Globalization and Economic Crisis

This issue opens with four articles that address different dimensions of crises in the global economy. In the "Geopolitics of Narcotrafficking in Latin America," Rosa del Olmo locates the "war on drugs" within unequal relations of power in the hemisphere. She discusses how mind-altering substances were transformed into commodities during the rise of mercantile capitalism and how they came to be produced in the periphery for consumption in the developed regions. This article probes how the growth of transnational, illegal drug industries are closely linked to recent crises in the world economy, the expanded globalization of capital, and the rise and acceptance of the informal economy as a means of cushioning the effects of the economic crisis. Del Olmo concludes that the counterinsurgency approach of U.S. administrations serves to politically support a new technocratic and repressive state anchored in the armed forces, which jeopardizes the security, peace, and fragile democracies in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Such an approach ignores the fact that the drug phenomenon offers immediate relief from the economic crisis facing the South by generating financial activity and employment while activating trade, construction, and industry -- despite its long-term perverse effects. Any solution, concludes del Olmo, must therefore be economic, political, and social in scope.

Jaime Osorio's "Latin America: For a New Reinsertion in the World Economy," addresses the processes that are provoking great changes in the world economy, including the economic crisis, the technological revolution, and the simultaneous world market transformations that are incorporating the former socialist countries and forming regional blocks around Germany, Japan, and the United States. The prospects for Latin America give cause for concern: a continuance of neoliberal policies will generate growing poverty, with the benefits of development restricted to a small segment of the population and developed enclaves existing alongside great misery, thus generating even deeper social and political cleavages.

"Rebuilding the Global City: Economy, Ethnicity, and Space," by Saskia Sassen, analyzes the interrelated components of the modern world city -- such as New York, Frankfurt, London, or Tokyo -- with their corporate high-rise service complexes, dying industrial zones, and new immigrant communities. At opposite poles in this urban landscape are the corporate advanced post-industrial economy, cosmopolitan and global in reach, and the informal economy, associated with the local mechanisms of the immigrant community. The author posits that globalization of the economy, including multiple offshore manufacturing facilities, has transformed cities into specialized production sites, with their central command function having become a production process. The informal (i.e., unregulated) economy, it is suggested, is not the result of immigrant survival strategies, but rather an outcome of structural patterns or transformations associated with commercial and residential gentrification, with products or services that lend themselves to small scales of production, or that are not satisfactorily provided by the formal sector. Understanding and rebuilding the modern city is essential to political efforts that seek to make cities more manageable, livable, and less hopeless. This, in turn, has implications for resolving racial, ethnic, and gender tensions.

"A Very Subjective View of 'Operation Wetback' (1957)," by Avotcja, is a personal reminiscence of the author on the experience of a Puerto Rican woman who as a teenager traveled to California to escape the slavery of New York's garment district only to take on backbreaking work in the "factories in the fields" alongside Mexican nationals and Chicanos from East Los Angeles. The story details not only the complicity between the field bosses and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but also the compassion and humanity shown by her fellow workers, some of whom had traveled to the "Promised Land" to escape the poverty and repression in southern Mexico's Chiapas.

Engaging Criminal Justice

In this section we turn to the local arena and to specific efforts by activists and intellectuals to challenge institutions of power -- the commercial media, the U.S. police, and Mexican prisons. In "Engaging the Media: A Case Study of the Politics of Crime and the Media," Janet Katz and Garland White discuss what happens when progressive intellectuals try to circulate their ideas in the arena of public opinion. The authors had done some modest research on the effect of sporting events -- in this case, Washington Redskins football games -- on assaults against women. Though their sample was small, they found that emergency room admissions for women increased after the home team won games, but not after they lost. The authors interpreted battering as a product of power and entitlement, and believed that watching their favorite team win could remind violent-prone men that aggression works and feels good. The study was virtually ignored until December 1992, a month before the Super Bowl was to be played, when a press release was sent out by their publisher. This set off a chain of events, including on the positive side a public service announcement during the Super Bowl reminding people that domestic violence is a crime, but also more disturbingly, a flurry of articles and columns claiming the Katz-White article had been misused by women "activists" or was a hoax perpetrated against battered women by proponents of "political correctness." The insight into the powers behind this media transformation provides a sobering commentary on the limits confronted by progressive social science.

Written by participants in the movement to infuse criminal justice professionals with the values of multiculturalism, "Cultural Diversity Training in Criminal Justice: A Progressive or Conservative Reform?" confronts the dilemma of how to avoid co-optation. Given the growing sense of urgency regarding police-community tensions in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, authors David Barlow and Melissa Barlow see merit in seizing the opportunity to promote efforts to bring multicultural education to police officers. The article traces the origins of the current movement, including its historical precursors, and examines the contradictions in criminal justice reform. The authors conclude that what passes as multicultural training is mostly cosmetic.

