Crime, transnational

Borders are a key element in the consideration of transnational crime. A border is a port of entry, an exit route, and a governed barrier. A border crossing offers opportunities for trade, cross-cultural benefits, migration, and crime. As demand for precious resources—drugs, diamonds, and oil, among other things—increases, individuals and organized criminals cross borders, often moving from depressed nations into more affluent countries that offer attractive opportunities for illegal acts. Borders have often been sites of conflict and unease, especially when they separate groups with deep, long-standing hostility, an enmity often based on ethnocentrism, religious differences, or searing memories of age-old conflicts.

Borders separating countries throughout history were established as barriers that could help protect nationals from exploitation by criminal groups from outside and from individuals seeking to elude restrictions and regulations of their own countries. The borders cannot be perfectly guarded so that those sufficiently intent on crossing them can slip through at porous points or through the creation of clandestine routes. Smugglers traditionally have been able to discover routes to get their wares across national boundaries and into black market outlets.

It is arguable whether countries are protected from transnational crime by an absence of boundaries shared with contiguous nations. New Zealand, for instance, has a very low crime rate; its nearest neighbor, Australia, is 1,200 miles away. But, in contrast, Switzerland, sharing borders with France, Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, and Italy, also registers a very low crime rate. Its crime rate may be attributable to a liberal culture that maintains limited amounts of prohibition and regulations. Like all manner of crime, an increase in regulation and law accompanied by enhanced police activity facilitates an increase in crime. As crime rates reflect law enforcement actions, increases in transnational crime have been enhanced by increased focus on international criminal activities. A stimulated global economy that results from the deregulation of importation requirements creates increased trade. The amplified rate of global commerce is followed by an equally robust increase in the illicit global economy.