corporate crime

Question 1

financial crime

Answer 1

tax evasion, bribery, money laundering and illegal accounting. victims include other companies, shareholders, taxpayers and government. e.g amazon tax fraud

Question 2

crimes against consumers

Answer 2

such as false labelling and selling unfit goods e.g horsemeat scandal

Question 3

crimes against employees

Answer 3

such as sexual and racial discrimination, violation of wage laws, of rights to join a union or to take industrial action, and of health and safety laws. e.g piper alpha oil platform disaster - killed 167 workers

Question 4

crimes against the environment

Answer 4

include illegal pollution of air, water and land, such as toxic waste dumping e.g bp oil spill

Question 5

state corporate crime

Answer 5

refers to the harms committed when government institutions and business cooperate to pursue their goals

Question 6

rational choice theory

Answer 6

in order to commit crime, a person would consider the following:
a. the likelihood of being caught
b. the likelihood of being prosecuted if caught
c. the likely severity of any resulting punishments
could be argued that all three cases the scales are balanced in favour of corporate illegality

Question 7

tombs and white
patternoster and simpson (1996)
- rational choice theory

Answer 7

• tombs and white: reduction in regulators due to cuts made during austerity have led to a 37% decline in the number of health and safety visits conducted by the hse- chances of getting caught breaching regulations have declined = prosecutions of low fines if caught
• patternoster and simpson: individuals less likely to commit white collar crime when confronted with formal sanctions, moral commitments and organisational factors

Question 8

organisational culture and personality types; snider, hare

Answer 8

snider: personality types favoured by corporations tend to be innovative, morally flexible, aggressive and ambitious. - could lead people to focus on business goals over moral scruples

babiak and hare: commercial business settings = ideal places for people with psychopathic tendencies to thrive - may be goal driven, act impulsively and believe only strongest survive
EVAL; no studies that examine psychopathy and white collar crime directly

Question 9

strain theory, box, clinard and yeager

Answer 9

• box: when business conditions become more difficult, goals of maximising profit will be done through illegal methods
• clinard and yeager: law violations by large companies increased as financial performance decreased - innovation
  EVAL: seem to overpredict corporate crime, companies that gain massive profits still commit e.g amazon

Question 10

differential association, sutherland, gels

Answer 10

• sutherland: crime is behaviour learned from others in a social context. more we associate with criminal attitudes - more likely to become deviant
• geis: if companies cultures justify committing crimes to achieve corporate goals, employees will be socialised into this criminality.
  – deviant subcultures: business culture may promote competitive, aggressive types willing to do crime for success
  – techniques of neutralisations, sykes and matza: individuals deviate easily if they can provide justifications to neutralise moral objections

Question 11

eval of differential association

Answer 11

• why do some businesses adopt this subculture and others dont
• ignores role of free will
• difficult to test this theory… what rations of good/bad influence change behaviour

Question 12

labelling theory, nelken

Answer 12

de-labelling: nelken - businesses have power to avoid labelling e.g they can afford expensive experts: lawyers, accountants can well avoid being labelled as criminals etc

reluctance of law enforcement to investigate/prosecute also reduce the numbers of offences officially recorded - those who rely on official stats will inevitably under-estimate the extent e.g clinard and yeager
EVAL: doesnt look at structural reasons

Question 13

marxism

Answer 13

• corporate crime is a result of normal functioning capitalism
• box: ‘mystification’ idea that corporate crime is less widespread or harmful than WC crime. pearce - some corporate crime being punished sustains the illusion
• capitalisms control of the state means that its able to avoid making or enforcing laws

EVAL: doesnt explain crime in non-profit making state agencies