicise its representation of the MaWa as an immediate social threat. The MaWa and politics – the Italian experience In her detailed tracing of recent events and personalities in southern Italy, each of which evidences the complex and deep connections between organised crime and Italian politics, Alison Jamieson uses the term ‘polimaWa’ to describe the shared interests and mechanisms for preservation essential in certain styles of politics and crime. Rather than examining the politics of the MaWa, which itself is another exercise in mystifying the organisational existence of particular crime syndicates, Jamieson draws attention to the nefarious networks of patronage which operate beneath the facade of good government pitted against corrupt ‘government’. The growth of the MaWa in Italy is organically linked to a degeneration in the exercise of political power. Such decay only takes place as a result of political oversight or compliance, or both. The decline of ethics in Italian politics has created a vacuum into which criminality has extended its inXuence, if not always its presence. More organised crime is the eVect, not the cause, of this decline (Jamieson, 1990: 28).

Just as Blok attributes the emergence of the Sicilian MaWa to ‘the outgrowth of the particular process that state formation took in Italy’ (Blok, 1974), Jamieson emphasises the interdependence of crime and institutions of government in post-war Italy. The indulgence of the occupying allied powers created a situation where MaWa and political power virtually coincided. After the restoration of democracy, Cosa Nostra used its capillary powers to control voting patterns and so became of use to local and national government. In return, MaWa-linked companies were granted building licences and privileged treatment in competing for public works tenders, obtaining favourable banking terms, and other economic beneWts (Jamieson, 1990: 20).

Therefore, the proliferation of MaWa inXuence and aZuence was not merely as a natural consequence of a freer market economy, or the

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liberality of democratic government. On the contrary, the MaWa and conservative political organisations have been able to construct a regulated environment within which commercial advantage and political power has remained in the hands of the few. Some commentators have emphasised the similarities which exist in the society of the powerful within Italy, between legitimate and ‘counter’ governments (see Hess, 1973; Blok, 1974). Jamieson interestingly identiWes the processes of isolation and ‘clandestinisation’, which might be viewed as antipathetic to good government, as being essential to the political marriage at the heart of MaWa ‘government’: ‘The clandestinisation of power, or the use of public power for private ends, has created a kind of ‘‘polimaWa’’ in which politics, criminality and business have been assimilated into opportunistic cross-party alliances. These transversal structures do not represent ideologies, but federations of interest groups that succeed in eluding democratic responsibility’ (Jamieson, 1990: 28). There exist at least two levels of isolationist imperatives which are important in the political persona of the MaWa. The more apparent is victim isolation, in which critiques or opponents are denigrated, or ‘eliminated’ with the assistance of compliant political institutions. James Walston discusses in some detail the interconnection between the Sicilian MaWa and political institutions in a variety of diVerent contexts (1987: 21–9): Two aspects of the relationship between MaWa and politics over the last decade or so merit attention: the Wrst is the naming of MaWa politicians and their occasional prosecution, while the second is the murder of senior judges, politicians, government oYcials, and policeman by the MaWa. Both aspects show tendencies which seem to demonstrate changes in the relationship between MaWa and politics (ibid.: 21).

Accepting that such changes are at least a consequence of the restructuring of crime agendas within particular political and economic frameworks (which themselves are in transition), Walston’s attempt to identify the MaWa/politics connection as a signiWcant variable for control strategies is important. SpeciWcally he proposes three directions for law-enforcement strategies, each of which is cognisant of the political dimension of the MaWa menace: Firstly, the administration of justice deals with MaWa institutionally under the various headings of the criminal code. This concerns judges and law-enforcement agencies, which may be helped or hindered by new laws or administrative measures taken by government. Secondly, since MaWa is part of the political system, that system may take measures to become independent of MaWa. Thirdly, there is the reactions of sections of civil society which may reduce the general acceptance and consensus which MaWa enjoys (ibid.: 29).

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From the perspective of those involved in ‘polimaWa’ power relations, it is essential that their legitimacy be protected beyond the reality of such a connection. Both politicians and MaWosi alike endeavour to create a manageable representation of the MaWa threat which will be essentially removed from their public arena of inXuence. In this regard, some inXuence over the prioritising and operations of law enforcement is essential. MaWa and social threat The concept of ‘social threat’, as understood from a state perspective, and against which the state directs the criminal sanction, develops around a number of measures. Perhaps one of the most inXuential is the vision of an illicit collective or syndicate operating outside, and contrary to, the interests of the state. Such a concern is clearly evidenced in the generic and somewhat mystifying classiWcation ‘organised crime’. Regarding this typology, the state rarely accepts Hill’s analysis (1980) that organised crime can be viewed essentially as an adjunct to our private proWt economy. As argued earlier, rather the state chooses to represent organised crime as some alien and illegal Wnancial enterprise, the eventual control of which rests in isolating and removing key personalities within its organisational structure. In this way the state can rationally remove the focus of its control strategies from the wider reality of universally suspect business practice and bureaucratic compromise. It can also reduce the appreciated inXuence of the social threat, while attempting not to underemphasise the threat’s criminal (not economic) potential. It can individualise the threat and make personal its motivations. By externalising the threat at an organisational level, the state may remove itself from any analysis which also explores the extended inXuence of the organisation in question. This involves the wider operational structure of commercial enterprise, public administration and law enforcement itself. Therefore a major problem faced by the state in its eVorts at controlling capitalised crime is its inability to view such typologies as a consequence of an individual’s participation in a structure of broad and complex group relationships. Crime control endeavours, in turn directed against enterprise crime, are bound to failure within this limited vision. For example, to attempt to control capitalised crime, while ignoring the co-operation and downright connivance of certain sections of the political and law-enforcement machinery, is to condemn such endeavour before it commences. It seems somewhat contradictory to give strength to an image of social threat by concentrating on its organisational character, while at the same time so structurally simplifying the image and extent of such an organisation as to confuse and make artiWcial eVorts towards its control. Surely to

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appreciate the successful operation of any organisation, and hence move toward its regulation, one must understand what it oVers, both to those who participate in it, and those whom it services. Social mobility is such an advantage with which the organisation provides its participants. The state then must not only repress the illicit mechanisms of the organisation, but also redirect its potentials and aspirations. If the services or products of the organisation are so much in demand, the state itself needs to organise to cope with such demands, or to live with their restriction. If Ianni (1974) is correct in that poverty and powerlessness are at the root of both community acceptance of organised crime and recruitment into its networks, then it is for the state to apply some of its ‘control’ energies to these fundamental fuelling questions of social inequality. This point has been made earlier (see chapter 3) insofar as the relationship between crime, poverty, unemployment and marginalistion emerges as a natural consequence of modernisation. If organised crime becomes a framework of opportunity within modernisation then it is for the state to open up more accessible and equally attractive opportunity contexts if it is serious about controlling criminal enterprise. Once the ‘threat’ is enhanced as ‘organised’, it seems logical for the state to gear up the criminal law to respond to the collective and institutional dimension of the problem. Thus when the organisation in question has exceeded a certain quantitative or qualitative threshold, or has openly challenged the legitimacy of the state beyond a particular point, it is likely to be seen as a threat to established order. The scope of the threat is generated through measures of territorial expansion, increases in membership, ascription to violence, and examples of a structure’s internalised order and value systems which may evolve in contrast to those of the state. The level of a threat may vary, depending on the Xuctuation of organisational cohesion and the source of its inXuence. These in turn may be used to explain changes in state response. For example, the authorities in Italy did not perceive the threat of Sardinian bandits, the Neapolitan ‘camorra’, the Calabrian ‘ndranghetta’ and the Sicilian ‘MaWa’, in the Wrst half of this century, as being more than localised and limited. These groups were not deWned as constituting a threat meriting any exceptional response measures. In the 1950s and the 1960s, hopes for control were in fact pinned on social advancement and economic prosperity as the best means of overcoming this typically southern Italian variety of organised crime (Caramazza, 1983). However, after 1970, the existing laws on criminal conspiracy proscribing associations and internal exile were deemed to require radical strengthening. The government perceived, then recognised, a link between organised crime and terrorism (see Findlay, 1986):

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Organised crime, now that there was no longer a clear-cut distinction between ‘mobsters’ and terrorists, penetrated and spread throughout the richest sectors of the Italian economy, and revenues soared as they inWltrated the whole economic fabric by recycling their money through the banks, gaming houses, and by importing and exporting currency. The underworld seemed to have undergone a sort of metastasis now that it was no longer conWned to local pockets, and was attacking the whole of civil society every where and at every level (Caramazza 1983: 7).

Although little evidence of this link between organised crime and terrorism has been presented (see Arlacchi, 1988: ch. 4), it seems to be taken as a logical precursor to the simultaneous increase in ‘organised’ and ‘terrorist’ criminal activity. In Italy at the time there was no critical examination of whether even this increase itself was actual, or merely a reXection of massively increased police activity. The sensitivity to, creation of, and consequent sensitising about ‘social threats’ are immediately heightened when criminal organisations appear to be interlinked. Therefore one must appreciate more than the internal organisation and outreach of the individual ‘threat’ in order to assess the dynamics of the state’s deWnitional process. Even a slight suggestion of compatible aims, organisational operations or complimentary involvement in certain criminal enterprises seems enough to excite the authorities into a state of expectation about conspiracy and subversion. Once this combined threat is so broadly and extensively deWned, escalation is a matter of course. And this escalation as revealed above often takes the form of innovations in the criminal justice process. The Italian legislators resisted the temptation to resort openly to ‘emergency measures’, such as declaring some form of ‘state of war’ or military order, and chose to enact a series of piecemeal and fragmentary provisions aVecting the delivery of criminal justice. To follow these there was a signiWcant increase in police powers. Suspects could be detained and searched even if they were not apprehended in the commission of some crime. Whole blocks of buildings could be searched with the power of a telephone warrant issued by the public prosecutor. The length of preventative detention was extended by up to one-third for persons suspected of being involved in crime for political ends. New criminal oVences such as conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, and the subversion of democratic order, were created, while certain sanctions were increased for terrorism-related crimes. A unique procedural development was the introduction of new mitigating circumstances, and grounds for ‘nolle prosequi’ (suspension of prosecution), these being for ‘dissolution’ and ‘repentance’ on the part of persons turning state’s evidence. This was a novel innovation for the Italian criminal

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justice process, under which up until that time prosecution for such oVences was a statutory obligation. A unique criminal justice system for a unique oVender It would be diYcult to justify the extension of police and court power to counteract the ‘MaWa’ menace in Italy if one were to focus on the MaWa as being a ‘philosophical attitude about the political power’ on which some enterprise relies (see Lalunia, 1981). Irrespective of whether such a theory is seriously considered by the Italian legislative authorities, they have chosen to locate the wrath of the criminal sanction on representative individuals and organised criminal conspiracies. Not satisWed with the control potential of traditional criminal sanctions, they have engaged in a process of reshaping the power of agencies of criminal justice so as to create a control network unconstrained by questions of guilt and resultant proportional punishment. A new domain of control has ensued – restrictions of residence and movement, regulation of associations and rationalisation of Wnancial assets – and each new power can be activated on mere suspicion. Why, when such a signiWcant volume of literature confronts and deconstructs the stereotypical organised MaWa menace, can legislators justify such radical action in terms of social threat? The important theoretical questions about the reality of the MaWa have been addressed. The important practical question of what social conditions are necessary to change the perception of power which is the MaWa, or at least prevent its excessive inXuence, has not. The economic imperative of the MaWa has been ignored. The MaWa basically does nothing but take advantage of the moral defects of a system in a more unscrupulous and menacing manner than other speculators eager for wealth. Only if those defects are eliminated from the framework of the entire national life can the problem of the Wght against the MaWa be isolated and reduced to a Wght against intimidating and violent methods (Vassalli, 1974: 622).

The representation of the MaWa as organised crime in Italy and the USA, and the consequences of decades of distortion, has been a process whereby the threat posed by crime is the exaggerated justiWcation for contexts of control which are reciprocally extreme. The enterprise notion of organised crime as the MaWa comes to rely on other processes of mystiWcation in the control scenario. In the case of MaWa stories in Eastern Europe,À the threat against economic reconstruction through crime economies is the new crime control priority for national governÀ An example is the coverage of contract killings (see ‘MaWa Kills Football Club Chiefs in Russia’, Sunday Times, 17 June 1997).

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ments, regional alliances and international crime control and Wnancial agencies. At a global level, the potential for organised crime to replace legitimate economies and become the economy of more accessible and proWtable resort has removed the MaWa from the realm of an ethnic or secret threat to a largely unregulated rival economy.Ã The more conventional analysis of the social threat posed by organised crime and the state response to such a threat demonstrates the common failure to identify and understand the enterprise models of crime which the ‘MaWa’ represents, and to construct control strategies within this context. An over-reliance on mythologising organised crime and demonising the consequent social threat makes an appreciation of this criminal enterprise impossible. If one examines the connection between the structures of organised crime – the form they adopt, the capital accumulation which they engage in and are constructed for, and the internationalisation of capitalist trade relationships – then the MaWa (and all other crime syndicate symbols) are able to take their place within a globalised commerce. The syndication of crime is now reXected at a global level in the syndication of control responses and strategies. The relationship between organised crime and crime control syndicates exists besides the vast array of market regulation relationships in the globalised economy. The natural extension of case-study analysis of crime economies is to speculate on crime as economy. This notion conWrms the centrality of crime within certain economic contexts. Further it calls for the recognition of crime choices and crime relationships as an economyÕ in themselves. Crime as economy It is only when crime is appreciated as a determining characteristic of certain economies that the crime/economy nexus will be more universally apparent. From the perspective of globalisation and global economies, the context of crime within such economies is a source point for understanding globalisation (through commodiWcation and capitalisation), its characteristics and impact. Ã The reference to an imported or syndicated MaWa as the new and unwelcome challenge to free-enterprise market structures conceals the failure of these structures to successfully replace the old centralised economy and defeat the signiWcance of pre-existing and prevailing black markets as the alternative economy. Õ Here ‘economy’ should be viewed beyond its material and market sense. Crime as economy also recognises the disposition, management and regulation of resources within any organic whole where crime adds to and ensures the eYcient and thrifty achievement of its functions and aims.

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Crime as economy suggests a commonality between the motivations for crime choices and ‘economy’. Understanding crime as economy requires an appreciation of those structures and relationships which facilitate crime as economy. In addition, if crime is economy then it should promote and eYciently conclude the aspirations for its choices and relationships. Corruption provides a good example of this. Corruption has become a signiWcant ‘lubricator’ of developed and developing countries. The reason for this is simple: corrupt relationships often make good economic sense. However, when economic development and the structures of certain economies become reliant on corruption it is here that the context of crime as economy is normal, rather than evidencing some pathological distortion of economic development. The pattern of corruption-reliant economies Accepting that a principal motivation for criminal enterprise is proWt, and that the proWts from organised crime arise through markets for illegal goods and services, then the regulation of such markets should be a primary objective of both law-enforcement agencies and conventional economic regulation. ProWts through criminal enterprise are realised under speciWc market conditions which are reliant on relationships of corruption. These speciWc conditions, and the illegitimate relationships which they support, are appropriate targets for market regulation as well as law enforcement. Certain forms of criminal enterprise develop and Xourish under speciWc market conditions. For example, illicit drug-traYcking requires organised business arrangements which can operate within a highly regulated, monopolistic market relationship. Such criminal enterprises rely on market conditions which may be regulated either to increase or diminish the commercial viability of the enterprise. The regulation of criminal enterprise, however, may diVer from that inXuencing legitimate business enterprise. For example, with the proWts of criminal enterprise often being concealed and not available for legitimate taxation, eVective regulation might necessitate conWscation of assets or proWt identiWcation. Traditionally, criminal enterprise is controlled through the criminal sanction and the eVorts of law-enforcement agencies. These controls, while directed against criminal individuals and illegal behaviours, have not been largely eVective against the market viability of organised crime. More worrying is the market reality that the criminal sanction (and more particularly law-enforcement practices) have in certain circumstances unintentionally inXuenced market conditions which foster the commercial viability of organised crime and criminal enterprise. The same can be

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said for the perpetuation of corruption relationships which foster these (see Findlay, 1994; also see chapter 2). Where criminal sanctions do not result in the total prohibition of a criminal enterprise, such sanctions become another market regulator for those criminal enterprises which remain. For instance, where the law generally prohibits trade in a particular drug, but law enforcement concentrates on the lower end of the distribution chain, small-time drug dealers are squeezed out of the market to the beneWt of the betterorganised and capital-resourced traders. EVorts at controlling criminal enterprise need to recognise their consequent eVect on market regulation, and speciWcally on opportunities for criminal enterprise. Controlling criminal enterprise involves the eVective closure of proWt opportunities, which exist for both legitimate and illegitimate proWt-making. Market regulation may create new opportunities for proWtable enterprise. The regulation of any enterprise (and the control of crime in particular) by adjusting market conditions can generate new criminal opportunities. An example of this is where, through the development of specialised policing institutions and methods directed against lucrative drug-traYcking, the invitation to corrupt conduct within police organisations becomes focused and potentially more proWtable. The potency of such corrupt relationships which may arise can alter the market situation of drug-traYcking, and transform what might be expected to be a regulator of illegitimate enterprise into a facilitator of such enterprise. Crime control and corruption-reliant economies For the control of criminal enterprise to be maximised, law-enforcement and regulation strategies should Wrst be directed against the proWtable market conditions of the enterprise. These conditions may even include forms of criminal sanction and the nature of law enforcement, both legitimate and illegitimate. While the organisational structure of criminal enterprise is important for an understanding of the place of the enterprise within the market, the location of the enterprise within particular market conditions rather than its structure provides the most eVective focus for crime control initiatives. Relationships of corruption provide important market conditions for the proWtability of criminal enterprise. EVective crime control directed against corruption should attack the relationship (bribery), the participants in the relationship (personalities and corporations), the structures of the relationship (secrecy, discretion and authority) and the proWt produced through the relationship. Repression alone will not remove corruption as a commercial option

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within a market structure. Deterrent and preventive strategies must be supported by codes of conduct, administrative review and civic involvement as market conditions. It is essential that the structures of responsibility within the market and the prevailing commercial consciousness be remodelled so that corruption is not considered an acceptable commercial option. Organised crime and corruption as commercial phenomena go beyond markets which centre on crime. Wherever proWt opportunities exist under regulated conditions which favour restricted access, and wherever accountability is limited, criminal enterprise, because of its structure, will have a competitive edge over legitimate business. EVective control strategies should work at neutralising the relationships and conditions which make corruption and criminal enterprise commercially viable. Corruption relationships in certain economic environments, particularly those of developing states, are signiWcant amongst these. The connection between organised crime and the corruption of public oYcials is a commercial relationship. Therefore, to control these relationships, a three-pronged strategy is eVective: (1) public exposure of the individuals (and organisations) involved in the corrupt relationship, through criminal investigation and prosecution; (2) public exposure of the institutional opportunities for corruption, through regular auditing and the review of codes of conduct; (3) community involvement in corruption prevention through an anonymous complaints mechanism and a public education programme. In addition, special powers for crime investigation agencies have proved of crucial signiWcance: ( ( ( ( (

disclosure of information and documents; conWscation of assets (in both criminal and civil jurisdictions); restriction of movement; prohibition from public oYce; publication of criminal investigations and intended charges (see Findlay et al., 1994: ch. 3).

