Teaching and Learning Guide for: Transnational Crime and Transnational Policing
Authors: Sheptycki James 
Published: October 2009

Author’s introduction

Issues surrounding what has variously been defined as ‘global’, ‘international’ or ‘transnational’ forms of ‘organized crime’ are a frequent staple of globalization crisis talk and are frequently used to justify the emergence and elaboration of transnational policing capacities. How well does this functional explanation account for these related sets of phenomena? What are the particular organizational and institutional characteristics of transnational policing institutions? What counts as transnational organised crime? How does the apparent dialectic between transnational organised crime and transnational policing relate to broader issues of global governance? How do the practices of transnational policing relate to the structure of global society more generally? Sociological questions about global crime and policing turn out to be fundamental questions about the nature of the world system.

Author recommends

Sheptycki, J. (ed.) 2000. Issues in Transnational Policing. London: Routledge, ISBN 0‐415‐19260‐9.

This pioneering book opened up the sociology of transnational policing. The book contains chapters by leading scholars in the sociology of policing and is the first to consider the consequences of globalization specific to the institutions of policing. Chapters consider a number of important emerging issues in relation to transnational policing. The introduction attends to the definitions of the book’s central terms: ‘policing’ and ‘transnational’. It also provides a typology relating to the field of policing that has had major implications for the understanding of policing accountability under transnational conditions. The first chapter, by Les Johnston, considers the emergence of transnational private security, by mapping the global security market. Chapter two, by Jean‐Paul Brodeur, provides empirical insights into the workings of legal due process in complex transnational criminal enquiries raising questions about the accountability structures in the coming ‘age of transnational high policing’. Chapter three, by Didier Bigo, traces the emergence of liaison officer networks across the European policing field. Frank Gregory charts the historical rise of private criminality as a matter of international concern in chapter four, while James Sheptycki undertakes a descriptive analysis of the global system for policing money in chapter five. In chapter six, Peter Manning considers various aspects of policing and technology under conditions of transnationalisation, paying some considerable attention to the policing of ‘new social spaces’– that is the rise of so‐called ‘cyberspace’. Chapter seven, by James Sheptycki, is a concluding chapter which considers the historical case of the ‘international war on drugs’ held to be the ‘paradigm example of transnational policing’.

Sheptycki, J. and A. Wardak (eds) 2004. Transnational and Comparative Criminology. London: Routledge, ISBN 978‐1‐904385‐05‐9.

This book advocates that contemporary criminology be both transnational and comparative. The introduction describes the field of criminology by placing it in a global context. One key question is how academic criminologists can cope with the difficulties of cultural relativism in fostering a comparative and transnational view of the field. The book is broken into four sections. In the first, a variety of comparative studies are considered. Difficulties in measuring trends in comparative crime statistics across national jurisdictions, techniques for doing so and the interpretation of such data are all considered. The use of qualitative data in comparative studies is also considered. The authors advocate the combination of different types of data in a ‘second best’ approach to the interpretation of transnational and other types of crime. In the second section, a variety of ‘area studies’ are considered. These are: West Africa, Southern Africa, Singapore, China and Saudi Arabia. These chapters each offer extended transnational and comparative treatment of issues of crime, crime definition and crime control in their respective regions. Section 3 deals with specific transnational crime control issues that have been identified. Four separate chapters consider transnational organized crime, transnational white collar crime, transnational corruption in the EU and international sex‐trafficking in the EU. The final section considers transnational control responses to transnational crime and the book concludes with a chapter on reflexivity in the academic study of crime, crime definition and crime control.

Goldsmith, A. and J. Sheptycki (eds) 2007. Crafting Transnational Policing. Oxford: Hart Publishing, ISBN‐10: 1841137766.

The notion that police around the world share a distinctive outlook has been established, as has the assumption that police must co‐operate internationally if they are to respond effectively to the crime and insecurity associated with the transnational condition. Yet the possibility of developing a genuinely transnational policecraft seems negligible. It is possible to discuss in ideal terms such notions as transnational ethics, global social justice and the like but what, practically speaking, could be meant by a transnational constabulary ethic? Arguably, the situated nature of policing means that there is no such thing as a common transnational policecraft and hence no possibility of an overarching ethic for the constabulary. Liberal democratic theories of policing are also ill‐adapted to the global conditions that are the consequence of prevailing neo‐liberal governmental logics. This book presents a collection of essays that are the results of a workshop at the Onati Institute for the Sociology of Law entitled: Transnational Policing and the Constabulary Ethic. It provides descriptive accounts of transnational policing in a variety of regional settings around the world but grounds the analysis in debates about what would constitute good policing under transnational conditions.

Sheptycki, J. 2008. ‘Transnationalism, Orientalism and Crime.’Asian Journal of Criminology, 3: 13–35. DOI: 10.1007/s11417-008-9049-0

The article asks the question: how applicable are European and North American criminological theories to the situation in Asia? It takes a transnational and comparative perspective in relating contemporary and historical trends in crime, crime definition and crime control in a variety of Asian countries that comprise the so‐called Confucian sphere. It provides a criminological critique of the ‘Asian values debate’ and, through an analysis of trends in crime, crime definition and crime control in China and Japan, of organised crime across the region, as well as selected examples of state‐organised crime, seeks to provide a perspective on the developing criminological discourses of ‘the Orient’. The paper argues that, although cultural aspects are important and interesting in understanding the crime situation in the region, ultimately it is changes in politics and governance, economy and society that are most efficacious in explaining current criminological trends and developments.

