the Impact of Globalization on Crime

Effects of Globalization on Crime

Globalization has different effects on developing and the developed countries in its distinct way. Since the developed countries already have an already established strong infrastructure, fortified economy, vigorous political mechanisms, and less difference among the poor and the rich regarding societal equality, globalization has still been debated regarding its effects on the entire country (Samimi & Jenatabadi, 2014). Since the poverty levels in developed and developing countries vary depending upon the type of effects globalization poses on a country, the crime rate also differs. This paper investigates the globalization impact on crime based on the statistics taken from authentic sources.

Research has shown that globalization has greatly affected the economy of a country that has slowed inter-regional trade. When the trade is open between two countries, the per capita income of the developed countries rises above the average level, resulting in improved quality of life for those who have high socioeconomic status (Martin et al., 2018). However, those who belong to the middle-income social class have a lesser income share and strive for the best education, medical care, and another necessary life utilizes. This leads to the fact that the crime rate takes a surge among those classes that are left underprivileged, and the uneven regional development in the wider financialization process is observed.

When inter-boundary transactions for the businesses are carried, there are larger chances of the inter-state criminals to infiltrate another country’s security loopholes and commit more transnational crimes. Several crimes are on the rise with the advent of globalization, such as corruption, human trafficking, drug transport, terrorism, money laundering, mass murder, internet crime, etc., since the movement of illegal goods and electronic transactions across boundaries is facilitated.

The explosion of such crimes could be attributed to the national and international contradictions among income distribution and the amplified inequality that has created a disruptive societal effect. Across the globe, the people who are not satisfied with what they earn entry into a world of organized crime with the trade of illicit goods via adopting expert ways to detect the crime across borders become harder. Despite tight securities and coping mechanisms, the criminals find superior ways to penetrate a country’s systems that are tricky to discern even with strong regulation and superlative legal processes.

The global circulation of goods and services has created opportunities for the transference of threatening and illegal commodities that are not allowed otherwise across the states. The spread of information, transport of weapons from one country to another, carrying drugs illegally, nuclear and biological mass destruction weapons and globalized mass media that is the sole reason for the spread of terrorism within the countries are all the outcomes of globalization (Rotman, 2000).

These negative effects are not limited to these areas only; the local violent crime has flooded the communities that have threatened the employment, wages, and social securities on another level. The criminal choices and their attraction have become more of a gamble for the cybercriminals. It could be inferred that the more globalization, the greater the intensity and variety of crimes seen in the localized and international patterns. With the rate at which the world is being compressed with globalization, new dimensions of crimes have been witnessed that have complex natures. When ethnic and nationalist identities involved in crimes are the reasons behind globalized or transnational crimes, it becomes even harder to perceive the directory of the emerging crimes.

The efficiency of globalized crime is dependent on the technological and innovative scientific ways that have contributed to economic globalization. The criminal activists take advantage of the reduced border restrictions and fewer custom controls that gave rise to the global economy so that migrations of criminals from their home country become easier (Rotman, 2000).

The advantage is also sought by them where they detect the weakened centralized state power. The political and legal systems are responsible for overlooking the vacuum in their policies and the democratic system devised to protect their citizens and social well-being. However, transnational organized crimes thrive with the increase in globalization when the policies seem to diminish in front of the bigger and positive picture the globalization offers the economists of the countries.

Recently, the statistics have given clear evidence that cybercrime would cost the world $10.5 trillion yearly by 2025 (Morgan, 2020). A last year’s report stated that on a per-minute scale, cybercrime would potentially bring damages to the global economy up to $11.4 million by the year 2021 (The Express Tribune, 2020). With the sudden outbreak of the pandemic worldwide, the businesses that were largely affected by the pandemic were targeted by internet attackers, with more than 1500 warnings and phishing messages ongoing from April (The Express Tribune, 2020).

Over 3500 pernicious Covid-related internet sites gave cyber attacking messages to the individuals and the companies that reached a rate where after every 11 seconds, a cyber-attack was prevalent (Mehardchandani, 2020). It is twice the rate compared to 2019 and even four times higher than the rate in 2016. 91% of the cyber-attacks were initiated with the help of phishing emails which would account for $20 billion in damages, 57 times more than 2015. The medical and healthcare specialists, financial services, and consultancy firms were attacked in locations like United States, Slovenia, India, Canada, United Kingdom, and Bahrain.

Cybercrime involves the loss of informative and useful data, theft of personal or private information, thieving of intellectual property, hacking of secured information, fraud, disruption in business processes due to disruptions created in the online value chain, and the overall damage to the reputation of the company or government entity that an online criminal has attacked. The tarnishing of the reputation of these firms costs them plenty of consumers and client trust who do not want to continue to be brand loyal or do not want to stay in partnership with the company or the governmental institute.

The prediction of the total damages caused by cybercrime is up to $6 trillion in the year 2021, which would be considered the third-largest economy if ‘cybercrime’ is taken as a country (Morgan, 2020). Intellectual innovation and its theft have posed serious threats to the firms with the increasing rate of globalization as the global trade has openly increased internet crime rate.

The very nature of cybercrime is fascinating to study since it has high levels of anonymity, virtual digitization of almost all aspects of information, high levels of manipulability, and materialized incorruptibility (Sandywell, 200, p. 44). The lethal combination of these features creates a platform for borderless crimes even in gateways and security codes from the most intellectual minds of the country who are employed for the only purpose of securing internet information with a top-most guarantee. However, the gated communities still become vulnerable in any organization or country, particularly ‘wired’ with the help of digital ways, making private information open to theft.

With globalization, the global financial meltdown has become inevitable since monetary transactions have to be made between countries. The corporate culture is highly dependent on banking and finance with the rise of globalization. The intense interdependence upon new technologies in the globalized and digital world is predominant (Sandywell, 2009, p. 40). The digital practices of keeping the financial transactions online have virtualized the traditional practices of capitalism and finance.

It has magnified the companies’ risk and the governmental institutions being robbed of their reserved information, counted as cybercrime. Also, the global interconnection has made an indispensable need for the computer to take help of the computers and the Internet to keep track of their information and secure their accounts. The reflexive nature of the internet information to be protected has become chronically unstable due to the onset of hacking and computer-mediation experts.

The Internet itself is a global platform for communications that has a dynamic and flexible nature. Anyone across the globe could use it without having to reveal his or her true identity. There are over billions of fake accounts and profiles over social media that have been created by one group of hackers, solely in Russia (McAfee, n.a.). Innumerable losses have been recorded in various parts of the world that have resulted from cybercrime.

For example, in the USA, $209 million ransom has been paid in only the first quarter of 2016, $11 billion in intellectual property stealing have been documented in the USA, $3 billion economic damages have been observed in Mexico. Moreover, 45% increment has been logged from the year 2014 till 2016 in Canada, resulting in 50% of the SMBs being victimized, a massive 0.84% GDP loss has been seen in the name of cybercrime in Europe and Central Asia, Germany is not safe from the same theft as $64 billion have been lost for the same reason.