Crime And Deviance - Crimes Of The Powerful

Question 1

SOCIOLOGIST: What is Sutherland’s definition of white collar crime?

Answer 1

A crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation

Question 2

What are the 2 types of white collar crime?

Answer 2

Occupational crime
Corporate crime

Question 3

What is occupational crime?

Answer 3

Crimes committed by the employee for their own personal gain, often against the organisation

Question 4

What is an example of occupational crime?

Answer 4

Stealing from the company/the customers

Question 5

What is corporate crime?

Answer 5

Crimes committed by employees for their organisation in pursuit of its goals

Question 6

What is an example of corporate crime?

Answer 6

Deliberately misspelling products to increase company profits

Question 7

What is a problem for defining white collar crime in terms of occupational & corporate crime?

Answer 7

There are harms caused by the powerful not breaking criminal law

Question 8

SOCIOLOGIST: What did Pearce & Tombs widen the definition of white collar crime to include?

Answer 8

Includes breaches of civil & administrative law (not just criminal)

Question 9

SOCIOLOGIST: What does Tombs say about the harm of white collar & corporate crime?

Answer 9

It has enormous costs on a physical, environmental & economic level

Question 10

What different branches does corporate crime cover?

Answer 10

Financial crimes
Crimes against consumers
Crimes against employees
Crimes against the environment
State-corporate crimes
The abuse of trust

Question 11

What is an example of financial crimes & who are the victims?

Answer 11

Tax evasion, bribery, money laundering & illegal accounting

The public -> mainly the working class are taxed higher to account for the loss

Question 12

What are crimes against consumers & what is an example?

Answer 12

False labelling & selling unfit goods

2011 -> french government told women to get breast plants removed from a single manufacturer as they contained dangerous industrial silicone

Question 13

What are crimes against employees & give a statistic?

Answer 13

Sexual & racial discrimination, violations of wage & health and safety laws

Palmer -> occupational diseases cause 50000 deaths a year in the UK

Question 14

What are crimes against the environment & give an example?

Answer 14

Illegal pollution of the land, air or water

2015-> Volkswagen caught installing software into the engines of cars which disguised emission levels 40x over the US legal limit

Question 15

What are state-corporate crimes & give an example?

Answer 15

Harms committed when government institutions & businesses cooperate to pursue their goals

Private companies contracted to the US military accused of involvement in the torture of detainees during American occupation of Iraq

Question 16

SOCIOLOGIST: What did Carrabine et al say about the abuse of trust?

Answer 16

High status professionals occupy positions of trust & respectability -> gives them more opportunity to abuse this trust

Question 17

What is an example of an abuse of trust?

Answer 17

Harold Shipman -> GP, serial killer who killed estimated 284 victims under his care

Question 18

EVALUATION: Why are the crimes of the powerful not seen as ‘real crimes’?

Answer 18

The media gives limited coverage of corporate crime -> reinforces the stereotype that crime is a w.class phenomenon
Politicians are focused on street crimes & arent willing to tackle corporate crime
These crimes are complex and law enforcement is often understaffed, under resourced -> cannot investigate effectively
Under reporting -> victims in society often don’t realise they’re a victim and are often powerless against big organisation -> dont report it
Corporate crime is often filtered out of the process of criminalisation e.g fines instead of imprisonment