Assignment
Write an answer to the following
Bowling (2011: 362) argues that ‘transnational criminology is a rapidly developing field that sets out specifically to understand crime and justice beyond national boundaries’. Outline the implications of this statement with particular reference to a recent incidence of transnational (cross-border) crime.
You must cover the following:
1) The nature of the crime (e.g. the harm caused; the social background of the powerful offenders involved in that type of crime, and their victims; whether the incident might be defined as a crime according to international law or to international civil society; its underlying and more immediate causes)
2) The responses to the crime (e.g. the extent to which they were coordinated between police and other justice authorities in different countries; the extent to which they involved non-state as well as state actors; their effectiveness).
3) You should also integrate the theoretical framework set out in the lecture slide presentation for week 7 and summarized below:
Transnational criminology illustrates a blurring of boundaries between the following 4 areas:
1. Transnational criminology questions the distinction traditionally made between ‘national and international’ and focuses instead on the growing significance of borderless crimes and borderless justice.
2. Transnational criminology challenges the boundary usually drawn between crime and war.
3. Transnational criminology challenges the classic distinction between crimes of the powerful and crimes of the powerless.
4. Transnational criminology questions the distinction usually drawn between public and private institutions (approaches to transnational crime).
