North America: A Perspective on the Globalisation of Organised Crime
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025868 |
| Pages | 81-87 |
| Date | 01 March 1998 |
| Published date | 01 March 1998 |
| Author | Margaret E. Beare |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Journal of Financial Crime — Vol. 6 No. 1 — International
North America: A Perspective on the Globalisation
of Organised Crime
Margaret E. Beare
There are three distinct aspects to the topic of the
globalisation of organised crime. First, it allows for
or creates a
shared
world view as to the threats and
risks that countries (developed and less developed)
face.
Secondly, globalisation encourages and facili-
tates a
shared response
to these risks. And finally, to
the extent that the risks are real/actual, the risks
themselves
are
shared.
In specific reference to orga-
nised crime, globalisation factors therefore present
a socially constructed framework for understanding
and defining some activities as both criminal and
threatening. These globally shared interpretations
lead into the second aspect. Given the agreed
nature of transnational organised crime, mechan-
isms are put in place to press for a uniform
response to the threats. The nature of business and
finance and the movement of people in a global
economy also mean that crime and criminal com-
modities and criminals move across jurisdictions,
making the globe the market — source and
demand — for organised crime commodities.
A SHARED WORLD VIEW
'Globalisation', however that term is used, pro-
motes feelings of hopelessness because the issues
are seen to be controlled from 'elsewhere' and to
be all part of some larger picture or conspiracy. It
is in vogue at present to speak of the 'risk society'
and 'risk discourse'.1 The discourse that is deemed
to be characteristic of the risk society focuses on
fragmentation within society, the proliferation of
specialists with expert knowledge, working in a
highly scientific and technological environment,
with computerised systems both for communica-
tions and to calculate, store and distribute know-
ledge related to risks. The result is a preoccupation
with dangers. As Richard Ericson states:
'Risk discourse constantly reminds us that
knowledge is always embedded in ignorance,
safety is surrounded by unsafety.
. .
Risk dis-
course cultivates insecurities, focuses them upon
scapegoats, and forces people to accept expert
knowledge of risk — a knowledge that creates
new insecurities
. .
.' (1997, p. 86)
Theorists describe the processes involved in 'risk
communications'. Because of the imprecise or
unknown nature of some risks in society, passing
information to the public becomes problematic.
Different 'experts' will have different interpreta-
tions,
the public may fail to understand the issues
and the methods by which the information is
relayed to the public (ie the media) may be biased,
simply confused — or more likely, the information
cannot adequately be relayed in sound bites small
enough to fit into the existing formats.2
The ambiguity of the message, when it is
received, serves to add to the sense of risk. Dan-
gers are commodified and become the fodder for
entire industries such as insurance, policing, and
governance broadly. The raison d'être of these
institutions is to keep the public informed of the
'risks'
in society and to society.
Risk discourse dovetails with a second phenom-
enon. Sociologists such as Stanley Cohen (1972)3
speak of 'moral panics'. Cohen outlines the stages
through which these panics can progress. First, a
condition or a group of people becomes defined as
a threat to the social order; the mass media then
reports the incidents and the definitions of the
threat; key 'moral entrepreneurs' or known experts
of one sort of another defend the moral order and
confirm the threat; other experts pronounce solu-
tions within the scope that the threat debate has
taken, usually in the press; solutions will be posed.
Some moral panics use coded terms that indicate
while not explicitly stating that 'different' offend-
ing individuals are now the threat to the commu-
nities.4
One must therefore decipher the codes, to
understand the meanings that fuel the panics.
The task Cohen assigns is to unmask and
debunk notions of threat and determine which are
the real threats and which are not. Some forms of
violence are easy fuel for moral panics. The defini-
tions of the phenomenon are often vague and thus
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