Thinking through global crime and its research agendas

The chapter begins by considering some problematics of crime in a global age. It examines an incidence of what would conventionally be considered local, volume crime, but then moves on to trace its many transnational dimensions and connections. The chapter then broadens out to explore the recent recognition of global crime in the criminological and sociological literature and includes reflections on key thinkers and theories. It does this through a focus on the relationships between globalization and organized crime. The chapter then outlines the contents of this volume and the multiple dimensions of global crime that the book explores. It argues that criminality, the illicit and illegal are a frequently overlooked aspect of the political and economic mainstream in the present age, performed by a range of actors, and that to fully understand the implications of this requires the contributions of the various disciplines that are represented here.