In this respect eVective crime control initiatives attack not only the criminal personality but also the commercial viability of any future business relationships. EVective corruption prevention is an important weapon against organised crime but, as suggested earlier, it may not be enough without conscious market regulation towards those elements of economies reliant

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on relationships of corruption.ΠThe following market conditions need to be fostered through law enforcement and developed through market regulation to restrict opportunities for criminal enterprise: (1) the requirement placed on public oYcials to disclose the receipt by them of any pecuniary advantage; (2) the requirement that, where an association between a public oYcial and an illegitimate commercial enterprise is alleged, such public oYcials will be investigated and prosecuted by agencies which are totally independent of political and governmental inXuence; (3) the requirement on corporations to nominate and regularly audit lines of responsible decision-making within their structures; (4) the requirement on organisations and corporations to construct codes of conduct which then become the obligation of individual employees, as well as the company, to comply with; (5) the requirement on organisations and corporations to make available to an independent investigation agency all their Wnancial and business records on request; (6) the requirement on individuals, organisations and corporations to answer public complaints about corruption. Through market conditions of openness and accountability, opportunities for criminal enterprise are minimised. EVective crime control needs to make it more diYcult to inWltrate legitimate commerce and to establish corrupt relationships with public oYcials. This will be achieved via fundamental changes in the market conditions of secrecy and non-accountability prevailing in many modern market structures. In such a context the reality of crime as economy can be undermined. In this chapter the relationships between crime and economy have been explored. For this three themes were employed. At the simplest level, the connections between crime and economies, especially between market models and criminal enterprise, were examined. The structures within such relationships, including corruption and control, were identiWed as important for the economic viability of crime, and the place of crime as an economic choice. More complex and misrepresented is the notion of crime economies. The case-study of the MaWa, its mystiWcation and misconstruction, reveals as much about the political signiWcance of organised crime as a global threat as it does about the actual potential of ΠCorruption prevention has been directed against the market conditions which link organised crime with corrupt public oYce in jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, where the activities of their Independent Commission Against Corruption focused on the commercial attractiveness of corruption relationships.

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crime syndicates to inWltrate and realign global economies. Finally, the theme of crime as economy highlights the inXuence of control strategies over the economy of crime. Corruption relationships are often reliant on control strategies, and the economy which is crime may be enhanced through particular strategies of market regulation. Crime is money and power. In a global context, the economic implications of crime choices can be crucial for the understanding of economic and crime problems and imperatives.

6

Crime as choice

Choosing crime The signiWcance of choice for situations of crime, crime behaviours and crime relationships is in: (1) the way crime becomes an option in particular social situations; (2) the manner in which crime becomes the result of choice; and (3) how crime may inXuence and determine other social choices. To conceive of crime as choice implies a degree of rationality behind crime as decisions and actions. Crime as choice, or a consequence of choice, confounds representations which have crime emerging out of social determinants, beyond the inXuence and involvement of perpetrators and victims. Choice is not compatible with crime being explained away exclusively as a deWnition or a social reaction. This conceptualisation of crime highlights those actions, responses and social connections which inXuence and formulate choice, as well as the opportunity provided for the choice to arise at all. Therefore, in relating crime and choice, it is conceded that while choice may be constrained by identiWable social determinants (see chapters 3 and 4), it is choice nonetheless. As such it relies on human interaction and decision-making. The decisions behind choice might range in their rationality from the passion of the moment through to careful calculation, but they remain decisions all the same. Opportunity needs to connect with motive if crime choice is to eventuate. Motive is a more complex issue than rational choice theory suggests. An understanding of the nature of motive is crucial if the de-activation of crime choice, through a reduction of opportunity, is to occur. Otherwise, tampering with opportunity will only lead to a deXection of crime choice if the original motive remains strong. As a recent study of property crime choices concluded: ‘Though our burglars made conscious choices throughout their crimes, their oVending did not appear to be an independent, freely chosen event so much as it was a part of a general Xow of 167

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action emanating from and shaped by their involvement with street culture’ (Wright and Decker, 1994: 205). In contemporary crime theory, and too often without critical reXection, crime and choice are viewed in simple rationalist terms which concentrate more on deciding not to commit crime than choosing crime as an option. As Braithwaite observes: ‘If the awareness that an act is criminal fundamentally changes the choices being made, then the key to a general explanation of crime lies in identifying variables that explain the capacity of some individuals or collectivities to resist, ignore or succumb to the institutionalised disapproval that goes with crime’ (1989: 4). In this chapter we are interested to explore these ‘variables’ as they result in choices for crime. From this it might be assumed that the relative merits of control strategies are more keenly revealed, along with those personal constraints and tolerances which are sacriWced for crime in particular social contexts. Crime control is a driving force behind the generalisation of the crime problem in a globalised context. This is exempliWed by ‘mutual assistance’ criminal investigation scenarios (see Findlay, 1995), where the threat posed by crime has produced a shared response, and by crossborder drug policing, where mutual control expectations outweigh territorial prejudice. Essential for crime control contexts addressing the global ‘crime problem’ are international crime choices and their supportive relationships. These are commonly represented as interlinked and thematic. Situations of crime as trade, crime as terrorism and crime as politics make such representations convincing. However, the strategy of interconnecting, even unifying, crime control institutions and initiatives has the tendency to downplay the essentially diVerent and discrete ‘stages’ which might comprise international crime. In addition, this push towards the generalisation of the problem and the uniWcation of the response deXects attention from the place of crime and control agencies within the political structure and economic development of individual states and cultures. Further, it may diminish the very diVerent relative meanings accorded crime and control in localised contexts (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988). The varied representations and multiple interpretations of crime and control, discussed in chapter 1, which tend to universalise the crime problem are complemented by globalisation trends towards uniWcation. Accepting this, a comparative recognition of contexts where crime and control carry very speciWc and localised status and expectations should not be viewed as contrary to globalisation. Rather it is consistent with its paradoxical operation. Anthony Giddens recently observed of the dynamics of globalisation (Giddens/UNRISD, 1996/7: 5):

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Globalisation is not a single set of processes and does not lead in a single direction. It produces solidarities in some places and destroys them in others. It has quite diVerent consequences on one side of the world from the other. In other words, it is a wholly contradictory process. It is not just about fragmentation: I see it more as a shake-out of institutions in which new forms of unity go along with new forms of fragmentation.

Crime and control as a focus for universalism, as well as a feature of relativity, are consistent with this. Environmental crime conWrms the point. If a major multinational corporation pollutes the environment of a developing country (as a consequence of industry which is a source of scarce foreign capital and formal employment), the state may react in an ambiguous fashion. If it has laws designed to prevent such pollution and penalise those responsible, selective non-enforcement may be seen as in the national interest. Non-enforcement is also likely if the oVending corporation relies on bribes to ensure its continued operation. The state may create a control agency, the responsibility of which is to legitimate the selective non-enforcement policy. Here both the ‘crime’ and the control response are diVerent according to the status of the oVender. If, however, the pollution is of such a nature as to violate an international agreement, or challenge expected world pollution outcomes, then pressure may be exerted by the international community to see the corporation comply with the law, or the state to enforce it. This response may be justiWed as being in common with global practice and to satisfy global regulation strategies. One way of determining the role which crime and control will adopt within globalisation is to examine the nature and purpose of crime and control choices. In addition, an appreciation of the relationships which are essential to and stimulate such choice is instructive. Expanding upon the above example, while the choices for crime and control remain largely within a bilateral relationship (multinational corporation/state), it is not diYcult to contain and re-interpret the crime situation and any need for control. When additional external interests impinge on this relationship and challenge its meaning, containment is no longer possible. The crime and control choices are removed into another context. Global control agendas take precedence over territorial concerns. Representations are reworked and selective enforcement is universalised within a global context. Analysing crime as choice holds out the prospect for viewing the relationship between crime and control within transitional contexts towards globalisation. The development of the crime and control relationship, and the choices of which it is comprised, indicate many of the interests at work on societies and cultures in transition. The discussion

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of custom law and the transformation of penalty referred to in the next chapter (see pp. 203–220) exempliWes this. At the global level, for instance, the proliferation of international drug-traYcking and collectivised control eVorts will only be fully understood if the ‘choice stages’ of the trade and the incursions of control within those stages are individually considered. ExempliWed equally, the market structures of the trade and the motivations for its control within more localised contexts depend upon the international imperatives behind the selective criminalisation of drug use and enforcement. These speciWc structures and institutions then mirror the globalisation of capital and consumption. Crime choices within each of these levels and stages of criminal enterprise and regulation are essentially interconnected, and resemble many other ‘legitimate’ enterprise choice options, often without conscious recognition. Crime choices Perhaps surprisingly, the factors inXuencing choices for and against crime are not distinctly diVerent. It is their appreciation, and the expectations for their impact, which diVer. Deterrence theory would have it (and certain control expectations emphasise) that if perpetrators are aware that apprehension is likely, or a severe penalty certain and imminent after the commission of the crime, then a rational choice not to commit crime will result. The ‘control choice’ becomes a matter of utility. However, crime perpetrators rarely know or think about the precise penalty which may arise because they do not believe that they will be caught (see Decker et al., 1993).… Had they harboured such a belief then the rationality of any decisions made by them on crime and control could be impugned. The rational choice may be for crime rather than control. The choice is dependent upon very diVerent interpretations of determining factors from the perspective of the perpetrator or the regulator. Further, crime as choice is not always a matter of simple alternatives: to commit crime or not to commit crime. Crime may be the only available or viable opportunity to achieve a desired social end. Alternatively, on the balance of probabilities, it is perceived to be the best choice available for the materialisation of that end. Crime might also create a context or a relationship of power and dominance where otherwise legitimate outcomes may be ensured. Using violence to require personal favour or market position is a case in point. For instance, extortion and price Wxing … Analysis seems to support this view. One study has found that only one per cent of burglaries involve the oVender being caught in the act (Felson, 1994: 11).

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for a competitive market edge may initially rely on commercial inXuence or blackmail, but will ultimately be backed up by the threat of force to ensure compliance. Recognising this, the Wnal choice for crime may be preceded by a series of considerations, comparisons and decisions which see crime eventuate through a process of reduction and exclusion. Crime choices and their consequences are therefore available for analysis in these terms. When considering the crime/choice paradigm it is also too simplistic to presume a common discourse or common frames of reference for decision-making. Crime as choice will be inXuenced by variations in the meaning ascribed to particular behaviours and consequences. After all, that is what law enforcement and the adversarial criminal trial is all about. In this respect, the practice of neutralisation is important. A juvenile may choose not to rob from a small store where the owner is known to him because the loss can easily be personalised and the loser empathised with. On the other hand, the perpetrator may be comfortable in stealing from a large department store because no one is seen to directly suVer harm, and he justiWes his action by saying that the Wrm will pass on the loss to a vast range of customers by a small price increase. Another method of neutralisation is to say that the large store constantly ‘robs’ its customers through charging high prices, and it is good that they ‘get some of their own medicine’. In our analysis of choice, control choices cannot be separated from the crime choices to which they react and vice versa. The interaction of crime and control choices is crucial if they are to assist in understanding crime within interactive contexts of cultures in transition and globalisation. Control choices Formal crime control strategies often rely on punitive processes to dissuade people from crime choices. However, it has been suggested that because most citizens agree that crime is morally harmful, then moralistic appeals invoking citizens to make the ‘right’ (non-criminal) choice are more eVective than the imposition of criminal sanctions (Braithwaite, 1989: 10). Through an examination of the process of crime as choice, crime-free choice patterns will also locate in a rational context, and thereby better contrast the achievable aspirations for control choices. Further, the potential of regulatory strategies beyond conventional crime control (such as trust) will be compared (see Cherney, 1997; also chapter 7). When talking of crime control, the regulatory function of responses to crime should not be ignored, nor should aspirations for re-integration (see chapter 7). Control implies regulation, and re-integration within the

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institutional context of criminal justice is a derivative of control situations. The criminal sanction allows for regulation, and beyond its rather restricted conclusion as penalty the criminal sanction process has the added potential to contextualise methods of re-integration. Such is the case when family group conferencing is managed by the police (see Hudson et al., 1996) or community-aid panels shadow the work of the courts (see Bargen, 1992). The criminal sanction, it is also agreed (see Ayers and Braithwaite, 1992), is the critical fall-back when trust strategies and civic engagement fail. The problem with attempting to examine control choices in a similar fashion to crime choices centres on the manner in which opportunities for choice are constrained. The context of control choice is initially comparable with that of crime – a choice between tolerance and intervention, which matches the choice between avoidance and involvement. However, for control choices, the range of options has a greater likelihood of being constrained by globalising social variables than are the more individual and relative constraints on opportunity which inXuence crime choice. For example, even in the face of its manifest failure against all rationales for punishment and principles of sentencing, the prison as a control site is expanding (see Christie, 1993). The vast investment of public criminal justice resources in the prison has put pressure on access to other control strategies which cater for far more people and behaviours per dollar invested than the prison. With the prison being a signiWcant feature of the crime control market, the recent hectic privatisation of a failed strategy  indicates that proWt rests on more than utility (Harding, 1997). Further, it may suggest that proWt, rather than utility or ideological coherence, has usurped the pre-eminence of crime control as a rationale for penalty. The symbolic signiWcance of the prison as an important penalty of last resort cannot be denied. Imprisonment, as evidence of a law-and-order political commitment, grounds this control choice squarely within a context of political choices. And this context is globalised with the prison proVered as the civilised alternative to capital punishment and the key penalty in conservative control regimes. The prison is the penalty of the modernised world, and as such is an icon of globalisation. Civil society relies on the prison to evidence its humanity in punishment. Other control choices must stand as alternatives to the prison. The place of the prison in contemporary Western popular culture conWrms and promotes its globalised predominance in penalty.   Here failure may relate to the traditional principles of sentencing and punishment such as rehabilitation and deterrence. Privatisation has introduced a new scheme for the success of the prison which relates to commercial proWt rather than behaviour management. The focus is on the share-holder rather than the stake-holder.

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As with the failure to justify certain control choices in terms of their rational economics or their consistency with control theory, the globalisation of crime control is not necessarily constrained by economic rationalism or theoretical coherence. The symbolic dimension of globalisation sits well with crime control, in that neither context essentially requires empirical substance for their signiWcance. Globalised control choices, or control choices which are essentially constrained by globalised agendas, tend to distance the crime situation from the community, while intruding more signiWcantly into the experience of the community and its expectations: Globalisation should not be understood as wholly an economic concept, or simply as a development of the world system, or purely as a development of large-scale global institutions. I would call it ‘action in distance’: globalisation refers to the increasing impact of action at distance on our lives. The concept describes the increasing inter-penetration between individual life and global futures, something which I think is relatively new in history (Giddens/UNRISD, 1996/7: 5).

Crime control is now as much about modelling expectations and impressing futures as it is about regulating or reducing crime. However, the displacement eVects associated with the failure of statesponsored control choices should not be ignored. For instance, a French study concluded that ‘the insurance market and the security industry manage the problem of burglary: the market takes over where the state fails’ (Zauberman and Robert, 1990: 1). Prospective targets for burglary can improve their security and reduce their potential victimisation, or provide redress through insurance. The globalisation of the displacement from criminal justice to security and insurance markets tends to redeWne access to control choices and the formulation of their priorities. Displacement and replacement This chapter culminates in a consideration of the theoretical perspective of replacement and displacement. Put simply, it proposes that crime choices replace legitimate choice options. As such, they displace many of the constraints which would see crime normally excluded from choice options. These might include building blocks of civic engagement and social inclusion, as well as features of general deterrence. Once crime choices are made and displacement occurs, social reaction and control strategies are directed at the displacement of the decision-maker and the choice context, while at the same time replacing what was rejected through crime choice. The stages of displacement and replacement

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require close consideration within the interactive contexts of choices for crime and control. Crime as choice conceives of people as making decisions in light of societal pressures, as well as having their decisions determined by such pressures. But, more than this, crime as choice reasserts crime as an opportunity even in the most constrained and limited contexts. This can be seen in the adoption of crime by its participants in parallel with legitimate forms of proWt or capital-generating occupations. The globalisation of crime choices is best appreciated against the theoretical framework of opportunity. Particularly in respect of crime as proWt scenarios, globalised crime relationships need not be divorced from the situations of opportunity which determine choice patterns crucial to their realisation. Accompanying globalised opportunity structures is the evolution and adaptation of crime choices designed to compensate for restricted opportunity and at the same time to take advantage of the opportunities available. A useful instance of this is the reconstruction of capital, its sources and accessibility, which characterises international criminal enterprise. We have previously alluded to the manner in which crime control initiatives have the consequence of constituting opportunities for crime choice. This remains true in a globalised context. International crime control agendas have the tendency to shape globalised representations of crime. These representations will in turn conWrm fundamental crime relationships, like crime as work, which is routinely ignored in considerations of crime and its causes. Crime as work There are two levels at which crime as work may usefully be considered here. The Wrst is the more straightforward representation of crime as a career. The second is where crime is used to augment legitimate opportunities for work, to supplement these or to assist in the advancement or attainment of employment objectives. The conceptualisation of crime as work implies the closure of legitimate work options and the acceptance of opportunities which crime provides, or the expression of a preference for the latter. Opportunity theory, as applied to crime causation, discusses the processes whereby aspirations or expectations are formulated and their attainment frustrated or realised (see Braithwaite, 1989: 31). In the sense of work such aspirations are obviously materialist, and consequently linked with social status, economic security and consumerism. These vary little from the local to the global commercial context.

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One of the limitations of opportunity theory has been the apparently non-problematic (but in fact problematic) assumptions that the aspirations for opportunity are commonly held and are materialist in direction and priority. In addition, the theory suggests that crime as choice usually arises as a consequence of legitimate opportunities appearing as out of reach or closed. This tends to deny the intentional and purposeful nature of crime choice. Crime as work may range from complex criminal enterprise down to the occasional criminal activity to satisfy material need. Crime may co-exist with other employment options and will sometimes be chosen to make those options more economically viable. For example, a company may agree to bribe a government oYcial in order to secure a permit or licence to carry on business, either because the advantage would not be forthcoming without the bribe, or because the bribe may give the company a competitive edge over its rivals. In this respect the corruption choice is like any other business decision and facilitates further work opportunities. A trend away from a reliance on, or interest in, legitimate employment markets in favour of criminal occupation is a feature of social development situations where either conventional unemployment is high, or the traditional structures of occupation are in transition. A characteristic of globalised economies is structural unemployment which tends to locate in that section of the community most likely otherwise to engage in crime (i.e. young single males). The commercial containment of legitimate market structures is another contextual variable rendering crime choice as attractive. In the recently democratised economies of Eastern Europe such as Poland and the Russian Federation, ‘black markets’ (market structures beyond conventional executive regulation) are Xourishing and often provide services that are in short supply within legitimate commercial structures. This is not limited to consumerist provision and may permeate as far down as basic provisioning which legitimate markets are unable to guarantee. The wild devaluation of local currencies and the need to transact in foreign exchange (in limited supply in the legitimate market) exaggerates the signiWcance of the black economy. Crime as work here may have the positive consequence of supplementing moribund market structures. The protection of these new market structures is likely to rely more heavily on the monopoly over violence, if proWts remain high, state regulatory agencies are removed, and private players are in organised competition. Again, certain groups which are more susceptible to unemployment, or which are the Wrst to be unemployed, are more likely to avail themselves

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of crime as work. Consistent with the framework of choice, unemployment in the realm of legitimate occupations motivates the engagement in alternative choices and the situations essential to the construction of such choices. Like other forms of occupation, criminal careers rely on the gaining and development of skills. In this respect, in order to attack the nexus between crime and work, one strategy might be to reform or undermine those environments where crime is learnt. Strategies for dealing with youth sub-cultures in developing countries, such as Papua New Guinea and Brazil (see UNDP/ILO, 1993; Findlay and Zvekic 1993), have recognised the importance of creating new environments of association and learning. These must be attractive to gang members, and cannot simply consist of the old learning environments which the gangs have rejected. The co-option of gang views in the creation of these new learning structures and opportunities is a further incentive for success. Essential to the construction of crime as work are the markets within which illegitimate employment opportunities may be contested. These markets often mirror legitimate work-places, while valuing a diVerent range of employment criteria. Interestingly, loyalty and trust are universally rewarded. The employability of those making crime choices is determined by market need and the advertised criteria to meet that need. If the employment opportunity drifts between legitimate and illegitimate market structures, these employment criteria might be diYcult to distinguish as inherently criminal. Crime and the market The delimitation of any market structure is determined by the purpose for its commerce and the regulation of its participants. In a market situation where illegitimate or illegal relationships operate, criminal justice investigation agencies have added to the wider regulatory framework. The police, corporate regulators, tax inspectors and corruption investigators all have a role to play in modern market regulation, both legitimate and illegitimate. In fact they may be crucial to the creation and maintenance of the boundaries between markets of choice (see Findlay, 1994). The existence and operation of specialist investigation/prosecution agencies have a signiWcant impact on market opportunities. This is as a consequence of the exercise of extraordinary investigatory powers of exposure and self-incrimination, through public hearings, the fact-Wnding and penalty process, or the wider dimensions of community accountability (developed as the arsenal of these regulatory agencies) (see Findlay et al., 1994: ch. 3). The link between regulatory strategies and corrupt

