There is a growing number of academic ‘–isms’ and ‘–isations’ aiming to describe the trans-border interconnectedness of the contemporary social condition. Internationalisation, globalisation, transnationalisation, glocalisation – to name but some – have become increasingly popular fields of criminological inquiry. A common part of globalisation debates has been an image of failing state sovereignty, even propositions of its withering and death. While newspaper reports, political discourse and activist slogans forcefully mobilise for the rescue of the national under threat, the assumption about the ‘victimhood of the national’ is nevertheless also implicit in much of academic discourse about globalisation and crime. It is an assumption, seldom explicated, yet nevertheless present in various forms and, to greater or lesser extent, in many criminological narratives about globalisation. The growth of unaccountable international surveillance and policing networks and transnational legal orders is seen to be eroding the powers of nation states and, ultimately, raising the question of their survival (Mathiesen 2006). The fall of the golden age of the welfare state under the relentless attacks of neoliberalism offers yet another account of falling state sovereignty. Here, globalisation tends to be equated with its economic motor – neoliberalism – inevitably leading to more social inequality, crime, violence and insecurity and, consequently, increased levels of punitiveness.