Abstract
The effect of globalization on crime and criminal justice poses challenges, with which the discipline of law still has to catch up. From the point of view of a lawyer, the definition of transnational crime and its impact on criminal justice have yet to be crystallized. The phenomenon of globalization and its effect on society and crime render our traditional comprehension of crime and criminal justice inadequate. This demonstrates how the legal procedure and law enforcement practices have been left behind the fast evolution of transnational harmful acts which are neither categorized as domestic nor international crimes. It increasingly becomes clear that resorting to neighbouring disciplines is necessary to comprehend such emerging, complicated concepts in order to place them within the spectrum of our existing knowledge. Such expansion, though, into social sciences, is not an easy task for lawyers. We have our own existing methods of mapping out areas of knowledge. A criminological introduction to the transnational crime and criminal justice through the lenses of globalization is therefore necessary for the lawyer who usefully acknowledges the limits of legal discipline requires this additional lenses to comprehend new fast-evolving problems. For a European Union (EU) criminal lawyer, particularly, this is an even more imperative need as EU criminal law is a response to the effects of globalization on crime in a jurisdiction of increased mobility transcending the nation-state border.
The authors of Transnational Crime & Criminal Justice, aware of the needs of new learners and their different ways of building on knowledge, have produced a manuscript which serves as a useful introduction for this audience ranging from students, practitioners to academics. It targets a broad group of people, coming from different disciplines, career paths and stages of professional development, who all share, though, a desire to learn more about transnational crime and criminal justice without immediately immersing themselves to complex theories but wish to develop a holistic overview of the field, while also understanding underpinning theoretical approaches to transnational crime and its interdependent relationship with their own discipline. For this reason, the book is structured in two parts, preceded by an introduction and followed by a concluding chapter, a glossary, references and index.
The introductory chapter to the book explores some concepts which are necessary to accompany the study of transnational crime. The chapter looks at the globalization of social life and its complicated impact on crime. The chapter then moves on distinguishing definitions of domestic, international and transnational crime, before discussing ‘who is in charge’ in relation to crimes beyond borders. Thus, it offers an overview of the challenged concept of nation-state sovereignty. Next, the chapter goes on to consider the proliferation of actors ‘who are in charge’ beyond the state level adding to a sense of global values, which is then placed in the framework of cosmopolitanism.
The first part of the book offers a theoretical framework by reference to contemporary theories on crime and justice. Particularly, the reader’s theoretical backdrop is framed by an understanding of globalization, in light of the increased mobility of people in societies governed by a risk discourse. The risk is often exacerbated by the new dangers of the uncontrolled virtual space and is usually minimized by a pre-emptive response at the cost of presumably ‘risky’, vulnerable groups of people, such as when migrants are perceived as potential criminals. In this environment, policy and law transfer as well as development of international and alternative structures of justice constitute a developing response, which is discussed in the fourth chapter.
Having provided the theoretical framework of transnational crime and justice, the second part of the book explores several special forms of transnational crime. It offers an account of crimes and harmful acts in relation to the migration of persons (‘migration of the body’ in the book), such as smuggling and trafficking. It also examines organized crime in historical, economic and social context and enables the reader to appreciate how and why organized crime groups are formed to ‘serve needs’ that nation states have not managed to serve. It especially examines organized crime by reference to illicit drugs and money laundering. Moreover, this part of the book grapples with the thorny issue of modern external and home-grown terrorism, harmful acts against the environment and finally it looks at definitions of state crime, its increasing visibility and accountability and the perplexing relationship between state crime and transnational crime.
The last chapter of the book poses the question of whether we should envision a global criminal justice which is associated with ideas of cosmopolitanism, on the one hand, and unparalleled challenges, on the other. This last chapter is a space for contemplation specifying questions that could be asked and researched and completes a thought-provoking path of discovery for the new learner of this area.
The book undoubtedly offers an exciting introduction for students and academics who wish to build on knowledge on transnational crime and criminal justice, in a globalized world. It conveys difficult concepts in a clear and simple way and through examples, while founding the discussion on theoretical approaches. It is very accessible as it uses tables, pictures and balances theory, definitions and examples of case studies. It distinguishes between the different terms of transnational, international and domestic crime at the very early pages, which is helpful for the reader. It constitutes a useful account of transnational crime and criminal justice for various disciplines and it is a pleasure to read as it offers a refreshing outlook for a lawyer who wishes to connect with other disciplines and to holistically understand the phenomenon of crime in a globalized world.