NCJ Number
182528
Date Published
1999
Length
253 pages
Annotation
In charting the evolution of the globalization of crime, this book analyzes how globalization has enhanced material crime relationships, such that they must be understood on the same terms as any other significant market force.
Abstract
This analysis of the globalization of crime is based in the belief that crime cannot be understood apart from its social context. The analysis presented by the author focuses on the context from which the globalization of crime stems. Context is viewed as physical space, institutional process, patterns of relationships, and individual variation. Context is a transitional state within which crime influences and is influenced 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 effectively understood as relationships that develop along with the dynamics of its selected context. Essential for the motivation of these relationships is the representation of crime as choice. Essential to globalization and crime is the internationalization of capital, the generalization of consumerism, and the unification of economies. If crime is to be understood as a market condition, then its place within globalization becomes more vital as an analytical context for contemporary appreciations of crime and control. The conventional wisdom of crime as a product of social dysfunction and marginalization may be challenged and refined through comparative contextual analysis. Globalization as a focus for this provides the potential to position crime as a natural consequence of many modernization paradigms previously considered to be subverted by crime. A 207-item bibliography and a subject index