White Collar And Corporate Crime

• Sutherland defined white collar crime as crimes committed by persons of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation
• •Bribery: (in business and politics)- form of corruption, offering or receiving an item of value to influence a course of action•Tax evasion: an effort to not pay taxes by illegal means•Fraud: deceiving another in order to obtain property or services•Embezzlement: stealing money that has been entrusted into peoples care•Breaking trade regulations, and safety regulations in industry•Breaking food laws•Professional misconduct by doctors
• Types of white collar crime


  • Occupational crime
  • Corporate crime
  • Organisational crime
• Occupational crime


  Crimes committed by professionals, senior or junior executives, or others in the course of their occupation, such as fraud and electronic/computer crimes
• Corporate crime


  Crimes committed by corporations or businesses, such as pollution, breaking health and safety regulations, fraud, negligence or corporate manslaughter
• Organisational crime


  Crimes committed by governments or public organisations
• Corporate crimes


  Illegal acts that are the result of deliberate decision or culpable negligence by the legitimate business organisation and that are intended to benefit the business
• Many corporate crimes don't actually break the law
• Who has the power to define an act as criminal

  More important than how harmful the act is
• Powerful corporations can influence the law so that their actions are not criminalised
• White collar and corporate crime do far more harm than ordinary street crime such as burglary/theft
• Pearce And Tombs

  They include further examples such as:

  1: crimes against consumers: such as false labelling and unfit goods eg the French government ordered poly breast implants from the company to be removed because they included dangerous industrial silicon rather than more expensive silicone

  2: crimes against the environment: include illegal pollution of air, water and land, such as toxic waste dumping

  3: crimes against employees: such as racial and sexual discrimination, violation of wage laws, of rights to join a trade union or take industrial action, and health and safety laws
• Corporate Crimes Are Relatively Invisible Due To

  : the media: who reinforce the image of the typical criminal as w/c

  2: the lack of political will: little attention is given by the government to white collar crime

  3: crimes are too complex: investigators lack the resources and technical knowledge to deal with crimes

  4: de-labelling: crimes are often filtered out of criminal courts and defined as civil cases resulting in fines

  5: under-reporting: victims aren’t aware that they have been victimised eg if duped by a mortgage company eg ppi
• Functionalism


  •Based on mertons anomie approach (existing in a state of normlessness) has been applied to help understand corporate crime•Mertons functionalist work helps to explain why organisations break the law•He argues that if an organisation is unable to achieve its goals using socially approved methods then it may turn to other, possibly illegal methods of achieving its goal of maximising profit
• Subcultural Theory


  Theory that examines how certain groups develop their own norms, values, and practices that deviate from the dominant culture
• Aubert studied rationing procedures during WW2


  1950s
• Aubert found that officials and members of food organisations subverted rationing procedures during WW2 to show favouritism to some groups and individuals (including themselves)
• The subverted rationing procedures became part of their widely held norms and values
• Aubert found that the white collar criminals had an elaborate and widely held rationalisation for the offences
• The criminal practices were quite normal for the white collar criminals
• Evidence that such practices continue today

  • Braithwaite's study of the pharmaceutical industry where bribing inspectors was regarded as a perfectly normal part of business practice
• •Marxists argue that despite the fact that the powerful are able to use their dominance of society to avoid having the majority of their fines defined as illegal, they will still break the law when it conflicts with their interests•Furthermore, if they are actually caught then they are less likely to be punished so business crime is based upon the very values and legitimate practices of capitalism•Bot has pointed out the success that the powerful have had in promoting the idea that corporate crime is less serious and less harmful than the range of normal street crimes, violence and burglary
• •Both strain and Marxism seem to over predict the amount of business crime•Even if capitalist pursuit of profit is a case of corporate crime, this doesn’t explain crime in non profit making state agencies such as the police, army or civil services•Eg state agencies in the former communist regimes committed crimes against health and safety, the environment, and consumers•Law abiding may be more profitable than law breaking