By the concept of corporate crime, then we wish to focus attention on criminal acts (of omission or commission) which are the result of deliberate decision making (or culpable negligence) of those who occupy structural positions within the organisation as corporate executives or managers. These decisions are organisationally based – made in accordance with the normative goals (primarily corporate profit), standard operating procedures, and cultural norms of the organisation- and are intended to benefit the corporation itself
Source One
The first article ‘The sociology of corporate crime: An obituary’ is from the online journal Theoretical Criminology available through swetswise an online collection of journals available to universities. The author is Laureen Snider from Queen’ University in Canada. This source makes three main arguments; firstly that the brand of state regulation known as corporate crime has disappeared, secondly it has been argued into obsolescence through specialised knowledge claims advanced through particular discourses by powerful elites, an thirdly that the acceptance of these knowledge claims cannot be understood without examining the relationship to the corporate counter-revolution that has legitimised practically every acquisitive, profit generating act of the corporate sector. The article argues that criminal law does not work in areas that concern crimes of the powerful; for example marketing unsafe products, maintaining unsafe workplaces, defrauding workers, dumping waste and misrepresenting or not disclosing the risks of products.
Source Two
Citizen Works is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization founded by Ralph Nader in April 2001 set up to advance justice by strengthening citizen participation in power. The organization claims to “give people the tools and opportunities to build democracy”. The article from Citizen works details how every year the FBI in the USA produces a report of Crime which rigorously ignores white collar and corporate crimes, despite the fact that there is strong evidence indicating corporate crime and violence inflict far more damage on society than all street crime combined. The article suggests that corporate crime is often violent crime, 56,000 people die every year on the job or from occupational diseases. This article suggests that companies that are criminally prosecuted represent only the tip of a very large iceberg of corporate wrongdoing. The article also argues that corporations define the very laws that they live under and suggests because of many corporations immense political powers they have large resources to win within courts of law and in the court of public opinion. The article suggests that corporate criminals often get away with crimes due to unacknowledged class biases, outright political deals, poorly drafted laws and incompetent investigators at the Justice Department.
Source Three
The source ‘Corporate Crime the tip of the iceberg’ is wrote by Dave Whyte from the centre for Criminal Justice, University of Leeds. This article comes from the website . People Not Profit have been building a new movement in Liverpool, one that is part of the anti-Capitalism movement and aim to work in a number of ways to resist oppression and promote Anti-Capitalism principals and ideas. Whyte argues that corporate crime has economic and social costs which tower over the crimes that the police spend their time investigating and suggest although corporate crime is very rarely counted properly, even the limited evidence already obtained clearly demonstrates that crimes which involve fraud and theft from consumers dwarf the total cost of known robberies and burglaries. The source also states that many more times as many people are killed at work as a result of safety laws being broken by companies than those who are murdered in the street or in their homes (in the UK we know that at least 10,000 - 15,000 people per year are killed at work compared with 800 - 900 murders). The source reveals how prisons are being filled up by people whose crimes fade into insignificance by comparison (for one, television license convictions rose by 75% last year). The sources suggest that it is time corporate villains were dealt appropriate justice and indicates that corporate crimes and the people involved in them are the most violent parasitical, and dangerous of all criminals.
Source Four
This source comes from Hazel Croall (1998) book Crime and Society in Britain chapter fifteen White collar and corporate Crime. Croall (1998) again argues that the major cases such as Enron that have come to light and the publics attention represents only a tip of the iceberg.
Critical analysis
Conclusion
Gary and Slapper have noted that the commercial corporate body has enjoyed significant legal privileges and argue that from the outset corporations have had advantages of various forms of legal protection. Gary and Slapper suggest that to a certain extent civil law was developed to offer support and protection to companies.