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relationships, for example, stimulates market opportunities for criminal enterprise (see Findlay, 1994). In a crime control sense, the connection needs to be explored for a better understanding of market-centred crime and its control. The regulation of any enterprise via the adjustment of market conditions can generate new enterprise opportunities. Crime in a market situation may be no diVerent in this regard. One example is the development of specialised policing institutions and methods directed against lucrative drug-traYcking, where the invitation to corrupt conduct within police organisations becomes focused and potentially more proWtable (see Wood Royal Commission, 1997: vol. I). The potency of these corrupt relationships which may arise as a result can alter the market situation of drug-traYcking, transforming a regulator of illegitimate enterprise into an indirect facilitator of such enterprise. Instances of this have recently been revealed through the investigation of police corruption in several Australian states (Fitzgerald Inquiry, 1989; Wood Royal Commisson, 1997). Where the law-enforcement and sanction practice of agencies such as police drug squads does not result in the total prohibition of a criminal enterprise, such sanctions become another market regulator for those remaining criminal enterprises (Manning and Redlinger, 1977). Therefore, regulation is not merely a process of control. Equally, it establishes boundaries of permission within which certain preferred commercial interests and entities will Xourish. The forms assumed by these entities and interests may transmute in response to regulation so as to respond more eVectively to the new opportunities provided within the regulated market. Crime and opportunity The fundamental connection between crime and opportunity runs in two directions. First there is the negative which sees crime choices made because other more legitimate forms of opportunity are blocked. This is the focus of opportunity theory in criminology. The other and perhaps more interesting direction is where crime choices are made as opportunities in themselves, or from a range of opportunities in the normal course of determining possible actions or outcomes. It is more instructive to consider opportunities for crime choice as preferred, rather than reluctantly addressed, particularly when crime and commerce or criminal enterprise are analysed. In this respect, crime opportunities provide a beneWcial mechanism for achieving conventional aspirations, rather than appearing as the aspiration in themselves. In

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addition, the existence and nature of an opportunity to make a choice at all may be provided through access to crime relationships. It is this conceptualisation of the interaction between crime and opportunity which allows for a realistic balancing between rational free will and determinism in the exercise of crime choice. It also sets the conditions under which the choice process might be managed away from criminal relationships and criminal outcomes. The appreciation of opportunity is a subjective issue. Therefore, to understand the connection between crime choices and opportunity, one needs to investigate the impressions held by parties to crime relationships regarding the structures of opportunity available to them as much as the structures themselves. To explain the manner in which delinquents and criminals come together requires recognition of their desire to maximise opportunity, or to protect the opportunities which they appreciate and value. Much of the substance of illegitimate opportunity within complex cultures is the knowledge of how to do it – a knowledge which is fostered by sub-cultures which themselves may have arisen from either blocked opportunities in traditional settings, or the more attractive opportunities in distorted social environments. As with legitimate opportunities, the prospects aVorded by crime may be limited. The eVort to beneWt from them adds to social disjuncture and alienation, or signiWcantly alters the nature of social bonding: A society with large fractions of the population feeling that legitimate opportunities are blocked to them is one with a strain which puts many in the market for illegitimate means of goal attainment. When there is suYcient density of such people, there is a risk that they will fashion together a criminal sub-culture that will supply techniques to neutralise guilt over the pursuit of illegitimate opportunities and exchange of information on how to discover and exploit illegitimate opportunities (Braithwaite, 1989: 33).

Certain societies consistently and systematically block legitimate opportunities to fractions of their populations, thereby fostering the formulation of criminal sub-cultures amongst those oppressed groups. Where racial minorities or young people are denied access to education or decent housing then impoverished schools are collectively rejected and groups form to ensure the material comfort of their members. Governments, as custodians of economy, can put in place regulatory policies which beneWt certain commercial sectors and organisations amenable to the utilisation of crime opportunities to achieve proWt. Rather than micro-cultures of crime forced together to make crime choices, these collectives may be oVered the attractions of crime choice over legitimate opportunity.

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Ultimately, opportunity theory relies on processes of learning and association. The opportunities for crime must be revealed and accessed, and to this end techniques must be passed on. The learning and association dimensions of crime choice oVer a fertile focus for control strategies. The recent policy in some jurisdictions of utilising criminal ‘organisations’ or networks in prisons and juvenile institutions to inculcate positive social values works from this recognition.À Criminal consequences of crime control As discussed earlier in relation to the regulation of corruption (see chapter 2), crime control institutions and strategies may sometimes develop as well as restrict crime choices (see Findlay, 1994). Controlling criminal enterprise involves the eVective closure, or re-direction, of proWt opportunities – both those which exist for legitimate and illegitimate proWtmaking – by utilising criminal and non-criminal market structures and associated capital. Further, any consideration of the criminogenic connections between law enforcement and criminal enterprise (and the manner in which criminal enterprise is represented and regulated through the criminal justice process) confounds the representation of crime as a quality of a single individual or situation. Some hold that to focus on acts and behaviours of the criminal is to undervalue the important power relations which determine crime (see Box, 1983). To understand crime one needs to consider the reactions to the act, particularly in the context of the criminal justice labelling process, as much as the act itself. Quinney (1970), for one, concentrates on how criminal deWnitions are formulated and applied, how behaviour patterns develop in relation to criminal deWnitions, and how criminal conceptions are being constructed as the social reality of crime is constantly being constructed. Traditionally, criminal enterprise is controlled through the existence and application of the criminal sanction and the eVorts of law-enforcement agencies. These controls, while directed against criminal individuals and illegal behaviours, have not been the monopoly of criminal justice. Criminal enterprise, much like other forms of structured commerce, may be controlled through conventional market means, such as adjustments to the nature of demand and alterations in the conditions of access to legitimate Wnancial institutions. The exercise of force through policing becomes the province of the state, or is licensed out through state À In the prisons of New South Wales, for example, recidivist groups have been used to push a deterrent message as part of the ‘day in gaol’ programme for juveniles at risk. In addition, drug abusers and drug-traYckers have participated in, and sometimes co-ordinated, inmate drug rehabilitation programmes in prison.

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police to the private sector. Crimes are prosecuted by the state on behalf of the community, rather than remaining the responsibility of the victim. In fact, until recently, with such developments as victim impact statements and victim’s compensation, the victim was becoming marginalised out of the justice process except for her role as a witness. In contemporary criminal justice the victim’s interests have been considered synonymous with state vengeance, and the victim has come to symbolise and justify a return to retributive penalty (see Sumner, 1997). The constant expansion of the criminal sanction into the wider reaches of community regulation has generated a corresponding tendency for the public to expect more immediate and powerful results from regulation initiatives. Associated with this is the state’s failure to appreciate and to plan against the criminogenic side-eVects of criminal justice regulation. In reality these results have tended to perpetuate more resilient and inclusive crime choices. Further, the process of regulation under the ideology of criminal justice has made artiWcially separate legitimate and illegitimate market opportunities. Selective law enforcement has made this distinction even more negotiable. And the practical reality of a continuum between legal and illegal, legitimate and illegitimate, commercial opportunities is obscured by claims from criminal justice regulators that the war on crime is ‘winable’. Essential to that belief is a publicly proVered conWdence by governments in the capability of the penal sanction (and criminal justice agencies) to control crime and change behaviours. The administration of justice through state courts is now a complex state function in many societies. Even in cultures where the division between the religious and the secular is not rigid, the criminal courts have a unique procedural autonomy beyond the form of laws which they administer (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988: 116–30). Within this autonomy the criminal courts are increasingly relied upon to regulate a vast range of individual and corporate behaviours. Previously such behaviours would have been seen as the province of welfare-focused government agencies, if they were the concern of government at all. The courts, as the formal distributors of the criminal sanction, are serviced by police and punishment agencies. It would be incorrect, however, to assume that the imposition of sanctions was the province of the courts alone. It is said, for instance, that the vast majority of matters coming to police attention never progress to the court process (Brown et al., 1996: 118–26). Within pre-trial law-enforcement contexts there are both formalised and informal opportunities where sanction and diversion take place. Sometimes, as McBarnett suggests (1979: 39), this is where ‘deviation from legality is institutionalised in the law itself’. On other

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occasions, the largely invisible exercise of discretion by the police provides a context in which sanctions are administered in terms of the police interpretation of justice. Whatever the form taken by the criminal sanction in crime control and its institutional process, sanction essentially involves a cycle of displacement and replacement. The penalty within sanction (see Findlay et al., 1994: ch. 7), no matter what its rationale, is intended to displace criminal behaviour and even the criminal. It is the replacement consequence of sanction and penalty which seems more problematic. Displacement and replacement are crucial to any understanding of crime control and the place of the sanction within it. Displacement and replacement are forces which shape crime relationships and may be signiWcant for the role which crime and control play in cultural transition. Whether control strategies achieve their expectations in any context will depend on a complementary interaction between displacement and replacement. In the section which follows we will examine the place of displacement and replacement in crime and control, then progress to speculation on the manner in which this cycle inXuences cultures in transition, and globalisation as a consequence. Cycles of displacement and replacement In anything but a state of total indulgence, making choices is a comparative exercise. The factors which inXuence any choice outcome will almost always be determined against other choice scenarios. As indicated by the reluctance of the common law to accept necessity as a justiWcation for crime choice (see Norrie, 1993), the claim that there was ‘no other choice’ will rarely prove convincing in determining liability. Therefore, the process through which such comparative evaluation concludes in crime is what displacement and replacement represent. In addition, where they have any inXuence at all over the crime conclusion, control choices operate within displacement and replacement cycles. As intimated previously (and consistent with an interactive commitment to crime analysis), the displacement and replacement perspective is cyclical. More than this, however, it draws on the spiralling framework of deviancy ampliWcation (see Young, 1971). The present conceptualisation of the choice process is inWnite. Displacement occurs where conventional features of opportunity are removed, and replaced by illegitimate substitutes. This leads to crime choice. Control choices may be directed to the displacement of the crime choice and its replacement by legitimate choices (or even by the original displaced opportunity). As Wgure 4 shows, displacement and replacement

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Figure 4

Displacement and replacement.

may emerge from any of the principal sites of choice in the cycle. This is due to the relative nature of both concepts, i.e. what may be displacement for the controller may be considered as replacement by the controlled. Replacement and displacement processes are dynamic, relative and negotiable, reXecting the analytical position accorded to choice in this discussion. Questions concerning how displacement and replacement diVer from conventional opportunity theory are, however, anticipated. The answer lies in the prevailing criticism of opportunity theory – that it fails to analyse and critique those factors and processes which construct and constrain opportunity. The displacement and replacement perspective compared with opportunity theory reveals more about the manner in which crime choices are made. The analysis of displacement and replacement cycles will conWrm the dynamic and comparative context of crime as choice and identify and critique the factors and processes which construct and constrain opportunities for crime choice, out of which crime choices result, as well as reveal how crime choices are made. Making choices is essentially a Xuid and constant activity for humankind. It precedes birth and, in many philosophies, survives death. Like the passage towards globalisation, the choice process should both expand and unify the experience of those making choices where the motivation for choice (such as modernisation) is shared. There must be some logic in making choices. As such the logic need not be constrained within paradigms of reason or utility. To make much of this logic beyond mindless individualism it is necessary to suggest, in terms of fundamental contexts, what choice must be working towards. A return to a consideration of context will assist in the search for a useful logic to underpin crime choice. Further to the assertion that crime is relationships, rather than people, places and events, the requirement of

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choice may be viewed as crucial to the maintenance and development of these relationships. Moreover, these relationships represent a crucial context for the construction and constraint of crime choice. As with globalisation, a profound motivation behind crime choice is (or at least is aligned with) modernisation and its material beneWts. Some interaction between crime choice and globalisation, beyond unconvincing coincidence, is revealed through the displacement/replacement analysis, providing crime as choice is as signiWcant for globalisation as we anticipate. A simple way in which displacement and replacement might be understood is to trace a crime choice process and the relationships which arise through it. Returning to cultures in transition, a debilitating crime process and an all too common feature of socio-economic development is loan-sharking. Usury has been determined by many of the major religions of the world as sinful. In contrast, money-lending on a grand scale is the respectable occupation of banks and Wnancial markets in the developed world. What distinguishes loan-sharking from legitimate money lending is the displacement and replacement of the former, which precipitates crime and social dysfunction. In the context of societies in the early stages of development, traditional sources and structures of subsistence are displaced by materialism. The cash economy replaces agrarian self-suYciency and barter. To support the cash economy, communal networks of occupation may be displaced by artiWcial divisions of labour. Partial employment in Xuid labour arrangements does not complement the cash economy. As traditional forms of occupation are progressively displaced, the demand for wage labour and cash-generating individualised employment is the substitute. Most if not all of this cash-for-labour replacement of displaced subsistence structures is anything but limited and selective. The economic disparity which eventuates fuels a range of social displacement and replacement cycles which generate crime choices in reaction to blocked wage-labour opportunities. As the pressure for cash increases, it outstrips any commensurate rate of cash-generating employment. This, and the contraction of access to legitimate sources of capital exaggerate the need to borrow in exploitative contexts. In developing societies those with either the earning potential or the collateral to maintain and service loans from legitimate or mainstream banks are few. These outlets of regulated loans are themselves scarce, and largely directed towards servicing the public sector. Informal money-lending springs up to satisfy the expanding, low-level demand for cash. The risks in this loan environment are high, and due to the nature of the capital drawn upon for these money-lending facilities, and

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the circumstances in which they are oVered, extortion and loan-sharking are common. Crime choices replace the displaced, legitimate loan and lending choice options. Loan-sharking services a need for cash which will not be met by legitimate or regulated lenders. The demand for money even on extortionate terms of interest is inelastic in an environment where the increasing dependence on a cash economy co-exists with circumstances where wage labour is limited and contracting. In developed economies these crime choices might be displaced by a thriving and accessible legitimate banking structure rather than by crime control initiatives. Once the crime choice to oVer extortionate lending terms is accepted by an otherwise marginalised borrower, a relationship of dependency is created which displaces other more legitimate relationships of Wnancial or subsistence obligation. These can then lead to other crime choices in order to satisfy the loan dependency relationship. An example of this is where gambling displaces wage labour as a preferred revenue raiser. Due to the unpredictable outcomes of gambling, loan-sharking may further proliferate in order to satisfy gambling debts or to provide resources for further gambling. If control agencies move in to displace loan-sharking or gambling they will replace some of the market variables inXuencing both, thereby further constraining the legitimate and illegitimate access to capital. Rather than replacing an illegitimate crime choice, regulation may fuel further displacement and replacement of crime choices. This in turn can have the eVect of displacing the original crime control choice and replacing it with other forms of regulation. In this manner, both crime choice and control choice patterns are inextricably connected through integrated cycles of displacement and replacement. We will explore the consequences of this for crime and control in the following chapter. Appreciating crime as choice in an interactive sense, and moving beyond crude determinism or rational choice ‘models’, will provide an important foundation for the construction of realistic crime control policy. Crime choices arise out of speciWc social contexts, involve and inXuence identiWable individuals and groups, and promise particular and often shared beneWts. In order that crime control policy should return an eVective range of ‘choices’ for those who are involved in, responsible for, or have a vested interest in crime control, eVective strategies should both foster and rely on community integration. Because of the state’s claimed monopoly over criminal justice, crime control strategies which essentially require state

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authority for their operation are unlikely to rely on or embrace an integration ethic. In what follows, integrated crime control is explored by identifying principal stages of control and witnessing their reliance on tolerance and re-integration. Whether conscious or otherwise, there exists an essential connection between aspirations for tolerance, control and re-integration. It is suggested that through a creative collaboration these features of socialisation will complement the integrative dimensions of globalisation, and take globalised crime control beyond the level of symbolism.

7

Integrating crime control

Introduction The contextual understanding of crime choice and crime relationships from the local to the global provides the impetus for an integrated response to the problem of crime. That response will recognise the utility of crime, along with the signiWcance of tolerance and re-integration, for its place within globalisation. Integration is foreign to contemporary crime control. Even the recent promotion of re-integrative approaches to crime (see Braithwaite, 1989) depend upon preliminary control processes which classify deviance as diVerence. That diVerence becomes the fulcrum for re-integration, as it does for conventional crime control strategies. Crime control in modernised ‘communities’… is highly bureaucratised and representational. State prosecutors stand between the oVender and the victim, representing individual interests on behalf of the state. These bureaucracies also advance their own interests through the monopolisation of formal crime control. Integration in a control context, on the other hand, recognises the limits of crime control bureaucracies while stressing the essential progress from tolerance to re-integration. Tolerance precedes conventional control intervention and is, after all, the predominant response to crime. Control initiatives require the balance of re-integration if they are to avoid the negative consequences of stigma and social isolation. Representations of crime are set apart from legitimised behaviours and reactions through tolerance. Representations of crime can be reversed through re-integration. Atmospheres of tolerance and re-integration should help prioritise control choices and pre-determine the contexts within which these choices are more inXuential. … The context of community here, and throughout this chapter, is intended to cover localised social and economic communities as well as their global counterparts. In addition, it may refer to control communities which incorporate the controllers and the controlled.

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For a comprehensive reaction to crime, control strategies and their potential require analysis within contexts of tolerance and re-integration. Appreciating this, the present chapter is concerned both with boundaries of permission and barriers of regulation. An integrated approach to controlling crime, which involves the optimum recognition of tolerance and re-integration, should enable a rationalisation of formal or professionalised crime control initiatives. Crime control resources can then be dedicated to situations and behaviours where their impact is necessary and likely to be maximal. If, as previously argued, crime is a force for globalisation,  an integrated control endeavour should complement, and even rationalise, the direction of globalisation, in so far as it is inXuenced by crime. A more integrated approach to control will complement the harmony of globalisation. However, globalisation is paradox as well as harmony. Crime control in its exclusionary forms reXects a similar paradox. This might explain why the representations of crime control in the contemporary discourse of globalisation exhibit the same institutions and processes which are a feature of crime control in its localised manifestations. International police, international courts and global structures of penalty, therefore, produce as many similar adverse social consequences as those which burden speciWc, localised crime control strategies. The representation of crime as a global problem has come to rely on the nature of control to determine its place within globalisation. The paradoxes generated through control choice mould crime as an inXuence for globalisation. Thus, the contexts within which control replaces tolerance, or sets the tone for re-integration, should resemble those wherein crime is transformed as a result of control initiatives. If control fails to transform crime, through the foreclosure of crime choice and crime relationships, then its impact on globalisation may also remain symbolic or purely political. When control choices serve the needs of global politics rather than global order, this is likely. The analysis in earlier chapters of crime in context has involved a conscious rehabilitation of choice and its process. To understand the emergence and development of crime relationships arising from crime choice, the contexts within which control is selected or ignored are helpful. However, like opportunities for crime, contexts of control are constrained, and resources for its delivery are Wnite. A simultaneous

  In a simple progression, we have argued that crime is a product of development/modernisation. Further, the motives behind modernisation are well advanced through crime. With the process of modernisation being inextricably connected with globalisation, crime is a force for both.

