Topic 3 - Crimes of the powerful

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.

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.

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

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

Since financial crisis (2008), activities of diff people may have made corp crime more visible, eg campaigns against corp tax avoidance eg Occupy.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

Strain theory + Marxism over-predict amount of business crime. Nelken (2012) - unrealistic to assume all businesses would effend if not for risk of punishment.