"Centro Femenil: A Women's Prison in Mexico," by Jennifer Pearson, summarizes the author's experience with prison reform in one facility for women located south of Mexico City. The article contrasts the regimen found in California prisons with that of the Centro Femenil and describes an innovative approach worthy of a closer look. In the Centro, social rehabilitation is not based on the Western psychological concepts of separating and then changing an individual inside his or her mind and, hence, that person's behavior. Rather, formal and informal penal treatment is based on cultural and social values that seek to strengthen the familial, communal institutions and cultural traditions that provide material and spiritual sustenance to the health of the prisoner. The goal is to strengthen traditional institutions and informal group controls so that the woman and her children can become stronger and less vulnerable to crime and interpersonal violence. Aside from the extensive interview data with diverse inmates, the article provides useful guidelines for conducting research within a prison setting.

Struggles for Justice

"Community Justice in a Volatile South Africa: Containing Community Conflict, Clermont, Natal," by Daniel Nina, continues our coverage of the transition from apartheid to modern democracy, especially its repercussions on popular justice. The article locates the key players in community conflict resolution and defines the political project for people's horizontal power within civil society. Due to the legacy of apartheid, the state's initiatives in the area of justice remain illegitimate, creating an opening for popular and private justice. Peaceful Clermont, the community used in this case study, is atypical for Natal, which has been engulfed by civil war. Stability has prevailed since branches of the African National Congress -- which enjoys a great deal of legitimacy and consent by the residents -- rule the community, yet the community's needs and the development of its own self-governing structures are at times overridden by the ANC's national agenda. However, in the process of decentralizing the role of the central state's sovereignty, popular justice holds the potential to become a project of self-governance.

"Out of the Shadows: The Communities of Population in Resistance in Guatemala," by EPICA and CHRLA, tells us that the forced military displacement of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalan civilians from their homes and their exodus continue unabated. Those who have stayed demand protection under international human rights and humanitarian laws -- especially recognition of their status as civilians under international law -- and have organized themselves into Communities of Population in Resistance. Their members are, in effect, illegal, stateless people. This article provides a contribution to our understanding of how civilian communities in conflict zones are attempting to legitimate their struggles through legal as well as political rights.

"A Political Fugitive: The Case of Little Rock Reed (A Story of Due Process the American Way)" is written by Deborah Garlin, a human rights attorney who is actively involved in issues relating to Native American prisoners' rights. This essay lays out the circumstances surrounding the case of writer, activist, and spokesperson for the Aboriginal Ute Nation, Little Rock Reed, who was recently forced to become a political fugitive. The case has already drawn the support of critical criminologists and deserves wider attention.

Satire and Poetry

Anthony M. Platt's "How to Overcome Fear and Loathing on the Academic Conference Trail: Practical Tips for Beginners" takes a sardonic look at the hurdles faced by aspiring talents in the academic arena. On the surface a tongue-in-cheek "How To," this humorous essay effectively strips away the glamorous veneer from the academic conference circuit to reveal its often mostly business-like, instrumental essence.

Lew Osteen's poem, "The Pittsburgh Snowman," comments on the deplorable situation of our nation's homeless and the irony of an innocent schoolboy's gesture.

Book Reviews

"The World Politics of Wall Painting," by Jeff Ferrell, is an essay review that explores the politics of world culture and the use of street art to memorialize resistance to cultural imperialism and political domination. The proliferation of such practices has been met by criminalizing efforts, especially in the United States, where hip hop art has come under attack. The books reviewed concentrate on the street icons celebrating Sandino in Nicaragua and the alternative currents in Moscow before the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The author believes that a critical criminology of culture is required to expose the politics of cross-cultural appropriation and confrontation.

Mark Hamm's "Doing Criminology Like It Matters" is a review of Jeff Ferrell's Crimes of Style. Ferrell's book is a sociological exposé of the emergence of hip hop graffiti as an international phenomenon and of the coordinated campaigns designed to suppress it. What sets the study apart is Ferrell's active engagement in graffiti art himself, alongside the artists he is studying. Hamm typifies this research as anarchist criminology, in which the author mirrors the use of art as a hammer to shape reality.

The final piece, Mona Danner's review of Piers Beirne and James Messerschmidt's Criminology, favorably appraises the value of this work as an undergraduate textbook that seeks to feature historical, feminist, and comparative perspectives.

-- G.S. and A.M.P.