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examination of globalised imperatives and localised expectations for control enables some rational evaluation of control choices. Through a critical review of control choice, it is possible to argue for the rationalisation of control as a response to crime in a global context. In this way, an integrated approach to globalised control should promote, or at least reXect, globalisation as harmony. The painful paradoxes which render ambiguous the social impact of control institutions such as the police, the courts and the prisons will be reduced where the context of control is more integrated and harmonious. Characteristic of crime control as choice is the recognition and expectation of discretion. Within highly formalised control strategies discretion is an important means for targeting the direction of control and prioritising the resources it requires. In custom-based systems, like those to be discussed later, discretion represents a method whereby crime control emerges as a product of more universal re-integrative processes. Globalisation is discretion in the manner in which decision-making about crime is collapsed and commodiWed. Discretion In every situation of crime control in modernised communities discretion is employed. This is necessitated either in a simple sense because control resources are Wnite, or in more complex measure because the laws and sanctions being enforced rely on the decisions of individuals. Discretion covers individual and organisational decisions and the methods of decision-making employed. It is an essential element in many legal processes, and may involve decisions by individual oYcers or agencies of the law and justice; organisational and procedural frameworks within which legal decision-making is structured; ideological imperatives which impact on legal decision-making (e.g. independence and impartiality); and opportunities and situations where justice and law-enforcement responses rely on discretionary decision-making (e.g. opportunities for police to decide to arrest or to grant or oppose bail). All decision-making in modernised legal processes is to some extent discretionary. Despite policy initiatives to formalise, regulate or make accountable instances of discretion, it remains integral to the formal and informal structures of the law (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988). Discretion originates in the varying notions of independence which are essential to the conceptualisation of the police, the courts, sentencing and punishment. However, it is exercised within a framework of laws, rules and deWnitions (see Hawkins, 1992). The elements or issues of the case, the demeanour of the parties involved, the visibility of the discretionary

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incident, public expectation and accountability may determine the outcomes of any discretionary decision-making (Travis, 1983). The selective and discriminatory nature of law enforcement also arises from the independence of decision-making, along with the discretionary opportunities oVered through laws and administrative practice (see Hawkins, 1984). The law may require a person to take reasonable care not to harm someone else’s person or property. It may say that a person who causes damage must pay reasonable compensation. It may say that reasonable notice must be given before a legal right is exercised. The same idea appears in other forms. The law may allow only fair comment. It may require a person to act in good faith. It is left to the judge to say what is reasonable or fair, within the limits of discretion. No greater degree of certainty is possible than the judge’s discretion, guided by the knowledge of what other judges have done in similar situations in the past. Even so this discretion which underpins the administration of criminal justice in most jurisdictions is not unfettered. For example, judicial decision-making may be bound by the details of the law, the decisions of previous courts, or the expectations aroused by public policy (see Hawkins, 1992). The discretion exercised by the principal players in the crime control process (both formal and informal) is what sets it apart from many other occasions of social control. The application of discretion towards crime control objectives may go beyond the demands of substantive justice, regulated as it is by laws and rules. Both authorised and unauthorised discretion is manifested in the individualised and personal decisions of particular agents of the process. These decisions may be motivated by anything from a desire to conWrm individual power to a recognition of the need to cope with limited resources (see Handler, 1992). Discretion is a mix of both individual and organisational decisionmaking in the legal and political spheres of crime control. It may be selectively applied to the task of control through re-integration, or it may produce more division and crime as a consequence. The results will only ensure criminal justice when the exercise of discretion is both responsible and accountable to the parties involved in the crime relationship and the communities to which they lay claim. Control choices are all about discretion. A principal factor in the exclusionary nature of formalised crime control is its individualistic focus and choice structure. Strategies of crime control in modernised communities are highly discretionary, particularly bureaucratised and individualistic in their focus. As such they remain apart from the panoply of socialisation.

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Strategies of control Contrary to their current remoteness within modernised socialisation patterns, eVective strategies for controlling crime must take account of ‘the multiple moralities which exist in contemporary societies’ (Braithwaite, 1989: 13). The vision of contemporary society as local and global suggests co-existing moralities which control is challenged to reXect. In fact global crime problems currently feature in crime control agendas. As a consequence, globalised moralities are having a greater inXuence over the representation of crime, and claiming priority as the motive behind control. EVective control strategies need to focus on the reasons why ‘some uncontrolled individuals become heroin users, some become hitmen, and others price Wxing conspirators’ (ibid.). The predominance of particular control strategies is a result of global political/economic moralities which fear the heroin user and the hitman over the price-Wxer. While control strategies may lay claim to greater resourcing and more signiWcance in terms of their closeness to global crime problems, their objects and objectives appear to diVer little from local control concerns. Deviance is to be returned to normality. Crime choices are to be regulated and crime relationships disconnected. Control and its rules are to be conWrmed. Control strategies are not alone in these aspirations. Tolerance, as well as re-integration may claim similar motivation and greater success in its achievement. What seems to be missing in the globalised conWdence in control strategies as an answer to crime is the realisation that they lag behind the regulatory impact of re-integrative and tolerant contexts. Even so, global control discourse proceeds without a recognition of the instrumental signiWcance of tolerance and re-integration. The possibility of their integration, so as to aVect crime and the direction of globalisation, is the concluding interest of this analysis. However, certain crime relationships and choices demand a pre-eminent control response. In those societies where the state monopolises prosecution, homicide is not answered with mediation. Sexual assault requires deterrent punishment where the status of women as victims is politically signiWcant. It is knowing how and when to meet such demands in a climate of limited and demoralised control resources which may maximise the impact of control. This discussion of crime control presupposes its common appreciation across diversiWed contexts, and to a large extent this is problematic. One way of approaching control is through an examination of those factors which indicate its attainment. Any such norm derivative perspective has

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its limitations. It recognises the common-sense position that control strategies are only as good as the regulation they require to ensure their appropriate and acceptable operation. In order to advance a critique of crime control which advocates more integration, the signiWers of control need identiWcation. If these signiWers are activated and enhanced within a context of integrated control then this will obviously strengthen the push for more comprehensive integration. Indicators of crime control The individual and collective consciousness of a community, as well as that of a global culture, is essential to the formulation and success of crime control strategies. If a community has a clear and strong view about what constitutes crime, and what is the appropriate and essential crime control agenda, then the potential for crime and law enforcement to fragment society is minimised. In addition, clear boundaries of permission, endorsed and articulated through strategies of control, operate to identify tolerance and provide an interesting and important barometer of social cohesion. However, crime control in particular will either reXect and evolve out of relevant social consensus, or will struggle against the resistance of sub-cultures and individuals which challenge or deny its labelling potential. If communities beneWt from an ‘anti-crime’ consciousness, then legitimate crime control initiatives which do not challenge this consciousness have a greater potential for success. This potential is realised through the greater degree of voluntary participation from the community in crime control which such a consciousness should stimulate. A more individualised approach to responsibility for crime control, rather than a generalised reliance on professionalised or state intervention, may also enhance control potential. The Japanese experience with voluntary probation oYcers and juvenile ‘mentor’ programmes (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988) is a good example of how participation and shared responsibility within a national anti-crime consciousness will produce model control consequences. The behaviour against which a control strategy is directed, and the features of marginalisation, domination, resistance and choice which characterise its context, must inXuence control potential. A misunderstanding of this has led, for example, to the somewhat pre-emptive and unreasonable disillusionment with the rehabilitative goals of certain control institutions, such as the prison. Rehabilitation cannot be ensured in artiWcial contexts of coercion. It is more likely that the marginalised living

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environment of the oVender (exaggerated by a prison experience) to which inmates will return, ultimately defeats any rehabilitative prospects. In this respect the control consequence of the prison is deWcient. Crime control initiatives will have little success against the crime contexts at which they are directed if other equally important experiences of socialisation within those contexts tend to support crime behaviours and relationships. This is why control strategies, such as family group conferencing as practised in the Maori communities of New Zealand, would not be successful unless those communities and their delinquent subcultures essentially respect socialisation away from crime (see Hudson et al., 1996). A context of respect and consensus is the key here to successful re-integration.À By contrast, crime control initiatives in Sicily (discussed in chapter 5) have failed for just this reason. The MaWa rural culture of the island traditionally endorsed those social relationships which facilitate rather than challenge organised crime. If the tolerance of crime and crime structures is high within a community, for reasons beyond fear of violence or even respect and deference to deviant authority, then this will diminish the crime control potential of state initiatives. Tolerance of crime relationships acts against control rather than creating an atmosphere wherein control may be rationalised. In addition, tolerance may emerge from condoning rather than denouncing deviant behaviours, and this has ramiWcations for any control context. If the socialisation direction of the control initiative (which itself must be anti-crime) is strong and potent, uni-directional and extensive, then the crime control potential of the initiative will be correspondingly high. Therefore, it is not diYcult to appreciate how the overall control impact of a police force is signiWcantly diminished if its members are corrupt and unjustly selective in their law-enforcement practice. The crime control potential of state-based strategies will be jeopardised if a fundamental respect for the authority of the state does not prevail. This explains why the eVorts of the British government to prevent paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland have been, up until the recent joint peace talks, so profoundly unsuccessful. For quite diVerent reasons the two major alignments of paramilitary power in the province challenge state authority, and therefore crime control has either degenerated into a quasi-military function or the responsibilities of the paramilitaries themselves (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993). If the crime control initiative in question is closely associated with, and legitimised by, a strong supervening basis of social authority, then its crime control function is less problematic and its potential to control is À The importance of respect as a context for successful re-integration is explored in terms of policing, in Findlay (1993).

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greater. However, the authority to which it is connected must be considered legitimate and be widely perceived as such. The over-professionalisation or increased institutionalisation of crime control initiatives tends to remove them from the realm of community responsibility, hence their potential to impact on the behaviours and relationships within this community will also be distanced. The recent return to community-based policing initiatives in the criminal justice strategies of many modernised cultures is a recognition of this. As re-integration strategies conWrm, the attitudes of those involved in the crime relationship are an essential element inXuencing the potential success of any crime control eVort. For control to have both a speciWc impact on the oVender and a more general eVect on the community, perpetrators, victims and immediate observers must concede the justice of control mechanisms and respect their conditions. Also, crime control potential heightens as those involved in the control mechanism internalise shared goals and obligations important for the wider social framework and the mechanism itself. The relationship which is developed between the control mechanism and the community it is meant to protect will also inXuence crime control potential. Perhaps a signiWcant explanation of the apparent control success of re-integrative initiatives is that they not only work towards control but share the aim of further re-integrating within the community on which they rely. The capacity for selection and discrimination within a crime control initiative increases its crime control potential in terms of directing and concentrating its control eVorts on speciWc targets. This explains the evolution of selection and categorisation of target-controlled subjects within modern criminal justice agencies, as well as the use of criminal informants by police. Also, if such initiatives operate in a Xexible and adaptable fashion, while acknowledging in their use of discretion the responsible demands for community accountability, then control is enhanced. There is a clear relationship between the crime control potential of a mechanism or initiative and its level of human and Wnancial resources and investments. However, this may not always be the case, as globalised drug law enforcement demonstrates. In addition to resourcing, control depends on an unambiguous community consensus, as well as rational and supportive strategies of tolerance and re-integration. Total prohibition strategies are both ideologically misleading and practically distracting. Drug control policies rely for their success on a balance between regulated use strategies and targeted control initiatives, both within a prevailing atmosphere of re-integration.

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Alternative mechanisms of crime controlà As we have detailed elsewhere (Findlay and Zvekic, 1988; 1993), crime control potential does not only, or even primarily, reside in state-centred strategies. In fact, a crime control policy which fails to recognise alternative or community control initiatives itself will become marginalised. The simple fact, often ignored in both social development and crime control literature, is that in most cultures crimes are dealt with informally, or through non-state instrumentalities. Crime is either tolerated and ignored, or community intervention pre-empts formal criminal justice agencies. Even serious crimes may be addressed by community or private sector responses – either because the community does not trust the state agencies, or the state has not eVectively assumed responsibility for these community needs. For example, in rural China a variety of initiatives have been generated at a community level to defeat gambling which so damages the material existence of women and families (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988). Except in the cities, and state-controlled work-places, public security agencies in China have shown a distinct lack of interest in dealing with what a vast number of victims have identiWed as a priority for control and prevention. The relatively heavy reliance on private-sector rather than public police in societies both modern and developing can also only be explained in terms of the particular needs and interests of communities, and the failure of state-centred criminal justice to make them eVective (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993). Globalised control priorities reXect this. For instance, in unstable states where the police and the military are ineVective, multinational mining concerns are engaging private mercenary units to protect their concessions. As the signiWcance of these forces grows they are also in a position to inXuence the political and economic context of the states concerned. Recently in Papua New Guinea the mercenary company Sandline (which is closely connected with the multinational security Wrm Executive Outcomes) represented the government against dissidents in a mineral-rich province. It appears that one of Sandline’s wider intentions was to secure the world’s biggest copper mine, then controlled by the dissidents, in order that the government would be in a position to oVer a signiWcant interest in its operations to a mining company which controls Sandline. This example reveals the irrelevance of state-centred control agencies in an unstable transitional culture, and the convergence of global control and corporate priorities (see Dinnen, 1997). In a number of à As we have argued in other places (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988; 1993), ‘alternative’ is not to be conceived of here in terms of simple dichotomies (i.e. formal/informal, public/private, state-centred/community). Alternative is meant to suggest a series of choices and in this analytical context it is interactive rather than dichotomous (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993: ch. 1).

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newly emergent southern African states such as Angola, these mercenary forces have won civil wars on behalf of the government, secured mining concessions on behalf of their corporate masters, and now provide the control muscle which backs up the economic dominance of multinational interests over state-centred priorities. In the ‘alternative’ or ‘popular’ justice processes, there exist similar potentials to integrate or to marginalise. With policing, for example, communities may establish night patrols to protect individuals’ property and safety where no such protection is otherwise provided. Vigilante groups may grow out of these same night patrols and victimise minority groups within that community or exact vicious and criminal violence in the name of instant justice (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1993). When referring to alternative mechanisms of crime control we are not implying a simple dichotomous set of options for policy-makers. Rather we are suggesting a mode of analysing control options in terms of choices rather than trying to force control completely within state responsibility, or to diminish the potential of traditional control strategies, because of their distance from state institutionalisation. If policy-makers were to avoid the state/community, formal/informal classiWcations and instead were to envisage control as a continuum of forms and choices, then the possibility of integrating control responsibility and structures (rather than colonising them) might be realised. The essential connection between styles of control and community expectations holds out more than just the possibility of explaining alternative mechanisms of crime control. The global community will, logically, also require sympathetic control forms. Therefore an understanding of the ‘communities’ (local to global) and their control needs should enable policy-makers to prepare control strategies which better address these needs. Crime, control and the ‘community’ context Some observers see the motivation for criminal behaviour as largely the same as the motivation for non-criminal behaviour or conforming behaviour. It is a desire to satisfy the individual and social expectations of signiWcant members of their reference group. Therefore whether they relate to the deviant behaviour itself or the consequences desired from it, those who make crime choices do so in the context of community (in terms of social interaction, physical location, and social solidarity and cohesion). This analysis is not so persuasive in the case of those individualised, predatory crimes which of their nature are determined to occur beyond the community’s view. Even in such situations, however, it might be the

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absence of any meaningful reference group that in part explains the lone rape, the arson attack or the police beating. The inXuence of ‘community’ over socialisation is often presented in an unconvincing fashion through particular paradigms of social development. For instance, in some development contexts, emphasis is given to promoting community or beneWciary participation, and decentralisation into community organisations to replace incompetent or corrupt state agencies. An example of this is where development is directed towards the empowerment of community-based structures in which more representative and responsive centralised state institutions may operate. On the other hand, some paradigms recall a strong interventionist state and are suspicious of the privatisation or commodiWcation of the state sector (such as that which features in World Bank structural adjustment programmes). The ambiguous positioning of the community and the state in development paradigms has led to ‘confused thinking about the nature of community and the state which parallels attitudes to informal justice in criminology’ (Clegg and Whetton, 1993: 2). Confusion over ‘community’ and its impact on crime control allows community rhetoric to be adopted by radicals and conservatives alike. Cohen (1985) sees the ahistorical, acultural and ‘pastorale’ treatments of community as more political than real. There is no doubt that the community context of crime and its control must be appreciated for any genuine understanding of the dynamics of crime to emerge. However, the symbolism of community has tended in the literature to obfuscate rather than portray such understanding. In this respect the potency of community as a context in which to specify crime and its control is lost. Globalisation tends to adopt and incorporate notions of world community while denying the particularity which sets communities apart, thereby justifying their existence. The symbolic presence of the world community invites a consideration of re-integrative control strategies even within a context where the referent group is anything but familiar and familial. SigniWcance of re-integrative strategiesÕ It is generally appreciated that not only are certain forms of crime more prevalent amongst the alienated and the marginalised, but control straÕ The use of ‘re-integration’ in the contemporary discourse of crime control is perhaps misleading. Re-acceptance is a more accurate description of the process involved. The communities for which shaming, amongst other techniques, is employed in the name of re-integration, declare the diVerence of the oVender and state the fact that his behaviour is unacceptable. Through acts of contrition and reconciliation his acceptance back into the community is permitted. However, the oVender returns to his original status within that community which may have been far from integrated.

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tegies also have less impact when attempted in communities where conventional social bonding is not strong. The relevance of this for globalisation is signiWcant, provided the phase of globalisation in question was achieved through social cohesion rather than the denial of diversity. If an individual is punished for a crime, and his immediate reference group is ambivalent to state authority or actively denies the state’s version of events, then the ‘corrective’ consequence of the penalty is likely to be slight. If the state is duplicitous or openly discriminatory in its exercise of penalty then this is likely to undermine any homogeneous and positive response to the control strategy from the oVender’s immediate community. Even the process of control might, as suggested earlier, tend to further marginalise the oVender, or distance his community from any constructive commitment to the control process. It is easier, for instance, for the public to react to an oVender in a stigmatic fashion if they are removed from him as a community than if they accept his place amongst them. This trend is exaggerated the more a community relies on the secondhand interpretations of the media for their experience. Some crime control strategies are intended not to re-integrate, the death penalty being the most extreme example. They prefer to rely on fear, deterrence or retribution to argue against crime. One signiWcant problem with any such strategy is the removal from the community of responsibility for crime control and the over-reliance on the state. If state authority is ever challenged, or state practices impugned, then the wider structures of control will come into disrepute and even their anticipated impact will diminish. In addition, the alternative control structures which operate in all communities may become diYcult to harmonise with state claims to monopolise control. If the state structures of control are autocratic or demoralised or imperialist, they will represent a threat to alternative control structures and the possibility of some integrated approach to crime control will be lost. A re-integrative commitment must be based on the belief that the oVender is worth re-integrating and the community is worth being returned to. In this respect community-centred control initiatives may have a more realistic and sensitive appreciation of the merit and likely success of these aspirations. They will also be closer to the situations of victimisation in crime relationships and as such should be more capable of balancing the victim’s interests through the process of re-integration. Examples of such initiatives include family case conferencing and community aid panels to adjudicate over and resolve situations of juvenile crime; volunteer community supervision schemes to keep oVenders out of custodial punishment; and citizen protection and patrol schemes which secure

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property and personal safety at a local level (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988; 1993). Both the institutions of the state and of the community are required to accept some responsibility for the existence of crime in their midst. By establishing that crime is a social phenomenon, the sources of power and authority within society become responsible for its existence and control. However, as re-integration is a ‘communitarian’ concept, and if it is designed to sever and replace crime relationships, it must be an interactive process. OVenders need to participate positively in re-integration. To ensure this, there must be a community in place which they trust, which supports their criminalisation, and to which they want to return. The context of re-integration must be one of real consensus, and the unconvincing nature of proposed control relationships, is a point where many re-integrative policies fail. If consensus is Xawed, respect is absent. If the community is little more than a model structure created for the purposes of the re-integration exercise, strategies for re-integration may become just another dimension in the apparatus of repression and marginalisation. For instance, the use of family case conferences with homeless youth whose ‘community’ is far from the nuclear family (which in fact may be their reason for being on the street), is profoundly limited unless ‘family’ is subjectively re-interpreted to include a youth gang or a hostel for the homeless. It has been argued (Braithwaite, 1989) that crime control can be eVected through re-integrative shaming, where public events of shaming are visited on an oVender in order to commence a process of re-integration rather than to stigmatise the oVender through the shaming process. This process is to be distinguished from and replaces stigmatisation, which tends to isolate and exclude oVenders from the community. Certain social conditions, such as multiple relationships of interdependency, are essential for shaming to be re-integrative: ‘societies shame more eVectively if they are communitarian’ (ibid.: 14). In this assertion lies one of the reasons why, especially for juvenile delinquents in dislocated societies or strong criminal sub-cultures, shaming may not have ‘anticrime’ re-integrative consequences. In fact the morals of the ‘community’ to which the delinquent is attached may neutralise the whole shaming process and eventually ridicule the values on which it is premised. This is very apparent when shaming is applied to regulate drug abuse where community attitudes to that form of behaviour may be fragmented or equivocal. Also, if the community values which provide the essential context for re-integrative shaming are strong and duplicitous (as with corrupt police organisations), then the shaming process might be simply another level of masking and complicity (see Findlay, 1993).

