Crimes of the Powerful

• White Collar Crime- Defined

  Sutherland: a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation. Though this definition fails to distinguish between 2 different types of crimes: occupational crimes- committed by employees simply for their own personal gain and often against their organisation; and corporate crime: committed by employees for their organisation in pursuit of its goals.
• Corporate Crime

  Though many of the harms caused by the powerful don't break criminal law, to overcome this, Pearce and Tombs widen the definition. Defining corporate crime as any illegal or illicit act that is the result of deliberate decisions or negligence by a legitimate business organisation, and that its intended to benefit the business. This includes breaches of civil and administrative law, not just criminal law as powerful individuals have been able to influence this to avoid criminality.
• The Scale of Corporate Crime

  White collar or corporate crime do more harm than ordinary/street crime. It is estimated that the cost of white collar crimes in the US is over 10 times that of ordinary crimes. Tombs notes that corporate crime has enormous costs: physical (death, injuries, illness), environmental (pollution), and economic (to consumers, workers, taxpayers, governments). Concluding that it is isn't the bad work of a few bad employers, it is widespread and routine.
• Types of Corporate Crime: Financial Crimes

  Such as tax evasion, bribery, money laundering, and illegal accounting. Victims include other companies, shareholders, taxpayers, and governments.
• Types of Corporate Crime: Crimes Against Consumers

  Such as false labelling, and selling unfit goods (including 'food crime'). In 2011, French government recommended that women that had a breast implant from Poly Implant Prothése have them removed because they were filled with dangerous industrial silicone, rather than more expensive medical silicone. Around 300,000 implants had been sold in 65 countries.
• Types of Corporate Crime: Crimes Against Employers

  Such as sexual and racial discrimination, violation of wage laws, of rights to join a union or take industrial action, and H&S laws. Tombs calculates that up to 1,100 work-related deaths a year involve employers breaking the law. This is more than the annual total of homicides. Palmer estimates that occupational diseases cause 50,000 deaths in the UK a year.
• Types of Corporate Crime: Crimes Against the Environment

  Include illegal pollution of air, water and land, such as toxic waste dumping. Following an investigation by US authorities in 2015, Volkswagen admitted installing software in 11 million of its diesel vehicles globally, it could detect when the vehicles engine was being tested and disguised the emissions levels that were over 40 times the US legal limit.
• Types of Corporate Crime: State-Corporate Crime

  Refers to harms committed when government institutions and businesses cooperate to pursue their goals (Kramer and Michalowski). An increasingly important area, as private companies and businesses work alongside the government in many areas- e.g. the marketised and privatised public services like education, winning contracts with foreign governments, and the 'war on terror'. E.g. private US companies had been accused of involvement in torture of Iraq detainees.
• White Collar & Corporate Crime: The Abuse of Trust

  High-status professionals occupy positions of trust and respectability. Carrabine et al notes that we entrust them with our finance, health, security, and personal information. Though this position gives them opportunity to abuse this trust. E.g. UK courts found that Ernst and Young had been using a tax avoidance scheme devised by accountants, this scheme could have cost the taxpayer over £300 million annually (Sikka).
• White Collar & Corporate Crime: The Abuse of Trust

  Similarly, accountants and lawyers can be employed by criminal organisations, e.g. to launder criminal funds into legitimate businesses. They can also act corruptly by inflating fees, committing forgery, and illegally diverting clients' money.
• White Collar & Corporate Crime: The Abuse of Trust

  Example: GP Harold Shipman; convicted of murdering 15 of his patients, but a suspected 200 killings through obtaining the powerful opiate pethidine and morphine through forgery and deception. Yet he only received a warning from the General Medical Council and was allowed to continue practice as a GP. This violates trust society has in professionals. Sutherland claims it is a bigger threat than street crime as it promotes a distrust of social institutions and undermines the fabric of society.
• The Invisibility of Corporate Crime: The Media

  Give limited coverage to corporate crimes, thus reinforcing the stereotype that crime is a working class phenomenon. Describing corporate crime in sanitised language, as technical infringements rather than real crime. E.g. embezzlement becomes 'accounting irregularities', drefrauding costumers is 'mis-selling', and deaths at work are 'accidents' or due to employees lack of care, or cost-cutting.
• The Invisibility of Corporate Crime: Lack of Political Will to Tackle It

  Politicians claim they will be 'tough on crime' is only focused on street crime. For example, the Home Office uses crime surveys to discover the true extent of 'ordinary' crime, it doesn't cover corporate crime.
• The Invisibility of Corporate Crime: Crimes are Complex

