ABSTRACT
In the text Criminology: A Global Perspective we maintain that “crime comes from everywhere and goes everywhere” (Winslow and Zhang 2008: 25). By implication, one cannot understand crime in one country without studying crime globally or internationally. The global or international study of crime is called comparative criminology. Criminology: A Global Perspective is a global study of crime from the United States point of view. Similarly, in this chapter on the globalization of crime, we will be studying the globalization of crime from the US point of view, based, in part, upon the fact that the US is a major player in economic globalization (Central Intelligence Agency 2008). In saying that one cannot understand crime in one country without studying it globally, we are saying that US criminology should become comparative criminology. Adler, Mueller, and Laufer indicate the need for global criminology in the following quote:
Crime, like life itself, has become globalized, and responses to law-breaking have inevitably extended beyond local and national boarders … the countries of the world gradually became more interdependent. Commercial relations among countries increased. The jet age brought a huge increase in international travel and transport. Satellite communications facilitated intense and continuous public and private relationships. The internet added the final touch to globalization … These developments, which turned the world into what has been called a “global village,” have also had considerable negative consequences. As everything else in life became globalized, so did crime. Transnational crimes … suddenly boomed. … many apparently purely local crimes, whether local drug crime or handgun violence, now have international dimensions … Consequently, national criminology had to become international criminology. Criminology has in fact been globalized … Economic globalization, as much as it promotes useful commerce, also aids organized crime and fosters the global spread of frauds … Consider that drugs produced abroad and distributed locally create a vast problem of crime: Not only is drug dealing illegal, but a considerable portion of street crime is associated with narcotics.
(Adler et al. 2004: 18–19, 386)