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An obvious problem for a globalised shame-based model of reintegration lies in the way the global re-deWnes the communitarian. Globalisation is the metamorphosis of the community in which networks of responsibility are stretched to the limit or become the province of proxies such as the state, the international organisation or the multinational corporation. Therefore, the crucial bonds of obligation essential to the communitarian underpinning of Braithwaite’s re-integration are replaced through globalisation by a web of more symbolic and representational responsibility. This perhaps explains why bureaucratised control is a more common response to crime in a globalised discourse than are tolerance and re-integration. Integrating control Integration stands contrary to criminalisation which is a process of declaring diVerence. Criminalisation emanates from a control perspective and therefore control could be said to embody diVerence through stigmatisation. In this sense, modernised crime control could be seen as a signiWcant impediment to the aspirations for re-integration. Interestingly, however, crime relationships and crime choice as represented in this work may be motivated by strong desires for integration. Whether it be through utilising illegitimate markets or capital to produce opportunities for material wealth, commodiWcation, and hence acceptance in a modernised materialist morality, crime is a process claiming integration. Surely a more eVective control context for crime is one which opens up approved paths for integration. Stigmatisation might only increase the attractiveness of crime as a mechanism for integration and through the promotion of crime, challenge the eVectiveness of alienating control strategies. Whether deviance arises from negative reactions to particular rules and values, dissociation from society, failure in particular status criteria, or drift from the conventional path (see chapter 3), the common theme is the absence of social integration within key elements of the oVender’s life experience, such as employment and the family. For instance, in societies where the community is closely knit, and responsibility for the re-integration of those outside conventional social networks is shared, then crime rates seem to be low. In large cities, where social integration is either diYcult or distorted for some classes of citizen, crime rates are relatively high. Social integration is an inXuential factor in this, as it is towards eYcient and eVective control initiatives. A constructive response to crime as a consequence of marginalisation, alienation and disjuncture requires an interactive appreciation of control

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potentials. The remainder of this chapter will explore the elements of such interaction and the manner in which any resultant social integration may develop a crime control potential.Œ The case-study chosen will suggest impediments to such integration in contexts which, while still close to custom, are inXuenced by global control institutions. These institutions arrive through the introduced legal systems which govern the custom context. If integration is to eventuate in response to globalised crime then the experience from within transitional cultures where control is necessarily more integrated should be reXected upon. In addition, the following case-study allows for a discussion of how more integrated approaches to control, when applied outside their context of origin, might be regressive. For instance, reconciliation when oVered and ensured in an open community context may provide a sensitive resolution to crime-type conXict. When it is oVered in secret, in relationships of power and domination, it becomes little more than another level of repression and concealment. The suggestion that forms of social integration will produce crime control results is not new (see Braithwaite, 1988). Re-integration must be possible within the speciWc social context of crime if it is to maximise its control potential relevant to the particular individuals involved in the crime relationship. The analysis and understanding of a range of social contexts in which crime choices and relationships are prevalent is necessary if any control strategy, particularly one which relies on re-integration, is to be realised. Too often crime control policy is constructed out of the failure of preceding policy without recognising that the reasons for failure often lie in the particular context from which crime initially emerges. If this context is appreciated in an integrated social sense, the position of crime and its potential to be controlled may be considered with other signiWcant conditions of social development. In this way crime control strategies can be built into social development initiatives, and with a sensitive application may oVer prevention as well as control potentials. But all this depends on generating a particular and speciWc knowledge of the social context of crime and the way in which it connects with other important social relationships within that context. An integrated context of crime and control Durkheim once made the startling observation that crime can be ‘normal’ (see Durkheim, 1938), and within designated bounds is an integral part of all healthy societies. Should this view be correct – crime playing a Œ Our arguments can be found more fully developed in other United Nations publications (see Findlay and Zvekic, 1988; 1993).

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useful role in integrating societies – the positive as well as the negative perspectives of crime require recognition if the former is to be exploited. The existence of crime will not necessitate societal breakdown. Otherwise, how might one explain the apparently successful functioning of some societies in which most crime is tolerated and goes on undetected and unpunished. Within the corporate enclaves in multinational commerce, where tolerance of crime rather than control prevails, globalisation is advanced. The global society experiences the paradox of crime as a social stimulant and a threat to social order. The selective enforcement of the law and imposition of the criminal sanction, like all processes of socialisation, have a potential to exacerbate the relationships and contexts they set out to address. For example, the discriminatory and excessive use of imprisonment in the USA has led to a situation where prisons in that society are more sites of racial discrimination and the abuse of human rights than crime control. Tolerance is the other dimension of the crime control equation which requires as much analysis and action as law enforcement and penalty. The suggestion that delinquent behaviour may reinforce the moral boundaries of society by challenging them and, where relevant, having them re-aYrmed, is a common notion in discussions of community identity. Some commentators have emphasised the socially adaptive role of crime whereby social norms may be adjusted through crime, albeit an illegitimate mechanism. There can be little doubt that, for the economically marginalised, crime forms a range of opportunities producing subjectively ‘good’ results from a re-orientation of material wealth through to a repositioning of social status. Where the ‘good’ or ‘normal’ dimension of crime merges into the illegitimate and harmful is better understood by seeing crime as a relationship within set social contexts. Then the concern of beneWt/harm becomes a comparative issue for perpetrators and victims, individuals and communities, sub-cultures and cultures. In a globalised context, measures of beneWt and normality may be pre-determined by collective, corporatised interests rather than community consensus or fraternal equity. The dynamics of criminal relationships are inXuenced by a range of contextual features over and above crime control strategies. These features are essentially interactive. The cause and eVect analysis of crime and control becomes barren when it is removed from a speciWc and comprehensive understanding of crime’s social context. Control policy cannot be eVectively mounted beyond this realisation. In traditional social analyses which see crime as opportunity and control as stigmatisation, there is a failure to recognise the vital importance of

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interdependency in the formulation of either crime or anti-crime choices. There is also a failure to recognise the potential to achieve control aims through integrated strategies. The global interest in a control response to crime, outside contexts which account for the presence of crime, leads to distortions of crime choice and crime relationships. This serves to entrench rather than to alleviate crime and its conditions. Globalised crime control In most, if not all, control scenarios touched on in the analysis so far, paradox is a feature. Control strategies set out to regulate behaviour and boundaries of permission. However, within the perimeters of control crime is transformed as well as controlled. Simultaneously, within and beyond these perimeters, crime is tolerated without control. In some settings, the regulation arising from control selectively conWrms and facilitates certain crime choices and relationships over others. Therefore, crime control is not simply a uni-directional process through which behaviours are modiWed and cultures transformed. Neither is globalisation. The oscillating consequences of control for behaviour and culture mirror the motion of globalisation. Control aims to minimise microcultures and to endorse the prevailing culture, while at the same time condoning multiple moralities. The regular reference throughout this analysis to drug law enforcement provides a useful example of this. The criminalisation of drug use is highly selective and politicised. The social and commercial moralities behind this selective criminalisation challenge community consensus which is so essential to the eVectiveness of control. The motivations behind such selective criminalisation, which may range from national self-interest to moral and commercial imperialism, are but some of the motivations at work for globalisation. Crime control, like criminalisation, is an important level of symbolism within globalisation. The single culture image of globalisation relies more on symbols than signiWcation – symbols of common yet relative cultural features and their synthesis at the level of symbol. How else could one explain the paradoxical existence of a global culture and co-existent cultural diversity and multiculturalism? Not through symbolism alone! The prevalence of globalisation as a cultural trend is also claimed through internationalised crime control priorities. If crime control is argued for as an essential protection of global culture, and the control of crime is becoming more globalised, then its importance as an endorsement of global symbols is apparent. Globalised crime control means much more than Interpol, mutual assistance, extradition and international crime

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conferences. The commodiWcation of crime control in terms of the cost of crime and the proWt in control now sits comfortably within the rhetoric of globalisation. As the globalisation of crime control evolves, pressures for its integration within the wider forces of global socialisation will grow. The integration within crime control strategies and priorities is inevitable. This will profoundly inXuence the representation of crime and the place of crime choice and crime relationships within cultural transformation at all levels. Some argue that the wider integration of crime control within general frameworks of socialisation is a return to the control perspectives of pre-modern societies. In this sense, integration is perhaps regressive and therefore contrary to globalisation. And yet integration does not necessitate simpliWcation or a search for home-spun remedies for crime which is evolving and modernising. A truly integrated control strategy recognises the sophistication of modernised crime control and seeks to adapt those more traditional mechanisms for tolerance and re-integration which are arguably compatible with the needs of modern crime. Further, for integration to have relevance in a modernised crime setting it must avoid the unnatural grafting of techniques which are only useful in a pre-modern context. The relevance of an integrated control strategy may be tested via comparative research into cultures where modernised control strategies have been imposed over a strong custom base. The clash of contexts, and the failure of grafting control methods on to alien settings, should provide a comparative frame of reference for considering the future of globalised crime control. Similar policy challenges no doubt arise where global control priorities confront established, local control institutions and processes. Case-studies: Introduced law and custom – the adaptation of penalty The case-studies to follow explore the possibility of an integrated control strategy where new and old cultures meet. Their purpose is to highlight the intersection between local and global cultures in a context of control. At the intersection between transitional cultures there lies tolerance and re-integration; introduced criminal justice formalities are therefore likely to be impediments to such integration. For instance, the prison removes an oVender from the community, whereas compensation, apology and restitution are designed to draw oVenders back into the community. Further, in a contextual sense, the vital features of culture which ensure the relevance and impact of integrated strategies should be obvi-

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ous in settings where custom is strong and introduced crime control adaptive. The intersection between custom and introduced (individualised) control mechanisms, within a context of communal responsibility for crime, reveals the strain in the two systems. The paradoxical results of mixing mechanisms without integrating the control context is apparent in these case-studies which identify further crime and conXict arising. The oscillating inXuence of introduced legality on prevailing culture features in the analysis of the existence and development of customary law.œ Much of the limited writing on law and custom speculates on the impact of introduced law on already present modes of regulation. While recognising these structuralist contexts of inXuence (oversimpliWed as they are), the following case-studies explore the imposition and adaptation of legal formalism in contexts of resilient and resonant custom.– The purpose of this analysis in the context of globalised crime control is to evaluate integrated control scenarios so as to identify constant themes common for control. Further, the transitional nature of the control scenarios tends to suggest that control as a feature of globalisation facilitates the coalescence of cultural aims and processes. The identiWcation of phases of control (i.e. liability, justiWcation, extenuation) and the paradoxes they pose will complement the process of globalisation. The control of crime must be examined at the deWnition, prevention, detection, punishment and treatment stages. Each of these stages needs to be available and well resourced within an eVective control strategy. The manner in which these components complement and support each other will impact signiWcantly on its long-term success. Can there be globalised penalty? Irrespective of the ‘systems’ or motivations which support a particular penalty, its empathy with culture is emphasised by its susceptibility to adaptation within otherwise rigid ideologies and institutions. Of addiœ See Ottley and Zorn (1983); Zorn (1991); Fitzpatrick (1984); Zorn (1992). – Custom is regarded here as more than an alternative system of law or social regulation. Custom entails ways of doing things and ways of explaining how and why they are done, or are required to be done. It precedes law and claims its legitimacy from richer and deeper sources than the authority of the state or the ideology of a system. Custom is the epitome of lifestyles and patterns of community. When translated into legal discourse, custom loses its active as well as its metaphysical dimensions. For instance, the interpretation given to custom in schedule 1 of the Interpretation Act (Cap 132) of Vanuatu is that ‘custom means the customs and traditional practices of the indigenous people of Vanuatu’. Schedule 1.2 of the Constitution of Papua New Guinea expands on this: ‘Custom means the custom and usages of indigenous inhabitants of the country existing in relation to the matter in question at the time when and in the place in relation to which the matter arises regardless of whether or not the custom has existed from time immemorial.’

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tional interest is the manner in which customary penalties, while appearing to adapt equally well to, and represent quite diVerent sanction ideologies, in fact endanger these ideologies when called on to operate beyond their original cultural context. An example of this is the focus on individualised guilt within formalised Western criminal justice. Communal notions of responsibility which feature in custom-based systems do not sit well with the individualised focus of introduced systems and may tend to subvert their impact. Custom and introduced law pose both common and conXicting contexts for penalty. For instance, contemporary legislative development in South PaciWc jurisdictions evidences signiWcant diYculty in distinguishing ‘customary law’ from the perspective of what introduced law (and its jurisprudential framework) recognises and allows. For example, the focus on ‘individualised rights and responsibilities’ of both common and civil law traditions does not translate into the communal social organisation that features in many PaciWc cultures. Western Samoa presents just this issue: at the root of the conXicts and contradictions between the Samoan system of customary and traditional laws, and the ‘imported’ systems, is this fundamental diVerence in jurisprudential philosophy. Attempts to introduce into the Samoan system any concept of individual rights separate from those of the clan was, and still is, resisted as being a direct threat to the stability of society (Epati, 1990: 582).

The diYculties associated with identifying custom and ‘customary law’ from within the context of introduced law have been exacerbated by the inextricable link in recent PaciWc history between legal formalism and colonisation. Introduced law and legal institutions feature in the vanguard of political and commercial policies designed to annex and overrule indigenous cultures. Once established, introduced laws and institutions have: (a) gradually recognised the expansion and wider application of customary laws; or (b) re-asserted the importance of customary law, by saying that customary law is to be applied by all courts, but only to certain speciWed matters or within certain speciWed limits; or (c) re-asserted the importance of customary law where the courts are to apply customary law within certain general limits without these limits being speciWed. All of these approaches towards the ‘rehabilitation’ of custom fail to move beyond the structural context of the introduced legal system and its formal legality. The best evidence for this is the recognition of ‘custom’ couched within the statutory deWnitions of the new legality, and in particular, the applicability of custom as dependent on consistency with constitutions, legislation and introduced notions of public interest, justice and ‘principles of humanity’.— — See Article 100 (3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji (1990).

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The conceptualisation of ‘customary law’ brings with it some additional claims to the pre-eminence of legal formalism over custom. By the reference to ‘customary law’, custom is circumscribed within the frameworks and expectations for foreign notions of law. Thereby custom becomes distorted into an alien context even through the use of the word ‘law’. But advocates of custom also employ ‘law’, not wishing to see custom diminished below the authority generated by ‘law’ terminology in a competing setting. In addition, custom as a legitimate instrument of social regulation seems to be distinguished only from the time of the introduction of foreign legal forms and institutions. The ‘colonising’ impact of introduced legal formalism is clear from the attempt to distinguish between ‘law’ and ‘custom’; the identiWcation of ‘customary law’; and the designation of what is ‘fused’ or integrated within, or rejected or denied by, legal formalism. Such a forced intersection between custom and legality is exposed at the following levels of socialisation, from the perspective of both indigenous and introduced cultures: (a) ideological where the ‘rule of law’ conXicts with social order; (b) functional where formal stigmatisation as a consequence of rule violation conXicts with re-integration and restitution at a community level; (c) structural where state-monopolised prosecution conXicts with customary obligation, collectively identiWed and administered.…» The dynamics of custom in its many PaciWc variations makes it distinctly incompatible with rigid legal formalism. Custom exists beyond singular identiWcation, written description and unaccountable institutionalisation. Its potential impact is implicit and ubiquitous when compared with the expectations of legal formalism. This might go to explain its recent and developing inXuence in contexts where the sanction processes of introduced law appear ineVectual or out of touch within the context of custom. Paradoxes of control within post-colonial PaciWc states An initial ‘grab’ for power by colonial administrations in the PaciWc was through the control of sanctioning processes. This was eVected at several levels of colonial inXuence. For example, Christian missionaries, by introducing a Judeo-Christian moral ethic to dominate indigenous ‘moralities’, created a compatible climate for the construction and enforce…» It should be remembered that in most custom settings the distinction between criminal and civil law and processes is not drawn. In fact the concept of crime and criminality may be very alien to custom resolutions where the parties remain responsible for harm and its restitution.

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ment of individualised justice, largely monopolised as it would be by state judicial mechanisms. This is not to suggest that traditional contexts of sanction were entirely ignored or superseded. Bearing in mind that in many PaciWc island countries either weak or transitional state structures struggled for varying degrees of ascendancy, it was not likely that resilient customary models would quickly disappear. It appears to be a feature of the colonial period in the South PaciWc that while constitutional legality and parliamentary government were promoted as the preferred and paramount framework of governance, the actual impact of introduced law over the socialisation of custom was, and is, problematic (see Zorn, 1992). Even so, and perhaps because of the indiVerent consequences of Western colonisation, the paradoxes between custom and introduced legal formalism remain apparent. For example, the ideology of common law criminal justice relies on features such as individual liability, rational choice justifying penalty, the state’s obligation to prosecute and punish on behalf of the community, the limited availability of justiWcation or excuse, and the consideration of extenuation only in mitigation. It is not a form of justice which manages collective behaviour or communal interests well. The potential for paradox where such a notion of justice comes up against customary penalty with very keen communal and collective investments is clear. For instance, with traditional community shaming the whole village is co-opted into the process and the oVender’s family may take collective responsibility not only for the harm but also for his rehabilitation. Common law liability, on the other hand, tends to isolate the oVender from the community at all stages of the penalty process, while requiring the individual to restore the social balance through his guilt and shame. Paradox and the stages of control From a control perspective, in whatever context, the three essential stages are: the proof of liability; the consideration of justiWcation and excuse; and the concern for extenuation and mitigation. These are crucial stages within the sanction process on which the construction and imposition of penalty rests. In addition, the paradoxical nature of these stages when contrasted with aspirations of control suggests the need for the consideration of additional socialisers such as tolerance and re-integration.

Paradox over liability In the Solomon Island case of Loumia v. DPP,…… the conXict between

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customary obligation and individual responsibility was further complicated by the need to recognise constitutional rights. While under the Solomon Islands’ Constitution it was expected that introduced notions of criminal liability should apply both to the native and European populations, ‘it was doubtless considered that such standards, beliefs, customs and so forth [of the native population], could and would be taken into consideration by the judge upon the question of proper punishment in each case’.…  Under this relative legal framework, therefore, custom could never absolve an oVender from criminal liability.…À Only where the custom-based claims for exculpation corresponded with those justiWcations and excuses condoned in the introduced law might custom have any impact on the acquittal of the accused. Therefore, custom concerns became relegated to sentencing mitigation after conviction. In Loumia’s case the homicide oVences charged were said to have arisen out of a series of tribal conXicts. No side in the trial denied that the deaths were as a result of custom obligations strongly endorsed by both the victims and the accused. The facts were that there had been trouble between two groups of Kwoio and Agai clansmen over a land dispute which the Kwoio had won in the courts. Following the hearing of the Customary Land Appeal Court, two of the Agai had been sent to prison as a consequence of a knife attack on Loumia’s brother. Later, during a battle between the two groups involved in the ongoing land dispute, Loumia’s brother was killed and his half-brother received severe facial injuries. This occurred in the presence of Loumia and the other accused on the village football pitch. The corpses of three of the Agais were later found further along a nearby beach. All the thirteen Kwoio involved in the Wght were charged with the murders of the three Agais. Loumia, who never denied killing the three, was the only one of the accused convicted of murder. On appeal he sought to have the conviction reduced to manslaughter on the grounds that: (a) seeing his brother killed and his other brother maimed so provoked him that the reasonable Kwoio pagan villager would have acted as he did in the heat of the moment, and (b) that in acting as he did he could avail himself of the extenuation provisions in the Solomon Island Penal Code, in that although he intentionally and unlawfully caused the death of another, he ‘acted in good faith and on reasonable grounds, where he was under a legal duty to cause the death or do the act which he did’. Loumia’s counsel further argued that the words ‘legal duty’ (as referred to in the Code) include a legal duty in custom as well as any duty imposed …… [1986] SILR 158. …  R. v. Womeni Nanagano [1963] PNGLR 75, per Ollerenshaw J. …À See Brown (1986).

