The Politics of Crime, Law and Development in Historical Perspective

The significance of crime and law is recognised in the contemporary development agenda, as illustrated by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, which urges the international community to ‘promote peaceful and inclusive societies…provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions’ (UN 2020a). This stems from what is referred to as the ‘crime-development nexus,’ the belief that crime, violence, corruption, and the absence of rule of law represent significant obstacles to development, by undermining citizen security, decreasing trust in governments and hampering growth and investment (Blaustein et al. 2020). As a result, development institutions such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Bank, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) all promote the ‘rule of law’ and ‘good governance’ as essential to achieving sustainable development. As this chapter highlights, this agenda can be traced back to the aftermath of the World War II and is rooted in dual, albeit complementary, aims. The first of these involves constructing the legal systems necessary for capitalist development in the developing world. The second seeks to address the criminogenic consequences of this development and, from the 1990s onwards, their impact on the global economy.