Topic 3 - Crimes of the powerful
- Created by: sophie98campbell
- Created on: 18-06-17 16:50
White collar + corporate crime
Sutherland (1949) - aim to challenge sterotype crime w/c phenomenon, but def fails to distinguish b/ween:
- occupational crime - by employees for personal gain, often against corporation
- corporate crime - committed by employes for organisation in pursuit of its goals
Further problem - many of harms caused by powerful don't break criminal law. Overcome problem - Pearce + Tombs (2003) widened def of corp crime - any illegal act/omission result of deliberate decisions or culpable negligence by legit business organisation + intended to benefit business.
Tombs (2013) argues diff b/ween civil + administrative law more about who has power to define act as crime than about how harmful act is.
Scale + types of organisation
Financial crimes eg tax evasion, money laundering etc.
Crimes against consumers eg false labelling + selling unfit goods.
Crimes against employees eg sexual + racial discrimination + violation of wage laws.
Crimes against environment eg illegal pollution of air, water + land - toxic waste dumping.
State-corporate crimes - harms committed when gov institutions + businesses cooperate to pursue goals - private comapnies work alongside gov in many areas eg marketised/privatised public services eg education.
Abuse of trust
Accounts + lawyers can be employed by criminal organisations eg to launder criminal funds into legit businesses. Can also act corruptly by inflating fees + committing forgery. Respected status, expertise + autonomy of health professionals also afford scope for criminal activity.
Howard Shipman - Dr Death
Invisibility of corporate crime
When compared to street crime, crimes of powerful invisible - even when visible, not seen as 'real' crime b/c:
- media - limited coverage
- lack of political will - politicians 'tough on crime' only applies to street crime
- crimes often complex - law enforcers often understaffed, under-resourced + lacking tech expertise to investigate effectively
- de-labelling at level of laws + legal regulation, corp crime filtered out from criminalisation process
- under-reporting
Partial visibility?
Since financial crisis (2008), activities of diff people may have made corp crime more visible, eg campaigns against corp tax avoidance eg Occupy.
Explanations of corp crime - strain theory
M applies innovation concept to explain w/c crime, others used it to explain corp crime. Box (1983) - if company can't achieve goal of max'ing profit bu legal means, may use illegal eg tax evasion + money laundering.
Explanations of corp crime - differential associat
Sutherland (1949) - crime behaviour learned in social context. Less we associate w/ people who hold attitudes favourable to law, more associate w/ people w/ criminal attitudes, more likely to become deviant. If company's culture justifies committing crimes to achieve corp goals, employees socialised into this.
Can link to 2 other concepts:
- deviant subcultures - culture of business may favour + promote competitive, aggressive personality types willing to commit crime for success
- techniques of neutralisation - white collar criminals may say carrying out orders from above, blame victim, normalise deviance by saying 'everyone else is doing it'.
Explanations of corp crime - labelling theory
De-labelling - often have power to avoid labelling - can afford expensive experts eg lawyers + accountants to help avoid activities involved in eg tax avoidance. Reluctance of law enforcement agencies to investigate + prosecute reduces number of offences officially recorded.
Explanations of corp crime - marxism
Corp crime result of normal functioning of cap. Cap's goal - max profits, causes harm.
Box (1983) - 'mystification' - spread of ideology that corp crime less widespread/harmful than w/c crime. Cap's control of state means able to avoid making/enforcing laws that conflict w/ it's interests.
Explanations of corp crime - evaluation
Strain theory + Marxism over-predict amount of business crime. Nelken (2012) - unrealistic to assume all businesses would effend if not for risk of punishment.
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