Corporate Criminalisation Flashcards
Crime or Harm? - Tombs and Whyte, 2010
Tombs and Whyte, 2010.
Separating corporate crimes from harms - difficult.
Corp cause vast harms I.e pollution.
Deaths by corps - 1 percent of occupational illness prosecuted by HSE.
For Tappan crime and harm are very different but for Surherlad they are a continuity.
Sutherland sought to expand ‘crime’ to cover acts which can be punishable by law not just criminal law.
‘crimes’ do not need to be punished the same way as in the criminal law - i.e prison.
Some criminal laws cover fraud yet many are able to act with impunity.
Harms dwarf traditional ‘crimes’.
We must consider acts crimes which violate law - if we define by those acts which have been punished then we risk excluding many serious acts.
Tombs and Whyte, 2010.
Problem 1 - Not treated as real crimes - Tombs and Whyte, 2010.
Tombs and Whyte, 2010.
1) Corp crimes regulated by law other than criminal - when they are - not seen as ‘real crime’.
2) Many state crimes are breaches of regulatory laws not criminal laws.*
3) CC usually constructed as ‘accidents’.
4) Media maintain the distinctions between ‘real and corporate crimes.
Problem 2 - Difficult to identify who is responsible - Tombs and Whyte, 2010
Tombs and Whyte, 2010
1) Unable to identify criminal - unlikely to report it as crime.
2) Many do not know who to report a corporate crime to.
Problem 3 - Difficult to prosecute - undermines the extent -Gobert and Punch, 2003.
Gobert and Punch, 2003.
1) corporations silence victims - compensation - avoid criminalisation or negative publicity.
2) corporations can persuade prosecutor to settle out of court- something the powerless cant do.
3) ‘crime’ must be reported and investigated - outcomes are determined by individuals.
4) both the individuals and corporation should be held liable of a criminal offence.
Problem 4 - Corporations role in shaping legislation -Tombs and Whyte, 2010
Tombs and Whyte, 2010
1)Corporations seek to protect themselves from criminalisation through influencing legislation.
Problem 4 - overt- Lobbying - Tombs and Whyte, 2010.
Tombs and Whyte, 2010.
1) Lobbying - key corp activity- shape laws and how they are enforced.
2) representatives in gov help shape regulations such as acceptable level of exposure to work place chemicals.
Problem 4 - covert - Gobert and Punch, 2003.
Gobert and Punch, 2003.
Corporations fund electoral campaigns - politicians risk loosing such funding if they move to criminalise the corporation.
Problem 5 - shift to ‘free market’ ideology - Anthony, 2008
Anthony, 2008
1)Snider asserts - dereg and decriminalisation of corp caused by an ideological shift to the notion of ‘free market’ economics.
2)Corporate crime/harms embedded in the natural
3)when external control on profit maximisation are weakened we can expect more corp crime and harm.
4)lobbying, advertising and corporate blackmain reinforce the notion that corps are beneficial to economy.
ME: David Cameron make Briton great again. - linked to cutting red tape.
5) anything which impedes business is seen as undesirable to the economy.
6) powerful entities demand to light touch surveillance and interventions.
Crime or Harm? - Hillyard and Tombs, 2007
Hilliard and Tombs, 2007
Try to fit harms into the remit of crime - problematic
Crime excludes many serious harms and directs attention away from them.
How we define crime is important - ‘safety crimes’ using Tappans definition include 1000 out of 1000000 injuries. Where as the term harm would include them. However so would Sutherland’s definition of crime.
Criminalisation is linked to ‘crime’ and the CJS place an emphasis on individual intent - hard to apply this to an organisation. - criminal law
Rieman argues there is no reason for treating one on one harm anymore seriously than indirect harm.
‘Crime’ and ‘punishment’ are inherently linked. Prisons don’t work.
Problem 4 - overt - lobbying - Gobert and Punch, 2003
Gobert and Punch, 2003
1) Powerful corps wield immense power over legislative process.
2) lobbying - highly sucesfull at deflecting away criminalisation - main reason corp has resisted criminalisation.
Problem 6 - state-corporate independence - Tombs and Whyte, 2009
State has a hegemonic role in supporting capitalism
1) For Pearce the law and its institutions project one law for the rich and one law for the poor.
2) However it is not this simple - the government does criminalise some corporate aspects and not others.
3) The increasing power of corporations can augment the power of the state.
4) Businesses have a ‘moral legitimacy’ which makes regulation more difficult.
5) The past 30 years are not simply a period of deregulation - there have been moves, albeit ineffective ones for regulation. Such as the Environment Agency.
6) Draw on Mahon, Regulatory agencies quell disputes which threaten the social order.
7) Environmental damage has the ability to cause conflict between the citizenry and corporations. - reproduce capitalist social order
8) The state is not in direct opposition to the corporation.
9) States can facilitate and initiate corporate crime.
10) Although many construction safety crimes violate law they are unlikely to be processed as such.
11) main causes of injuries are preventable
12) state is biggest consumer of the construction industry.
13) correlation between this thriving industry and less inspections by HSE
14) enforcement is also in decline - there was a reduction of prosecutions within the industry
15) construction industry has a symbiotic relationship with the state
16) the state is both dependent on and required to show its self as the regulator
17) in order to reduce corporate crime we bust break this symbiotic relationship