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under the introduced law of the Code. Evidence was adduced at the trial from a local chief conWrming that, if a close relative is killed, Kwoio custom dictates the killing in turn of the person responsible, even if the person under the duty exposes himself to death. The trial judge’s rejection of provocation as an excuse, and the impact of customary duty as an extenuating matter beyond the defence conditions of the Code,…à were in part based on the belief that to recognise these issues in law could be inconsistent with the constitutional protection of human life.…Õ This view was upheld by the appeal court: ‘The learned judges approached the question of the inconsistency of the alleged customary ‘‘legal’’ duty with the Constitution, and the Penal Code on a policy footing rather than looking at what the Constitution was seeking to achieve.’…Œ The fact that the court saw the customary duty for ‘payback’ as a defence, rather than either an issue of extenuation or a modiWcation of how criminal liability should be conceptualised, made it easier for them to reject. In addition, by denying the status of customary duty here as a legal duty, the court prevented its consideration within the formal structures of the law as an issue of extenuation. If it was not ‘legal’, then it could not claim the invitation oVered in the schedule to the Penal Code to inclusion within the law. Furthermore, by denying its status as ‘law’, the court refused to recognise the legal signiWcance of customary duty which underpins the custom/law connection. This is a telling example of the trend within the criminal jurisdictions of post-colonial states to reduce custom to the realm of mitigation and sentence. This puts custom obligation outside central considerations of liability and legality, preferring to recognise it, if at all, through judicial discretion and individualised justice. Not even allowing custom to qualify, the introduced tests for justiWcation and excuse (and the notion of the ordinary man) relegates custom to an inferior status to law. Paradox over justiWcation and excuse The signiWcance of customary obligation as a justiWcation or excuse for what would otherwise be criminal was further considered in the Fiji case of Sosiveta and Others v. R.…œ Here twenty-nine appellants appealed against sentences ranging from eighteen to thirty months for arson, …à If this duty was only seen in terms of a defence within the Code it would not satisfy the ‘ordinary person’ requirements for self-defence or provocation. In general, these requirements impose an added condition beyond the accused being provoked or in fear for his life. The accused must also respond to the threat or fear as would an ordinary person. This does not necessarily mean the ordinary Kwoio villager. …Õ Article 4 of the Solomon Islands Constitution. …Œ Brown (1986: 137). …œ (1967) 13 FLR 59.

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following their burning of the house of a fellow villager. The Supreme Court of Fiji heard evidence that the appellants – all men of good character – acted following the orders of another villager who was not only a customary leader (Ratu) but was also regarded as being ‘possessed of a special divine authority’. As a result it was claimed that the appellants ‘would have been willing to do, quite literally, anything he commands them to do’ (ibid). It was not argued that the appellants’ acts were lawful or perhaps even justiWed in the circumstances. However, the Supreme Court was invited to review the original prison sentences, bearing in mind the excuse that the appellants, particularly the younger ones, felt obliged to carry out the orders of the Ratu. In law the justiWcation or excuse of customary obligation, if it could be treated in the same manner as the defences of duress, coercion or superior orders, should provide an answer to the charges. However, the court here merely recognised the obligation in the context of mitigation and reduced the sentences to Wnes and bonds. Paradox with extenuation and mitigation The courts in the PaciWc jurisdictions have, in recent years, demonstrated a recognition of customary sanction when imposing penalties provided for under criminal codes. While the customary sanctioning process and the penalties which result may not be endorsed by statute, or exercised by the courts, the latter have deemed them to be worthy of notice as part of setting formal legal penalties. This becomes all the more interesting when the forms some such customary penalties assume may themselves represent the elements of a criminal oVence as deWned by state laws. In the Fiji case of R. v. Waisea Naburogo and others,…– the respondents were convicted on their own pleas of shop-breaking, entering and larceny. Having broken into a co-operative store, the accused stole two tins of corned beef, twenty-one tubs of ice-cream and $20 in cash, to the total value of $25. On review the court accepted that these were Wrst oVenders, that the sum of $25 had been repaid to the co-operative store by the third respondent’s father, and that the respondents had each received six strokes of corporal punishment from the village elders for the same incident. The original court sentences of imprisonment and care orders were subsequently reduced to bonds. This was justiWed by the argument that if the initial magistrate had been apprised of the facts on restitution and customary penalty then less harsh sentences would have been handed down. Another review of sentence in consideration of customary sanction …– Review 2/1981.

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occurred in R. v. Vodu Vuli.…— Here the respondent, a school teacher, was initially sentenced to several signiWcant terms of imprisonment for acts of gross indecency with four school boys. The trial court described the crimes as ‘revolting and repugnant, and constituted a grave breach of trust by the respondent in regard to the welfare of the boys concerned’. Such oVences, it was said, were serious and called for deterrent sentences. On review the court felt that the quantum of sentence should be determined ‘in the light of whatever mitigating features that may be present’. Among other more traditional matters in mitigation, such as the age and previous good conduct of the accused, the trial court had apparently not been aware that ‘the respondent had apologised to the boys’ parents and made his peace with them in the traditional Fijian way by presenting a whale’s tooth to them, and as far as the respondent knew the matter ended there’. The Chief Justice halved the original sentences and made them run concurrently. These cases take on another level of interest when one considers the sentencing principles which motivate the state courts in their use of penalty when contrasted with the motivation behind custom resolutions. In Vuli in particular, the eventual sentences could only be explained in conventional terms as having removed the retributive component of the lower court sentences.

The contextual relativity of control – reconstructing penalty in foreign contexts The inXuence of customary penalty over the control process of formalised legality means more than the recognition of custom through mitigation or acceptance under judicial notice. Across the PaciWc the penalties which now emerge from the state-centred judicial system often incorporate features of customary penalty. By examining the penalty of banishment, and the process of reconciliation and restitution, speculation about the development of ‘hybrid’ and culturally sensitive penalties in terms of their ownership, object and purpose is possible. In so doing, Garland’s (1990) emphasis on the cultural essence of penalty is conWrmed. Banishment In Western Samoa, where today structures of custom-based social order remain intact, banishment is a powerful penalty available to village communities. Beyond this both the formalised state-sponsored processes of …— Review 6/1981.

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dispute resolution and introduced law have borrowed and endorsed banishment. The history of banishment as penalty in Western Samoa was interestingly reviewed in the recent decision of Italia Taamale and Taamale Toelau v. Attorney General of Western Samoa. » This was an appeal from a decision of the Land and Titles Court, a court in the state judicial hierarchy, ordering the appellants and their children to leave their village by a nominated date. The appellants argued on appeal that they could not be in contempt of the original court order through non-compliance because the penalty itself contravened Article 13 (1) (d) and (4), the freedom of movement and association provisions of the Constitution. They further argued it was clear from earlier decisions of the Supreme Court that the penalty of banishment was not to be recognised by the courts of Western Samoa. … The tenure of the earlier courts’ argument against banishment as ‘law’ was that ‘ownership’ of the penalty remained within customary tribunals, directed against traditional relationships and for the purpose of enforcing customary obligations. None of these therefore should be legitimised at the level of the state through its legal formalism or constitutional legality. The appeal court in Taamale rejected such submissions. Banishment was historically rooted, as the court saw it: ‘there is no doubt that banishment from the village has long been an established custom in Western Samoa’. Further, the court went on to review the place of banishment within the law of the colony and following on from independence. In 1822 the German Administration of Western Samoa passed an Ordinance to Control Certain Samoan Customs. The Ordinance prevented Samoans of any station from ‘expelling any person from his village or district, under penalty of imprisonment’. The penalty of banishment was then reserved to the Administrator. With the introduction of independent constitutional legality in Western Samoa, the status of banishment as a penalty became ambiguous in terms of ownership and objective. The appeal court drew from earlier decisions of the Supreme Court the view that: ‘undoubtedly the customs and usages of Samoa in the past acknowledged the rights of village councils and the court to make banishment orders, but that custom ceased on 28 October 1960 when the Constitution was adopted’. Several judgements of the Supreme Court in the 1970s and 1980s endorsed appeal points that such banishment orders were in violation of the consti » Court of Appeal C.A. 2/95B (1995).  … It is worthy of note here, that in attempting to defeat the jurisdiction of the custom penalty the appellants not only had recourse to the courts of introduced law, but they relied on constitutional legality and colonial law doctrines of precedent.

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tutional rights of freedom of movement and residence. In Taamale the appeal court acknowledged that currently, for many village councils in Western Samoa, banishment was the ‘most important sanction vested by custom in the village council’. Banishment is usually employed when other forms of customary penalty such as Wnes and ostracism from village aVairs have failed. A further argument in favour of the continued signiWcance of banishment was that, as an eVective general deterrent at a village level, it was rarely necessary to employ state-centred crime control resources (such as the police) to back up the enforcement of customary orders. The appeal decision recognised the Land and Titles Court as the only judicial ‘site’ from where banishment as a penalty may emerge: ‘While upholding the jurisdiction of the Land and Titles Court to order banishment we do so on the express basis that the jurisdiction can only lawfully be exercised in accordance with the principles and safeguards identiWed in the present judgement.’ The purpose of the penalty was said to be ‘limited to the interests of public order – meaning to prevent disturbances, violence or the commission of oVences against the law’. The Land and Titles Court has taken from the village council the responsibility for the banishment penalty, making it a formal court order. The councils are left with their ultimate penalty of ostracising a person within the village. The Court’s assumption of banishment, and the monopoly over this sanction as within its jurisdiction, was endorsed by the appeal court in Taamale. A justiWcation as to why banishment moved from the ‘ownership’ of the village council to that of a Court is: that the imposition of a banishment order is made fair and reasonable and according to law . . . An individual who is dissatisWed with a decision given at the Wrst instance level of the Land and Titles Court also has further (formal) avenues for seeking redress . . . as the Land and Titles Court can make a banishment order, so that court can cancel it.

The process of ‘ownership’ is ‘that a village council minded towards banishment from the village would be well advised to petition that [the Land and Titles] Court for an order rather than take an extreme course on their own responsibility’. Further, because serious oVences   such as murder and rape are grounds for banishment, ‘it is necessary to say that the punishment of [such] oVences is a matter for the criminal courts. Serious crime is properly dealt with in the Supreme Court.’ This appears to be both a further constraint on the object and purpose of banishment and a limitation over its ownership. The court concluded: ‘Banishment    Obviously, the measure of seriousness of the oVence (or harm) is as culturally relevant as the imposition of an appropriate and consequential penalty.

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from a village is, at the present time, a reasonable restriction imposed by existing law, in the interests of public order, on the exercise of the rights of freedom of movement and residence aYrmed [in the Constitution].’ Interestingly the court recognised the dynamic and culture-bound nature of this penalty: ‘as Western Samoan society continues to develop the time may come when banishment will no longer be justiWable’. Reconciliation Section 163 of the Criminal Procedure Code (1978) of Fiji provides that where charges for criminal trespass, common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, or malicious damage to property are brought under the Penal Code: the court may in such cases which are substantially of a person[al] or private nature and which are not aggravated in degree, promote reconciliation and encourage and facilitate the settlement in an amicable way, on terms of payment of compensation or on other terms approved by the court, and may thereupon order the proceedings to be stayed or terminated.

While having regard to the court’s role as a ‘facilitator’ in the reconciliation processes, this section operates on the understanding that this sanction is in the hands of the accused. To that extent, the court dispossesses itself of ‘ownership’ of the penalty beyond its role in promoting settlements of this form. The state constrains the use of such penalty, or at least limits the situations in which reconciliation may be recognised by the court, by designating the oVences to which it may relate. This is important in terms of a purpose for reconciliation – that being the staying or termination of other penalty options. Reconciliation has long existed as a feature of the restitution and compensation dimension of customary punishments in the PaciWc. Even so its punitive potential is recognised in section 163 through the reference to ‘payment of compensation or any other terms approved by the court’. Further, by providing for an avoidance of any further state-based penalty by achieving reconciliation, the institutions of legal formalism have incorporated this penalty within their own sentencing options. The operation of reconciliation under the sponsorship of the state courts diVers from the ‘self-help’ penalties identiWed in the case of R. v. Lati. À Here the defendants, Wve young Fijian villagers, assaulted a young man from another village. The people from the defendants’ village responded by administering corporal punishment to the defendants and oVering a ceremonial apology to the chief of the victim’s village. The defendants were then brought to trial and received prison sentences. On  À Review 1/1982.

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appeal these sentences were overturned as being too severe. The appeal court recognised the penalties meted out by the village and the exchange of apologies: It must be acknowledged that the Makadru [defendants’] villagers had taken great pains, in the absence of any police presence in the island, to settle the problem in the only way known to them which is by their own established customs and traditions. Though these have no legal force as such they are nevertheless entitled, in a suitable case, to recognition by the courts in such a manner so as to uphold their sanctity and moral force within the Fijian society . . . All the respondents had been dealt with appropriately in the Fijian customary way and whatever potential strife might have resulted between the two villages because of the incident had also been taken care of appropriately in the Fijian customary way. One could not wish for a more civilised way of sorting out a potentially explosive situation. Ã

Lati was another case where the appeal courts recognised customary penalty and gave ex post facto legitimacy to such penalty. The reconciliation ‘law’ diVers from the customary context of reconciliation in that, although there may be a similar emphasis on methods such as the formal apology to restore peace and good order, the reconciliation process is either activated or overseen as a feature of legal formalism. The purpose of reconciliation remains the same whether it emerges from custom or the state courts, and the objects of the restored relationship are consistent in both penalty forms. It is the nature of the state sponsorship rather than shared ‘ownership’ of the penalty which marks out state-sponsored reconciliation from the customary practice. Even where the state ideologises reconciliation through civil restitution, the state is the sponsor and arbiter of the process. The modern consequences of reconciliation as a penalty option within the formal courts are interesting. In its customary context, reconciliation is governed by three factors: the public nature of its settlement; the collective nature of its terms; and the relative expectations of the parties involved. In its contemporary context within legal formalism it would appear that reconciliation has been removed from an open, accountable and relative penalty, Õ within which the community has an investment, into a far more private and localised settlement. In Fiji today it is common, when domestic violence comes before the court, to see reconciliation promoted as an appropriate penalty. However, because of the unequal power positions of persons negotiating domestic reconciliations, the private nature of their terms, and the application of expectations  Ã Unreported judgement p. 2.  Õ It should be remembered that there are resultant instances, particularly in civil dispute resolution, where reconciliation is not represented as a penalty. What we are dealing with here, however, might arguably be conceived of as a penalty substitute.

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which may go well beyond the immediate issue of the assault or future threats of violence, reconciliation may become more of an avoidance of penalty rather than a penalty. For instance, where a complainant withdraws her allegation of assault as a result of a reconciliation, this may be the consequence of threats from the husband to throw his wife out into the street if she does not ‘reconcile’, rather than any genuine rapprochement. The court would not become aware of this by simply seeking an assurance on reconciliation from the accused, and the complainant may not be examined by the court in this regard. The community, the traditional witness and enforcer of reconciliation, also has no voice in the court hearing.

Adaptations of control where contexts intersect The interaction between custom and introduced legal formalism at the level of control is more than a contest over ownership of penalties. The manner in which certain forms of penalty have been incorporated into introduced legal formalism indicates the resilience of penalties which remain close and viable within their original cultural context. However, it is simplistic to expect, despite similar aspirations for penalty in both custom and introduced law, that by sharing or reproducing penalty the results (sanctions) will be, or even should be, the same. As reconciliation demonstrates, the partial removal of penalty from its cultural and customary context may transform its impact as well as undermining its viability in the original form. A key to the problem of ‘re-culturising’ penalty is the realisation that the state is not the community. Therefore, legal formalism as a feature of the state may not be supportive of customary penalty. Those features of custom penalty which seem appealing when compared with the formalised penalty structures of introduced law (such as openness and accountability) are often compromised or corrupted within state-centred environments. Further, the essential sanction impact of custom penalties may be lost as they are required to address new aspirations for the sanction process. Also, the diVerent ideologies of justice prevailing in legal formalism and custom may bring about very diVerent consequences for the object and purpose of penalty. For instance, on the one hand, the object might be the oVender/victim relationship and the purpose may be deterrence or retribution. On the other, the object is the community and the purpose restitution and social cohesion. The obligations created by penalty within the context of custom or legal formalism also require consideration if the outcome of any recon-

Integrating crime control

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structed penalty is to be assumed. Œ These obligations endorse the integration of penalty within custom, standing as it does at the end of (or even outside) state-centred sanctions in formalised criminal justice. The integration of penalty and custom has been misunderstood in eVorts to incorporate customary penalty within introduced legal formalism. This misunderstanding demonstrates as much about the tendency to isolate through formalised criminal sanctioning as it does about the essential re-integrative spirit of custom penalty in a community context such as that prevailing in South PaciWc tradition. Potentials for integrated crime control The discussion of penalty relocated from the context of custom into formalised criminal justice institutions highlights several problems for integration: ( The structures of penalty on which crime control traditionally lies may

be culturally speciWc. ( The structures of community out of which such penalties emerge may

not be compatible with the ‘communities’ of modernisation. ( The delineations between control, tolerance and re-integration in mod-

ernised communities may be hard and fast. In custom settings these may more naturally merge, as the behaviours and situations they regulate are not so rigidly labelled. ( The interests regulated for in modernised societies are more individual and therefore require more formalised legal protection. ( The bureaucracies which construct modernised criminal justice have a large investment in crime control. As such they are reluctant to divest their areas of responsibility in favour of other socialisers. ( The state represents the interests of those aVected by crime in modernised criminal justice. Therefore, the community consensus and / co-option so essential for tolerance and re-integration (and evident in the custom contexts) are removed from more formalised crime control. Within modernised communities these diYculties necessitate either artiWcial or imposed integration in place of a natural and evolutionary integrative context for control. The forces favouring integration will encounter resistance from localised control regimes where sophisticated bureaucracies monopolise the  Œ Also, once any penalty is so ‘reconstructed’ it might be inappropriate to continue referring to it as penalty. By so doing one might be criticised for taking sides and favouring the discourse of legal formalism, within which penalty rather than resolution predominates.

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The globalisation of crime

institutions and processes of crime control. As much as crime is diVerentiated from other behaviours and situations needing regulation, crime control in these localised contexts is institutionally separate from the broader themes of socialisation. Need this be so for globalised ‘communities’? If the process of globalisation is a uniWcation of cultural interests, and a harmonisation of bureaucratic responses, then integrated strategies of control should be more compatible with globalisation. Despite certain representations of globalised crime which suggest a return to the modes of denunciation common in simpler societies, the preference for adapting and advancing modernised crime control strategies is a feature of global politics. This paradox cannot be explained in terms of a common language of criminal liability, local to global. Globalised crime oVends morality, polity and perpetuity rather than the interests of individuals. Victimisation is collectivised; harm is global; threats are common. As such, the context of globalised crime seems to be communal, and control arguably should be integrated in order to address a collectivised problem. To test this suggestion, the transportation of a custom-based control technique into a globalised context may indicate the applicability of integrated control for regulating global crime. Banishment is a control strategy with roots deep in customary socialisation. It depends on consensus, approbation, comprehensive ascription and total enforcement. Banishment is reliant on community and not state sanction. It grows out of stages of tolerance and failed situations of re-integration. A global crime context where banishment would be relevant is corporate crime. For the individual, bankruptcy is a banishment from the market place. For the corporation, ‘winding-up’ proceedings may have some regulatory impact but this is limited to where the company against which these are directed is simply an expendable part of a wider corporate entity. Commentators on corporate regulation favour control initiatives which recognise the signiWcance of compliance (see Fisse and Braithwaite, 1988). But what happens when compliance evaporates or breaks down? Banishment means exclusion from the community. Essential for its punitive and regulatory signiWcance is separation from those features of community life valued by the banished. The community is more than a referent in that it must maintain the boundaries of exclusion. For instance, international trade sanctions imposed by one nation on another will not have the same impact without multinational endorsement. Some might see banishment as anything but an integrated control strategy. It appears to depend on segregation and diVerence. What makes banishment integrative, however, is the manner in which it involves the

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whole community and a range of socialisation beyond crime control. In addition, banishment is a transitional state, usually imposed for a determinate period, with the expectation that it will create a radical context for re-integration when its time has run. Banishment’s inXuence within a corporate commercial community would depend on the authority which prescribes this penalty. Once the banishment order was determined, the community would be required to achieve the banishment from a series of nominated and valued relationships. These might involve market position, consumer conWdence, capital access and share trading. A schedule for re-integration might be set as part of the banishment strategy. This mechanism will be far better suited to the corporate entity than individualised penalties such as the Wne or imprisonment. Banishment requires and incorporates responsibilities advocated by the corporate community in its arguments for self-regulation. It has a re-integrative goal, while adopting clearly retributive and deterrent measures in its early stages. While the banishment example explains the attraction of an integrated strategy within a global corporate community, other more conventional crime control strategies now actively pursued in a global setting appear neither tolerant nor re-integrative. The war crimes ‘push’ arising out of the Bosnian civil war evidences this. The language and practice investigation, arrest, detention, prosecution, trial, sentence and punishment are at the heart of this control strategy. Despite the diYculties inherent in translating concepts of individualised liability into international criminal law, we have here an international criminal justice process which is selective in its application, discretionary in its operation and very individualised in its focus. The trials may be dealing with generic oVences against humanity such as genocide, but individuals are brought before the courts to answer these charges and to carry the punishment (see Hume, 1997; Clarke, 1993). The explanation for this approach to global crime control rests both in the paradox of globalisation and its symbolic signiWcance. Crime control is essential in conWrming the symbolic presence of the crime problem and the symbolic predominance of the globalised state through control initiatives. International agencies and world powers conscript the localised language of crime and justice in order to claim the legitimacy which justice provides. The classical Westernised representations of justice are broadcast through the symbolic denunciation of the war criminal, the trial and punishment of whom conceals the complicity of world order in war crimes. The paradox of globalised crime control will remain while crime works

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as part of the harmonising and discriminating dimensions of globalisation. The relevance of custom-based and integrated resolutions such as banishment for ‘new’ globalised crimes will depend, therefore, on their ability to confront crime as integration and crime as diVerence. In addition, such integrated control strategies will need to address the paradoxical expectations of a globalised society. To succeed in this task, policy-makers must recognise the new notions of community which are present within globalisation. Further, the integrated crime control strategies which are advanced as more compatible with the harmony of globalisation will need to protect new interests (such as the market rather than its players) and to penalise new crimes (more likely to be collectivised than individual). Unfortunately, the most persuasive argument in favour of integrated crime control as a response to globalised crime will be provided by the failure and contextual inapplicability of old penalties and localised strategies. Crime control will only be globalised when it breaks free of the bureaucratic monopolies which characterise the institutions of localised criminal justice. To achieve this it may also be necessary to traverse the normative boundaries of the criminal law and escape from localised constructions of crime and control. As regards crime, this process is well under way. Globalised representations of crime rely more on the cognitive than the normative. Globalised crime oVends or endorses the global ethic rather than simply violating the global rule. Globalised crime control therefore has the concurrent responsibility to facilitate crime within the global ethic, and regulate crime beyond its reach.