Sheptycki, J. 2007. ‘High Policing in the Security Control Society.’Policing 1(1): 70–9, Oxford University Press.

This article considers the nature and practice of high policing in the security control society. It looks at the effects of the new information technologies on the organization of policing–intelligence and argues that a number of ‘organizational pathologies’ have arisen that make the functioning of security intelligence processes in high policing deeply problematic. The article also looks at the changing context of policing and argues that the circuits of the security–intelligence apparatus are woven into, and help to compose, the panic scenes of the security control society. Seen this way, the habits of high policing are not the governance of crisis, but rather governance through crisis. An alternative paradigm is suggested, viz. the human security paradigm, and the paper concludes that, unless senior ranking policing officers – the police intelligentsia’– adopt new ways of thinking, the already existing organizational pathologies of the security–intelligence system are likely to continue undermining efforts at fostering security.

Sheptycki, J. 2007. ‘Criminology and the Transnational Condition: A Contribution to International Political Sociology.’International Political Sociology 1: 391–405.

This article contributes to international political sociology and the further enhancement of the interdisciplinary study of the global system by introducing the vocabulary of critical criminology into the discourse. It suggests that the contemporary global system is ripe with existential anxieties that are symptoms of momentous historical change and it argues that, for good or for ill, issues of crime definition and control have become central to the transnational condition. As a consequence, criminological theories should be introduced into theoretical discussions about the nature of the contemporary global scene. Such conceptual thinking is vital, given the centrality of the language of criminal threats in the language of global governance and the language of governance globally.

Online materials

The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces

http://www.dcaf.ch/

Small Arms Survey

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/

One World Trust

http://www.oneworldtrust.org/

Open Society Institute

http://www.soros.org/

The Jack and Mae Nathanson Centre on transnational human rights, crime and security

http://nathanson.osgoode.yorku.ca/

The drug policy alliance network

http://www.drugpolicy.org/homepage.cfm

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/html.cfm/index190EN.html

The Environmental Investigation Agency

http://www.eia‐international.org/

Corporate Watch

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/

Syllabus

Topics for lecture and discussion

I Introduction and overview

Definitions, problems and issues: What is policing? What is crime? What do the terms internationalisation, globalisation and transnationalisation refer to? What consequences follow from a world‐system without world policing?

Outside reading:

Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell (1996).

Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt and J. Perraon 1999. The Global Transformations Reader. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Held, D. 2003. Cosmopolitanism, a Defence. Cambridge: Polity.

Sklair, L. 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell.

II Issues in comparative criminology

What is crime and how to academic criminologists study in comparative perspective? The use and abuse of statistics in understanding crime cross‐nationally, cross‐culturally and cross‐jurisdictionally. The uses of qualitative data in interpreting problems in comparative criminology. The comparative study of crime and the emerging world system.

Outside reading:

Hofstede, Geert 2001. Culture’s Consequences, Comparing Values, Behaviours, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Reichel, P. 2007. Comparative Criminal Justice Systems, a Topic Approach. Harlow: Pearson Education.

III Issues in transnational criminology

What is transnational about transnational crime? How are transnational crime problems defined and prioritized? How are transnational crime problems measured and evaluated? What do we know about the various types of transnational crime?

Outside reading:

Beare, M. 2004. Critical Reflections on Transnational Organized Crime, Money Laundering and Corruption. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Edwards, A. and P. Gill 2004. Transnational Organised Crime; Perspectives on Global Security. London: Routledge.

Reichel, P. 2005. Handbook of Transnational Crime and Justice. London: Sage.

IV Issues in transnational policing

Who are the transnational police? What is Interpol? What do transnational police agents do? How are transnational policing priorities set? Under conditions of transnationalisation, what is the relationship between law and policing?

Outside reading:

Anderson, M. et al. 1995. Policing the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Andreas, P. and T. Snyder. Wall Around the West. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Andreas, P. and E. Nadelmann 2006. Policing the Globe; Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ratcliffe, J. 2004. Strategic Thinking in Criminal Intelligence. NSW: Federation Press.

Focus questions

What challenges do researchers interested in comparative criminology face and why?

What are comparative and transnational criminology and how are they different? With reference to the contemporary period, can you think of practical elements, themes or questions that are common to both?

What is transnational policing and how can it be made accountable to the global commonwealth?

What are the practices that feature most prominently in transnational discourses about contemporary policing and how are these understood from a human rights, civil liberties or human security point of view?

What does the study of transnational crime and policing reveal about the nature and character of the world system?

Project ideas

Based on knowledge acquired from this course, choose a topic in transnational or comparative criminology and create a briefing portfolio. The portfolio will consist of four items: (i) three page statement of purpose; (ii) annotated bibliography; (iii) poster and presentation; and (iv) written essay. As part of the project, students should prepare a poster presentation (approx. 18″× 24″) detailing the chosen topic through the display of quantitative and qualitative types of data together with key concepts, case‐study vignettes, maps and pictures. Students will give an oral presentation based on their poster and create an annotated bibliography and write a short essay on their chosen topic based on the feedback they receive. Some suggested topics: comparative study of gun‐homicide in two or more countries/cultures; comparative study of rape and sexual assault in two or more countries/cultures; comparative student of family violence in two or more countries/cultures; environmental organized crime; policing the global money system; policing and the global drug prohibition regime; controlling piracy on the high seas – then and now; transnational crimes of the powerful and the powerless; policing, tourism and crime; corporate crime and state crime – spot the difference.