  Law enforcements are often understaffed, under-resourced, and lacking technical expertise to investigate effectively.
• The Invisibility of Corporate Crime: De-Labelling

  When looking at the laws and legal regulations, corporate crime is consistently filtered out from the process of criminalisation. E.g. offences are seen as civil and not criminal, and when a case is criminal, punishments are often fines rather than jail. E.g. in 2010, French authorities found that 3,600 UK citizens held secret bank accounts which were believed to be a means of evading tax- however, UK tax authorities only secured 1 prosecution, and no action was taken against the bank.
• The Invisibility of Corporate Crime: Under-reporting

  Often the victim is society at large, or the environment rather than an identifiable individual. Individuals may be unaware that they are victims, and even when victims are aware they may not regard it as a real crime. Equally, they may feel powerless against a large organisation and not come forward.
• The Invisibility of Corporate Crime: Partial Visibility?

  However, since the financial crisis of 2008, the activities of various individuals has made corporate crime more visible. Including campaigns against corporate tax avoidance such as Occupy and UK Uncut, they investigate journalists, individuals within companies, and the media. Similarly, marketisation and privatisation of public services mean large corporations have higher involvement in people's lives, and are thus more exposed to public scrutiny.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: Strain Theory

  Box argues that if a company cannot achieve its goals of maximising profit by legal means, it may employ illegal means instead. Thus business conditions become more difficult and profit margins are stretched- companies may then break the law. For example, Clinard and Yeager found that law violations by large companies increased as their financial performance deteriorated, suggesting a willingness to 'innovate' to achieve profit goals.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: Differential Association

  Sutherland sees crime as behaviour learned from others in a social context. When we associate ourselves with people with criminal attitudes, we are likely to become deviant ourselves. Meaning that if a company's culture justifies committing crimes to achieve corporate goals, employees are socialised into this criminality.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: Differential Association

  Deviant Subcultures: these groups offer deviant solutions to their members' shared problems. Company employees face problems of achieving corporate goals and may adopt deviant means to do so, and the socialise new members into this. The culture of business favours and promotes competitiveness and aggressive personality types, who are willing to commit crime for success.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: Differential Association

  Techniques of Neutralisation: Skyes and Matza argue individuals can deviate more easily if they produce justifications to neutralise moral objections to their misbehaviour. E.g. white collar criminals argue they were carrying out orders from above, blame the victim ('if they were to read the small print'), or normalise their deviance by claiming that 'everyone is doing it'. Learning these techniques is an important part of their socialisation into a deviant corporate culture.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: Labelling Theory

  De-Labelling: Nelken refers to 'non-labelling', this is when businesses and professionals have the power to avoid labelling. E.g. they can afford expensive experts, like lawyers and accountants to help them avoid the activities that they are involved in (like tax avoidance schemes), and it helps them to get the seriousness of a charge reduced. Likewise, the reluctance of law enforcement agencies to investigate these cases reduces the number of offences officially recorded. Meaning official statistics are invalid.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: Marxism

  The result of capitalism functioning- as its goal is to maximise profits, it inevitably causes harm. It has created what Box calls 'mystification' which is the spreading of ideology that capitalism is less widespread or harmful than w/c crime. Capitalism's control of the state means it can avoid making or enforcing laws which conflict with its interests. Pearce argues that due to few cases of corporate crime being prosecuted, it then sustains the illusion that the criminal justice system is fair. Avoiding a crisis of legitimacy for capitalism.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: Marxism

  Combining Marxism with the Strain Theory, Box claims that corporations are criminogenic, as if they find that legitimate opportunities for profit are blocked, they will resort to illegal techniques. Companies comply with the law if it is seen to be enforced strictly, where effective controls are lacking (like in developing countries), the true face of capitalism is visible- selling unsafe products, polluting environments, paying low wages in dangerous conditions, and bribing officials.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: AO3

  Both Strain Theory and Marxism over-predict the amount of business crime. Nelken argues it is unrealistic to assume all businesses will offend as it involves the risk of punishment: like maintaining the good will of other companies that they work alongside, reducing their involvement in crime.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: AO3

  The capitalist pursuit of profit is seen as a cause for corporate crime, but this doesn't explain the non-profit making state agencies like police, army or the civil service. E.g. state agencies in the former communist regimes committed crimes against health and safety, the environment, and consumers.
• Explanations of Corporate Crime: AO3

  Law abiding may be more profitable then law breaking. Braithwaite found US pharmaceutical companies which complied with Federal Drug Administration regulations were then able to access lucrative markets in poorer countries as they can't afford their own drug-testing facilities and are reliant on the FDA procedures as a guarantee of quality.