Epilogue

As yet there can be no conclusion to a work on globalisation. In its place is a coalescence of the book’s major themes. This oVers the opportunity to posit a multilayered and dynamic analysis of crime capable of transcending theoretical generalisation; to review globalisation as a contextual exemplar for understanding crime; and to revisit the reciprocal argument that crime is an essential inXuence on globalisation, as globalisation is for crime. Incidentally, the order and progression of these themes as they arise in each chapter will be reconsidered, particularly as they support the propositions concerning the nexus between crime and globalisation. The analytical project Throughout the book constant reference has been made to the signiWcance of context in the analysis of crime. In this regard, the nature of the layered analysis is noteworthy. In fact, the reader may now recognise this project as an analysis of analysing crime, rather than a book about substantive understandings. The nature of the analysis deserves mention. The anchoring of selected case-studies within a sea of theory will assist the appreciation of those important and inextricable connections between crime and context. The sub-title to this analysis of the globalisation of crime invites the reader to view the transitional relationships of crime within designated contexts. The interactive and dynamic aspiration for the analysis is clear from the outset. Context is the key; comparison is the framework; paradox is the analytical tool. Crime is analysed within a global context, wherein the world is becoming more harmonious and at the same time more diverse. Globalisation, and its impact on crime, is compared with localised frames of reference. This enables consideration of transitional images and representations of crime. These representations oVer a vibrant and (for now) sustainable referent for discussing crime in transition. The book sets out by exploring the veracity of crime representations 221

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The globalisation of crime

and their place in local to global political discourse. Consequently, the symbolic signiWcance of crime as a global problem emerges. The emphasis on control as a response to crime threat and crime fear provides a link between crime symbols and political imperatives. Where these imperatives operate within a global context, crime and control manifest the common themes essential to globalisation: themes of enigma and resolution, harmony and diVerence. In addressing the popular representations and thus wisdom about crime (local and global), the analysis reXects on the masking function of particular representations. There appears to emerge a latent connection between crime and new moods of modernisation, begging the question how and why certain choices and relationships are selectively criminalised. The representation of criminal enterprise as a challenge to emergent free-market economies is elaborative in this context, both as selective criminalisation and the creation of symbols to fear. Globalisation also invites comparative analysis within that context. For instance, the causal relationship between crime and social development is critiqued from a paradigm of modernisation. As conceptualised in this work, modernisation is crucial for globalisation. But so too is marginalisation. ConWrming this is the relationship between crime and modernisation as development. Common-sense interpretations of both crime and development are challenged with the intention of revealing a synthesis rather than a subversion of interests between the two. Corruption within the politics of customary obligation is studied in two post-colonial cultures to highlight the impetus for crime provided through Wnancial scenarios of development (and hence modernisation). These case-studies reveal the symbiosis of crime and modernisation in contexts where the criminogenic consequences of development are ignored, rationalised or denied. The marginalising potential of crime and development is recognised, along with the capacity in crime choices and relationships to re-integrate. Paradox is an important device in the reconciliation of the intangibles that are globalisation and crime. This is especially apparent when relating crime and marginalisation. Social and economic development promotes certain interests and marginalises others. If the analysis recognises the functional potential of crime as a response to marginalisation, then it becomes more than an exploration of strain, opportunity and conXict. The consideration of crime and marginalisation suggests relationships between a range of social variables common to both. From these relationships, and a recognition of the utility of crime, emerge essential understandings of crime as choice. The examination of choice advances the image of crime as a force for globalisation. Both rely on the paradox which

Epilogue

223

they produce for their symbolic and substantive signiWcance. Crime is a universal evil against which global order is asserted. But crime is also a response to the evils of modernisation. It may also be the relationships which mirror those at the heart of modernisation. As such, crime tends towards a unity commensurate with globalisation, while addressing the marginalisation which challenges that unity. Common themes for crime and globalisation are commodiWcation and proWt. The market place is an essential context for modernisation. Crime’s place within the market appears to be crucial for an understanding of the nexus between crime and globalisation. Even where crime relationships are those of power and domination, the materialist consequences of crime are rarely denied. Crime becomes economy and economies have an important bearing on modernisation and hence on global transition. It is not uncommon to hear crime referred to and discussed as economic. In this discourse, the structural nature of crime (i.e. its degrees and forms of organisation) predominates. However, an enterprise model of crime as economy more often than not concedes to popular mythologies about organised crime and the threat it may pose. The analysis of organised crime as criminal enterprise holds out the promise of exposing the state and commercial interests behind MaWa demonology, along with the interrelations between criminal and corporate enterprise. This is but one of the occasions in this analysis where a deconstruction of crime representations collapses diVerence and endorses the harmony… at the heart of globalisation. The economic dimensions of crime and globalisation rely on choice. The choice model preferred in this analysis does not ascribe to objective rationality on the one hand, or social determinism on the other. Choice here is oVered to recognise and empower crime as a force for global transition. Arising from considerations of crime as choice is the need to reveal the stages through which crime relationships are moulded, opportunities are responded to, and consequent choice is transacted. A theory of displacement and replacement is oVered to explain the spiralling connections and development of crime, opportunity, choice and control. In the same way that choice is essential to crime relationships, it is crucial for considerations of control. The analysis inverts as control is examined. Control as a response to crime relies on representations more … Consistent with the premise that the common culture is not yet achieved through globalisation (nor perhaps achievable), harmony is an aspiration, as well as a powerful symbol. In the politics of globalisation, claims for harmony generate authority over and legitimacy for the forces which fuel globalisation.

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The globalisation of crime

than actuality. The construction of globalised control strategies, and the global inclination for processes and institutions profoundly out of touch with their localised contextual origins, endorses the earlier suggestion that connections between crime and globalisation are, in large measure, symbolic.  In this work the concern for control, and responses to crime in general, do not retreat from the challenges of policy. Regarding globalised crime in particular, the potentials for (and of) an integrated crime control strategy are explored. Part of this is achieved through the examination of dissonance between contexts where control exists within customary socialisation, and where it has been removed, professionalised and colonised by the state. The product of these case-studies is a recognition that crime control relies on tolerance of what is outside the object of control, and re-integration into the social context which is both controlled and tolerated. Further, the professionalisation of customary themes of socialisation is likely to compromise or destroy the control potential, which is synthesised within custom, but fails to recognise the importance of tolerance and re-integration. The analysis employs crime control to highlight the paradox of globalisation. It argues that crime and control may be practically constructed as commensurate with the ideal harmony of globalisation. Even so, the application of crime to the determination of diVerence, and the use of professionalised control bureaucracies as responses to crime, complements globalisation as diversity. The crime and globalisation nexus Globalisation is paradox. It may be harmonious and diverse – one culture and all cultures. Primarily, it is a process reliant on crucial social relationships to defeat and deny time and space. Crime is one of these relationships. It is a natural consequence of modernisation as well as sharing the consumerist and proWt priorities which characterise the modern. Like modernisation, crime can marginalise and re-integrate, unify and divide. In its harmonious state, globalisation tends to universalise crime problems and generalise control responses. The unity of globalisation is as yet more convincing at a symbolic level. Crime represents unequivocal symbols around which global ethics are conWrmed. Crime control claims an   The notion of symbol here does not suggest that the connection between crime and globalisation is a token, or futile and meaningless. The symbolic level legitimates and satisWes a range of common expectations for crime and globalisation. To this extent, the symbolic presence of both crime and globalisation allows for inXuence to be exchanged and impact to be exerted, mutually and beyond.

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irrefutable mandate for global order and a symbolic terrain across which order rules. Criminalisation is an agent for dissonance, and a primary process of diVerentiation and discrimination. Where globalisation emphasises diversity, criminalisation is a responsive political tool. The employment of criminalisation in a global context to label and regulate deviance results in crime and control as yardsticks for legitimacy. Crime and control also oVer the potential to conceal the edges and detail of diVerence through the establishment of symbolic borders of behaviour, status and relationships easily manipulated by global politics. The power to discriminate oVered through criminalisation enables the allocation of guilt and the claim for innocence. The globalised application of criminalisation conWrms its political essence and ensures its perpetuation in a global context. The real paradox of globalisation, however, is the manner in which it makes harmony a mask for diversity, and diVerence a concealment of fusion. At its most exciting, the analysis of globalisation calls for a consideration of layers upon layers of paradox – the glass within a glass and on to inWnity. For the present, the commodiWcation of the globe and the pre-eminence of the market place have made proWt the global ethic. Crime means choices and relationships for proWt. These choices and relationships cross over the boundaries criminalisation pretends to maintain. In a world where crime problems are universalised, but set apart from structurally similar enterprises through the application of crime control, the oscillation tends to blur the paradox of harmony and diversity. Both crime and globalisation hold out for each other contexts in which paradox is normality, diversity is harmony, and the universal and the relative are inextricable. The globalisation of crime is a recognition of the paradoxical place of crime within culture and the transitional state of culture within the globe.

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Index

accountability, 80, 84, 88, 131, 143–4, 146, 164–5, 176 189, 193, 216 boundaries of permission, 145, 177, 187, 191, 202 alienation, 56, 74, 102, 123, 134, 178, 200 aYnity/aYliation, 12 anomie, 32, 74 banishment, 211–14, 218–19 black market, 5, 9, 28, 76 Braithwaite, J., 20, 26, 32–3, 40, 55, 69, 110, 168 grand theory, 33 reintegration stigma, 32, 110, 173, 187, 196–9 shaming, 196, 198–9 capitalism, 1, 29, 30, 37 post-colonial, 60 Chicago school, 32 social disorganisation, 73, 94–5, 109, 115, 131–3 civil law, 45 class, 28 29, 42, 60, 70 theory, 33, 35 communism, 28–29, 43, 155 Eastern bloc, 28 post-communisn, 140 communitarianism, 31, 32 community, 6, 7, 8, 44, 45, 46, 52, 53, 54, 55, 65–7, 112, 113, 135, 140, 191, 193–203, 206–20 crime-centred, 44, 196, 197 dysfunctional, 94, 122 extended family, 8, 72, 108, 109 justice in, 61, 130, 194–9 prejudice in, 111 comparative analysis, vii, 35–9, 59, 222 contextual, vii, 2, 6–8, 24, 31, 39 developmental, 39, 59 multilayered, 36–7, 39 paradoxical, 96, 221, 222

236

conXict, 8, 35, 107, 119, 204 theory, 32, 100 consumer, consumerism, 2, 9, 29, 43, 52, 146, 174, 219 fraud, 43, 51, 76, 84, 88, 112, 133, 135, 136 context, vii, 6–8, 17–19, 36–9, 61–4, 89–90, 131–7, 195–6, 200–7, 211–14 crime in, 2, 6–8, 11, 24, 115, 187 deWnition of, 6 global, 4, 6, 8–11, 56, 64–7, 92–3, 224 levels of, viii, 4, 12, 24 local, vii, viii, 4, 6, 12, 18, 65, 66, 67, 72, 77, 79, 89, 90, 91, 92, 105, 117, 118, 120, 128, 139, 174 not culture, 15, 89 social functions, dependent on, 6, 17–19, 115, 131, 132, 136, 137, 173–4, 195–6 contextual analysis, vii, vii, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 24, 57, 59, 77, 115, 153 comparative, vii, viii, 5 local/global, vii, viii, 4, 6, 12, 18, 77, 79, 89, 105, 117, 118, 120, 139, 174, 186, 190, 195, 203, 218, 222 corruption, 9, 43, 51, 54, 77–93, 112, 127, 128, 140–4, 150, 154, 162–3, 163–6, 175, 176, 177, 222 and custom, 77, 79, 80, 81, 90 blackmail, 127 bribery, 54, 81, 163 Fitzgerald Inquiry, 177 development nexus, 43, 78, 79, 92, 127 police, 81, 143 relationships, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 92, 93, 140, 142, 143, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166 crime, and globalisation/nexus, 244–5 and power, viii, 6–7, 12, 33, 37, 51, 109 and social change, 2, 12, 15, 73 as capital, 9, 10, 50, 51, 64, 76, 77, 107, 128–9, 139, 157, 179, 183, 184

Index as choice, vii, 12–13, 16, 113, 119, 120, 167–85, 222 as diVerence, 55–57, 119, 120, 230 as economy, 15–16, 37, 138, 139, 140–6, 161–6, 223 as universal, 3, 5, 10, 13, 18, 19, 33, 35, 36, 37, 49, 98, 103, 223, 224, 225 as work, 69, 99, 100, 144, 174–6 business and, 75–7, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144 causal theory, 62, 68, 70, 174 causation, 30, 62, 68, 70, 174 commerce and, 67, 75–77, 126–9, 165–6, 177 comparative indicators of, 34–6, 63, 67–77, 191–5 connections, 14, 120–9 conspiracies, 51, 75, 88, 127, 147, 148, 150, 152, 153, 154, 158, 159, 160 corporate, 111, 112, 218 costs of, 135–6 cultural speciWcity, 2, 3, 6, 13, 16, 18, 20, 24, 39, 108, 150, 217 cultures of, 13–14, 117–20, 178 demonology, 147, 223 development and, 39–41, 59–77, 92, 221 diVerence and, 55–7, 119, 120, 230 domestic fractue and, 105, 107, 108–10 duality, 3, 4, 10 drugs link, 37, 49–50, 101–4 environmental, 15, 111, 112, 169 factor of youth, gender and social status, 120–3 fear of, 18, 26, 42, 44, 71, 111, 112–14 in context, vii, 3, 4, 6–8, 11, 14, 24, 115, 188 internet, 44 marginalisation, 18, 25, 27, 59, 117, 120, 123, 129, 138, 222 market models and, 30, 140–1, 165 misrepresentation, 8, 12, 47–55, 79 mythology, 18, 50, 67, 147, 148 necessity, 181 networking, 144–5 opportunity and, 5, 7, 10, 15, 18, 59, 67, 70, 72, 73, 76, 106, 109, 115, 119, 120–4, 132, 133, 140, 143, 167, 170, 174, 177–9, 182, 201 pathology, 17, 63, 94, 95, 132 poverty nexus, 20, 63, 68, 69, 70, 74, 75, 130, 132–4, 158 predatory, 53, 133, 195 proWts of, 140, 144 representations of, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8–11, 14,

237 15, 16, 19, 23, 24, 31, 37, 47, 51, 55, 105, 119, 144, 174, 186, 187, 221 in the media, 10, 47, 56 veracity of, viii, 13, 19 selective enforcement, 103, 111, 145, 169, 200 social determinants of, 17–19, 32, 111, 167 social reality of, 16, 20, 34, 50, 179 state sponsorship, 145–6, 215 structures of enterprise, 143 syndicates, 29, 67, 76–77, 130, 143, 147, 155 terrorism, 66, 107, 158, 159, 168 unemployment and, 20, 36, 63, 69, 73, 74, 96–101, 102, 104, 108, 121, 122, 124, 132, 158, 175 urban drift, 8, 62, 70–2, 74, 121, 125 urbanisation and, 8, 23, 61, 63, 70, 71, 72–5 victimless, 53, 135 violent, 22, 23, 29, 30, 41, 64, 72, 104–8 crime choice, vii, ix, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12–13, 16, 18, 27, 30, 33, 37, 54, 58, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 74, 75, 76, 77, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101–8, 115–22, 124, 129, 134, 140, 167–85, 196–9, 222–3 and control, ix, 4, 11, 92, 171–3, 179–81, 184, 186, 188–95, 199–203 deWnition of, 167, 168, 170, 171, 173–4, 185 economic, 65, 69, 72, 99, 128, 129, 132–4, 140, 141, 143, 161, 162, 166, 168, 169, 175, 176–9 crime control, ix, 17–19, 41–4, 47–57, 89–90, 163–6, 171–4, 179–81, 186–220 alternative, 45, 172, 194–5, 196, 211–20 community, 44, 46, 179, 190, 191, 191–7, 199, 200, 211–20 corruption and, 54, 79, 89–93, 143, 163–6, 179 deterrence, 170, 173, 197, 216 formal mechanisms of, 45 indicators of, 191–5 institutions of, 140 integrated, 186–220 international agencies, 51, 64, 219 local/global, vii, 194, 195, 196, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 217–20, 224–5 mechanisms of, 45, 50, 81, 143, 193, 202 oppressive state, 15, 45, 54, 107, 180 paradox, stages of, 75, 188, 202, 207–11, 222, 224

