Week 4 - crimes of the powerful

White collar crime

Illegal and harmful actions of elites and respectable members of society carried out for economic gain in the context of legitimate organisational and occupational activity.

Neo-colonial corporate crime

A type of corporate offending that arises from global power imbalances, where large transnational corporations (TNCs) based in the Global North leverage their influence to exploit the resources and labor of the Global South.

Corporate crime

Illegal acts/omission that are the result of deliberate decision-making/culpable negligence within a legitimate formal organisation and are committed on behalf of the corporation/in pursuit of its formal goals.

Neutralisation theory

Neutralising acts (finding excuses) -> lack of shaming in crimes of powerful.

State-initiated crime

Government agencies play the leading and organising role and are assisted by corporations. Corporations directly employ their economic power to coerce states into taking deviant actions.

State-facilitated crime

Arise from failure to adequately regulate. Occurs when corporations either provide the means for states criminality (e.g. weapon sale) or when they fail to alert the domestic/international community to the state’s criminality (-> because these deviant practices directly/indirectly benefit the corporation concerned).

Corporate theft and fraud

E.g. Bank interest rate fixing, insider dealing, illegally leveraged mergers and takeovers, tax evasion, bribery, forms of illegal accounting.

Crimes against consumers

E.g. illegal sales/marketing practices, sale of unfit goods, conspiracies to fix prices and/or carve up market share, false/illegal labelling.

Crimes against workers

E.g. sexual and racial discrimination, violations of wage laws, rights to organize and take industrial action, breaches of privacy, workplace safety and human rights law.

Crimes of globalisation

International institutions, national-states and transnational corporations commit and benefit from those crimes. 

Crimes against the environment 

E.g. illegal emission to air/water/land, hazardous waste dumping, illegal manufacturing practices.

Corruption

The abuse of public power for private benefit.

Amnesty program

Building permits and licences (for a fee) issued by the Turkish state → promoted construction of unsafe and unregulated housing & amnesties becoming main source. 

Penal code

Main legislation against bribery and corruption.

PFAS

Forever human-made chemicals.

Greenwashing

Company falsely presenting themselves as sustainable.

False disclosure

Communication is based on entirely untrue information.

Selective disclosure 

Communication is based on some information that is untrue.

Claim greenwashing

Form of deception where misleading information is communicated through textual language and word is the transmitted channel.

Executional greenwashing

Misleading communication comes from the use of images, colours and sounds that are directly associated with environmental sustainability goals themes.

Green-hushing

Practice of intentionally downplaying, withholding or avoiding public communication about a company’s sustainability goals, plans and achievements.

Planned obsolescence

Practice of deliberately designing products to limit their life span to encourage replacement. 

Psychological obsolescence

Happens when consumers are encouraged to replace products using fashion/aesthetic/status concerns even though the product functions.

Heat-crime nexus and their crime derivates

Connection between rising temperature and crime rates (accumulation of frustration and tiredness leading to build up of aggression in heat waves and more group conflicts).

Sustainability transition-related crimes

Rules violations (working conditions, safety crimes, intentional acts of omission. E.g. F-gases (for cooling equipment) trafficking (because EU is planning a ban); green energy investment fraud; carbon credit and emission trading scams; illegal mining; green-washing/green-hushing; sustainable tourism crimes. 

Policing civil disobedience

How police handle climate demonstrations (UK has the harshest responses for activists – prison sentences) pro climate and green lashing. E.g. farmers demonstrations against nitrogen emissions reduction policy; extinction rebellion movement.

Disaster-related crimes and harms

Trying to financially benefit from disaster situations (e.g. fraudulent crowd sourcing, identity theft to obtain insurance).