238

Index

crime control (cont.) potential to conceal, 224 preventive strategies, 144, 163 privatised, 44, 130, 192 process of, 78, 177, 186, 189, 195, 197, 211 signiWers, 190 symbolism, 185, 202 strategies of, ix, 3, 9, 14, 18, 44, 45, 49, 50, 52, 81, 94, 98, 106, 111, 120, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 143, 145, 157, 161, 164, 166, 168, 171, 172, 178–81, 189–91, 196–203, 217–20 theory, 145, 173 trends, 44–57 crime data, 20, 23, 37, 39, 42 crime economies, 15–16, 75, 138–66 crime and economy, 15, 16, 117, 138, 139, 140–6 crime as economy, 16, 37, 139, 140, 161–6, 222 crime mapping, 24, 41 crime measurement, 26, 34–36, 43 theories of, 32–4 crime rates, 34, 60, 68, 70, 99, 109, 110, 199 increase, 20, 21, 27, 60 oYcial statistics, 23, 26, 34, 46 Western parochialism, 32, 39–41, 65 crime relationships, viii, ix, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14–15, 16, 17, 18, 37, 38, 41, 52, 59, 60, 63, 104, 105, 114, 115–37, 161, 167, 174, 178, 181, 190, 197, 223 as choice, 12, 13, 27, 67, 118, 122, 134, 161, 186, 187, 199, 207, 223 for proWt, 1, 2, 75, 140 transitional, 3, 5, 9, 14, 132, 134, 203 crime surveys, 21, 42–4, 71 UN international crime trends, 21, 22 UN international victims, 22, 35, 42–4 crime trends, 20, 41, 66, 99, 130 spatial patterns, 20, 22, 24–6 temporal patterns, 20, 22, 24–6 criminalisation, 8, 17, 18, 44–6, 48, 55, 59, 63, 79, 89, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 111, 112, 117, 118, 119, 128, 129, 130, 131, 170, 198, 202, 222, 224 diVerence and, 55, 104, 111, 112, 118, 119, 224 positioning of, 17, 102, 103 risk groups, 45, 97, 102, 130 selective, 8, 17, 48, 49, 59, 79, 102, 103, 170, 202, 222

criminal careers, 33, 100, 176 criminal justic, 12, 15, 16, 21, 26, 33, 34, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, 60, 69, 81, 100, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 123, 124, 125, 159, 160, 173, 179, 180, 217 administration, 12, 16, 41, 44, 108, 136, 193 system, 15, 33, 34, 40, 42, 45, 47, 48, 54, 55, 60, 69, 81, 112, 113, 125, 130, 131, 135, 136, 143, 193, 194 criminal sanction, 44, 46, 102, 130, 142, 143, 151, 154, 157, 160, 162, 163, 171, 172, 179, 180, 181, 201, 217 criminogenic associations, viii, ix, 20, 58, 60, 63, 64, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 95, 98, 124, 130, 154, 179, 180 factors of, 21, 27, 58, 72, 95, 98, 107, 109, 131, 222 criminology, 12, 32, 38, 41, 65, 79, 145, 178, 196 class analysis, 41 control-centred, 41, 97 radical, 42 culture, 13–14, 117–20 crime, 13, 14, 16, 56, 65, 117–20, 224 deWnition of, vii, 119 discontinuity, 26, 36, 45, 95, 129, 180 bonds of, 8, 9, 45, 108, 109 iconography, 118, 119, 202 globalised, 2, 3, 9, 83, 191, 202 in transition, viii, 3, 5, 6, 8, 13, 24, 37, 50, 61, 63, 77, 78, 89–90, 91, 92, 107, 169, 171, 181, 183, 194, 203, 224 local/global, 3, 119, 203 popular, 2, 147, 172 relativity, viii, 4 sub-culture, 32, 33, 56, 95, 100, 117, 119, 122, 124, 125, 134, 176, 178, 191, 198, 204 universal, viii, 2, 3, 10, 18, 25, 30, 55, 83, 113, 117, 202, 224 violence, 107, 108 custom, vii, 45 authority, 78, 118 fostering corruption, 78, 80 law, 77, 78, 170, 204, 205, 206, 207, 209, 216 obligation, 78, 79, 80, 88, 89, 90, 92, 118, 207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 222 penalty, 205, 207, 210, 211, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217 regulation, 81, 188 systems of control, 61, 188, 203, 204, 211, 216, 218

Index delinquency, 53, 95, 100, 120, 125, 127, 131 and drift, 62, 70–2, 120, 121, 134, 135 democracy, 10, 30, 94, 156 new democracies, 97 deviance, 10, 73, 106, 117, 119, 120, 131, 199, 225 ampliWcation, 33, 46 as diVerence, 117, 119, 186, 199 spiral of, 33, 101 compliance and, 133 developing nations, vii, 5, 15, 28, 43, 46, 54, 58, 60, 63, 64, 66, 69, 70, 71, 74, 81, 98, 112, 130, 162, 176 parochialism, 39–41 development, 4, 5, 8, 14, 15, 16, 25, 31, 58, 59, 60, 68, 77, 116, 200, 222 and crime, 8, 9, 15, 18, 39, 40, 60, 61–4, 64–7 92, 98, 222 crime rates, 22 industrialisation, 183 socio-economic, 5, 8, 13, 14, 22, 24, 27, 39, 58, 59, 76, 92, 122, 138, 141, 183 theory, 48, 76, 79, 94, 128, 135, 196 diVerential association, 96, 144, 145 discretion, 48, 81, 82, 129, 143, 144, 181, 188, 189, 193, 209 crime control, 129, 130, 181, 189–91, 193 discrimination, 100, 107, 110, 111, 112, 103, 129, 130, 132, 193, 201, 225 crime and, 110–12 racial, 103, 129, 201 displacement and replacement, 68, 117, 173–4, 181–5 deWnition of, 68, 173, 174, 181, 182 dispute resolution, 45, 107, 215 family group conferencing, 172, 192, 197 drugs, 22, 37, 38, 46, 49, 53, 54, 60, 64, 66, 71, 73, 76, 96, 99, 101–4, 108, 116, 123, 126, 131, 132, 142, 162, 177, 193, 202 abuse, 38, 53, 54, 60, 73, 96, 99, 101, 108, 131, 198 addiction, 49 alcohol, 71 and crime, 22, 37, 42–3, 49, 101–4, 131, 132 and youth, 71, 73, 111, 123, 126, 132 opium, 66 cash cropping, 64, 66, 104 prohibition, selective, 49, 102, 142, 143, 170, 202 recreational use, 46, 49, 102, 103, 123

239 trade, 38, 101, 102, 103, 177 traYcking, 38, 49, 64, 66, 76, 101, 102, 103, 116, 126, 141, 143, 144, 162, 163, 170, 177 war on, 102 Durkheim, E., 20, 131, 200 dysfunction, viii, 10, 18, 58, 93, 94–6, 100, 108, 110, 115, 131 broken families, 96, 108–10, 122 crime and, 93, 94–6, 102 social, viii, 94, 95, 96, 101, 104, 105, 108, 110, 115, 131 Eastern Europe, 5, 23, 71, 76, 175 economic reconstruction, 5, 160 economy, 15–16, 29, 30, 37, 40, 62, 68, 116, 117, 129, 137, 138, 139, 140–66, 183, 184, 223 free-market, 5, 29, 30, 64, 98, 116, 156 legitimate/illegitimate, 13, 28, 67, 75, 98, 104, 127, 139, 141, 163, 176, 179, 184 environments, 10, 12, 23, 70, 74, 79, 80, 90, 112, 126, 131, 136, 142, 143, 176, 178, 216 determinants of crime, 70, 74, 131, 176 European Union, 96 Wnancial institutions, 50, 59, 88, 179 Asia Development Bank, 59 international, 50, 59 88 World Bank, 59 free will, 3, 12, 17, 115, 179 determinism, 12, 17, 32, 33, 62, 131, 179, 184, 223 global phenomena, 6, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 28, 33, 55, 59, 65, 67, 79, 89, 94, 95, 98, 105, 173, 187, 201, 202, 203, 219, 225 communities, 31, 37, 191, 195, 199 context/level, vii, viii, 1, 3, 6, 10, 11, 44, 55, 59, 67, 77, 90, 105, 117, 118, 120, 139, 170, 186, 195, 204, 218, 221, 222 crime agenda, 7, 10, 16, 18, 33, 168, 187, 190, 222 crime control, 10, 37, 38, 66, 161, 169, 187, 190, 195, 200, 202–3, 220, 224 deWnition of, 2, 4, 66 economic agencies, 58, 59, 88, 91 economy, 5, 13, 92, 138, 161, 166, 177 market, 1, 37, 103 penalty, 204–6, 219

240

Index

global phenomena (cont.) political discourse, 5, 10, 17, 59, 64, 66, 92, 139, 187, 222, 225 uniWcation, 3, 10, 57, 95, 102, 223 village, 4, 5, 9 globalisation, viii, 8–11, 64–7, 92–3, 116–7, 204–6, 221–5 boundaries, 1, 5, 24, 64 138, 220 colonisation 9, 76, 90, 205, 207 culture of, 2, 9 deWnition of, vii, 1, 7, 8–11, 15, 169, 174, 188, 221, 222, 225 discourse of, 4, 5, 7, 28, 37, 66, 101, 128, 187, 203 dynamic, 1, 2, 4, 11, 20, 55, 187, 199, 202 industrialisation, 9 marginalising potential, 113, 116–17, 139, 223 paradox, vii, viii, 2, 3, 9, 77, 91, 93, 138, 200, 218, 219, 220, 222 symbolism, 10, 138, 139, 196, 199, 202 transitional, vii, ix, 2, 4, 8, 14, 169, 181, 204, 221 gun, 23, 24, 106 culture, 23, 24 ownership, 23 US constitutional right to bear arms, 22, 24 human rights, viii, 54, 107, 201 inequality, 63, 132, 158 Wnancial, 63, 68–70 structural, 132 integration, 10, 13, 73, 74, 95, 99, 117, 120, 124, 184 of crime control, 186–220 interntional, vii, 3, 5, 9, 20, 21, 37, 38–9, 42–4, 50, 51, 59, 66, 92, 95, 101, 103, 112, 116, 117, 138, 139, 161, 168, 169, 174, 199, 202, 219 criminal law, 103, 219 politics, language of, ix, 3, 5, 10, 103, 117, 218, 224 investigative agencies, 51, 164, 176, 177 Interpol, 91 isolationism, 102, 217 justice, 10, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 45, 46, 61, 105, 189, 195, 207, 216, 219 diversion, 46, 111, 181 formal/informal, 46, 180, 184, 194–9 institutions, 10, 42, 53, 61, 217 symbolic signiWcance of, 10, 31, 55, 223, 224, 225

labelling, 17, 48, 53, 90, 131, 180, 191 political natue of, 17 selective, 48, 131 theorists, 53 legal aid, 110 legal formalism, 204, 205, 206, 207, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217 loan-sharking, 183, 184 money-lending, 183 usury, 183 linkage, 18, 113, 139 MaWa, 49, 50, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 162, 163, 164, 165, 192 Cosa Nostra, 149, 155 Italian politics and, 150–2 mythology, 147–50, 151 ndranghetta, 158 politics link/polimaWa, 154, 155, 155–7 Russian, 28, 29, 30, 67 social threat and, 152–5, 157–60 MaWosi, 151, 152, 153, 157 marginalisation, viii, 5, 8, 18, 55, 58, 59, 68, 98, 101, 113, 114, 115, 116, 119, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 191, 198, 200, 222, 223 crime, as response to, 18, 19, 25, 59, 68, 115, 117, 120–31, 139, 222 crime relationships, in contexts of, 68, 115–37 cycles of, 101, 115, 120, 121, 123, 129, 139 displacement, 62, 131, 173 181, 182, 183 social, 8, 58, 120, 122, 123, 124, 129, 130 market economy, 5, 28, 30, 56, 64, 98 consumer, 1, 2, 9, 29, 118, 175, 224 free-market, 5, 28, 30, 56, 64, 98 market commodiWcation, 90, 92, 161, 223, 224 global ethic, 90, 161, 223, 224 proWt motive, 64, 90, 223 materialism, 64, 95, 183 media, 10, 11, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 77, 107, 108, 109, 118, 138, 147, 148, 149, 197 moral panic in, 50, 52–3, 108, 112, 113, 197 representations of crime in, 11, 47, 48, 52, 53, 77, 107, 149 Melanesia, 78 Fiji, 81–5, 210, 211, 214–16 Papua New Guinea, 130, 194 Solomon Islands, 208

Index Vanatu, 85–9 migration, 62, 70, 73, 74, 120 drift, 8, 53, 62, 70–2, 74, 75, 120, 121, 122, 126, 134–5, 145 rural/urban, 70, 73, 74, 121 modernisation, vii, viii, ix, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 15, 20, 21, 26, 27, 30, 64, 65, 70, 77, 89, 94, 98, 115, 183, 217, 222, 223 and globalisation, ix, 1, 2, 4, 8, 94, 115, 183, 222, 223 as development, 3, 5, 15, 25, 26, 31, 44, 59, 60, 61, 63, 70, 76, 94, 95, 115, 141, 222 deWnition of, 1, 9, 25, 44 market economies, 10, 59, 61, 62, 80, 95, 97, 135 neutralisation, 97, 133, 134, 145, 171 Ombudsman, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91 opportunity, 3, 5, 7, 8, 15, 18, 22, 28, 31, 59, 67, 70, 72, 74, 75, 77, 80, 94, 99, 100, 106, 108, 109, 115, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 128, 132, 133, 134, 140, 141, 143, 145, 146, 155, 158, 167, 170, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 222, 223 constrained, 70, 76, 84, 115, 121, 122, 129, 141, 145, 160, 167, 172, 173, 174, 182, 187 labour, contraction of, 20, 74, 96, 98, 100, 122 learning/association, 106, 176, 179 restricted, 4, 22, 71, 80, 143, 164, 172, 174, 182 theory, 32, 33, 59, 65, 66, 67, 70, 75, 76, 115, 116, 145, 146, 167, 168, 170, 173, 174, 175, 177, 179, 182, 221, 222 organised crime, 21, 23, 28, 29, 30, 49, 50, 51, 67, 75, 77, 116, 126, 127, 128, 139, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165, 166, 192, 223 enterprise, viii, 29, 30, 51, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 118, 126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 150, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 170, 174, 175, 177, 179, 222, 223, 225 family, 21, 31, 50, 67, 72, 73, 96, 99, 121, 122, 126, 134, 145, 146, 147, 151, 192 Godfather, 50, 147, 149

241 syndicates, 29, 67, 76, 143, 147, 155, 161 terrorism and, 158, 159 triads, 103, 106 United States, 24, 36, 60, 147 PaciWc island states, 77–92 paradox, viii, 3, 9, 77, 91, 93, 138, 187, 188, 200, 202, 206, 207–11, 218, 219, 220, 222, 224, 225 deWnition of, viii dissonance, 224, 225 diversity, 9, 225 harmony, 187, 188, 219, 222, 225 local/global, 91, 218, 219 masking function, 225 normality, 225 place of crime, 58, 92, 220 processes of, vii, 9, 138 police, 21, 34, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 53, 54, 55, 61, 62, 69, 78, 79, 81, 84, 92, 110, 111, 112, 125, 128, 129, 132, 135, 142, 143, 153, 154, 156, 159, 160, 163, 172, 176, 177, 180, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 198, 213, 215 anti-hero/rogue cops, 105, 149 corruption, 9, 43, 51, 54, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 88, 89, 90 Wood Royal Commission, 177 discretion, 81, 130, 143 discrimination, 129, 189, 193 law enforcement, 16, 48, 49, 51, 66, 78, 91, 92, 101, 102, 103, 105, 108, 112, 149, 150, 154, 156, 157, 162, 163, 164, 177, 178, 189, 190, 191, 199 powers of, increase in, 159 selective enforcement, 103, 111, 145, 169, 200, 222 political rhetoric, 4, 12, 28, 44, 60, 138 Polynesia, 78 Cook Islands, 86 Western Samoa, 205, 212, 213, 214 popular culture, 2, 105, 106, 149, 172 media, 10, 11, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 76, 105, 107, 108, 112, 113, 118, 138, 147, 149, 197 violence, 14, 15, 23, 31, 36, 42, 44, 51, 52, 54, 55, 64, 69, 72, 77, 95, 96, 99, 101, 104, 105, 106, 107, 111, 108, 150, 151, 158, 170, 175, 192, 195, 213, 215 poverty, 20, 63, 68, 69, 70, 74, 75, 108, 124, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 158 and crime, 68, 69, 133 inequality,63, 132, 158

242

Index

prison, 21, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 68, 111, 112, 126, 130, 132, 144, 172, 179, 188, 191, 201, 203, 208, 210, 214 privatisation of, 45, 172 property crime, 15, 20, 23, 49, 60, 68, 69, 70, 72, 99, 100, 101 133, 135, 167 burglary, 23, 49, 173 robbery, 22, 23, 49, 106, 111 shop-lifting, 133 theft, 15, 20, 22, 23, 43, 60, 69, 70, 72, 73, 101, 111, 133, 134, 135, 147 prostitution, 79, 142 punishment, 43, 44, 46, 55, 97, 103, 109, 153, 160, 172, 180, 188, 190, 197, 204, 208, 210, 213, 214, 219 penalty, 36, 39, 42, 46, 96, 131, 136, 170, 172, 176, 180, 181, 187, 197, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219 reform, 29, 176 political, 29, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 60, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 78, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 102, 103, 104, 107, 108, 110, 111, 116, 128, 129, 130, 131, 137, 138, 139, 147, 148, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159 regulation, viii, 23, 52, 65, 68, 76, 77, 78, 80, 83, 90, 92, 95, 97, 98, 103, 107, 111, 112, 127, 129, 132, 140, 142, 143, 144, 146, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 169, 170, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 184, 187, 191, 202, 206, 217, 218 control, 68, 78, 111, 132, 163, 171, 184, 191, 202, 217 market, 65, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 103, 112, 127, 140, 142, 143, 144, 146, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 176 state, 76, 83, 107, 146 reintegration, 8, 19, 56, 110, 122, 136, 186, 187, 197, 198, 199, 200, 203, 206, 219, 224 sentencing, 34, 43, 45, 110, 172, 188, 208, 211, 214 deterrence, 170, 172, 173, 197, 216 restitution, 203, 206, 210, 211, 214, 215, 216 retribution, 197, 216 situational crime prevention, 25, 109 social phenomena, 6, 16, 18, 19, 47, 70, 120, 135, 151, 198

determinism, 17–18, 32, 33, 62, 68, 111, 133, 167, 223 development, vii, x, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 28, 30, 33, 34, 40, 46, 57, 58, 60, 63, 65, 66, 69, 70, 71, 73, 76, 92, 94, 96, 113, 121, 124, 135, 194, 196, 200, 222 diVerentiation, 20 disjunction, 96, 101, 102, 113, 178 dysfunction, viii, 18, 92, 93, 94, 95, 101, 104, 105, 108, 110, 115, 131, 183 mapping, 24 pathology, 94, 95 socialisation, 8, 31, 33, 45, 60, 72, 94, 95, 108, 126, 131, 145, 185, 189, 190, 192, 196, 201, 203, 206, 207, 218, 224 tolerance, 145, 146, 168, 172, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 192, 193, 199, 201, 203, 217, 218, 224 transition, vii, viii, ix, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 19, 24, 25, 28, 31, 59, 61, 63, 68, 76, 77, 78, 79, 89, 90, 95, 96, 98, 106, 122, 139, 156, 169, 171, 175, 181, 183, 221, 223 cultures in, viii, 2, 5, 6, 24, 61, 63, 77, 78, 89, 95, 106, 169, 171, 175, 181, 183 transnational crime, 9, 21, 28, 37, 38, 42, 51–2, 103, 128 unemployment, 20, 36, 63, 68, 69, 96–101, 104, 175, 176 domestic violence and, 73, 96, 99, 108 property crime and, 20, 68, 69, 158 structural, 96, 97, 99, 100, 122, 132, 175 youth, 36, 74, 96, 98, 124 urban drift, 8, 55, 62, 70–72, 74, 75, 120, 121, 122, 126 urbanisation, 8, 23, 61, 63, 70, 71, 72–5 vandalism, 72, 73, 135 graYti, 135 victim, 1, 4, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 23, 26, 34, 41–4, 45, 52, 54, 64, 71, 100, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 132, 134, 180, 186, 190, 193, 201 compensation for, 136, 180 factor of age, gender, status and location, 120–4 impact statement, 180 powerlessness of, 42, 45, 123, 180

Index victimology, 35, 41, 42 and left realists, 35 violence, 14, 15, 23, 24, 31, 36, 42, 44, 51, 52, 54, 55, 64, 69, 72, 76, 95, 96, 81, 101, 104–8, 150, 151, 158, 170, 175, 192, 195, 213 as cultural trait, 23, 31, 52, 105, 106 contract killing, 29, 160 domestic, 64, 69, 96, 99, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 124, 215 homicide, 22, 23, 99, 106, 107, 108, 136, 190, 208, 213 intimidation, 105, 127, 128 male, 46, 64 media representations, 52, 53, 76, 105, 107, 147, 149, 197

243 popular culture and, 105 106, 149, 150, 172 rape, 105, 109, 196, 213 state, 15, 44, 54, 55 war crimes, 219 Westernisation, 9, 31, 95, 102, 219 youth, 32, 36, 62, 70, 71, 74, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 106, 108, 110, 120–3, 124, 125, 126, 131, 176, 198 gangs, 71, 74, 95, 125–6, 132, 198 homelessness, 36, 122, 198 male oVenders, 100 suicide, 110