Crimes of the Powerful

Throughout crime statistics, crimes of the powerful, for example white collar, corporate and state crimes seem to be almost non-existent. Over the last few decades crimes of the powerful are beginning to gain some sort of emphasis with regards its recognition. Crimes of the powerful have been gaining awareness since approximately the mid 1980’s. For example legislations towards corporations have been changed, gradually establishing criminal categories. Relatively recently it has been recognised that the scope is getting broader and broader as time goes on, for example ‘safe’ crimes and environmental issues are now becoming more recognised. So what exactly are white collar crimes? Edwin Sutherland coined the term ‘white collar crime’ and defined it as ‘Crimes committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation’ (Sutherland, 1949:9). This however was criticised, especially by Paul Tappan arguing that white collar crimes were all committed in the framework of normal business practice (Slapper and Tombs, 1999:5). It is a lot easier to define corporate crime and in simple terms it is defined as ‘Criminal acts caused by omission or commission, which were the result of deliberate decision making in order to benefit the corporations’ (Slapper and Tombs, 1999:6). Finally state crimes are defined as ‘state organisational devience involving the violation of human rights’, which have a vast variety from war crimes all the way through to genocide (Green and Ward, 2004:2)

When looking at crimes of the powerful there are some difficulties that may become clear when attempting to define such crimes and what crimes of the powerful consist of. Crimes can vary from fraud to doctors over prescribing expensive treatments all the way through to horrific crimes such as genocide, which arguably can be described as the abuse of power committed by members of society that not only hold a high position within that society but also, more importantly within their job. With that said a more prominent difficulty when trying to define crimes of the powerful is first trying to establish if a crime has even been committed (Sutherland, 1949:29). When it comes to ‘normal’ or street crimes it is possible to establish a suspect and work out what their intent was, if using a stabbing as an example, it is far easier to find witnesses, CCTV footage and a weapon which would lead to a suspect and then that persons intent can be discovered. However when it comes to tracking money that may have been transferred from as many as a thousand different accounts can go undetected for long periods of time or even unnoticed all together, especially when only small amounts of money are being taken from each account. Also there is still the issue of proving intent. Most true crimes require proof of Mens Rea, which is simply concerned with the state of mind of the defendant and their intent when it comes to the crime they have committed. A perfect example of this is a physician who has a recommended an expensive treatment for a patient. There is no way of proving that the treatment was recommended rather for financial gain than to solely benefit the patient when they will personally benefit financially from the expensive treatment. When looking at what differentiates crimes of the powerful from ‘normal’ crimes these are some of the issues that occur.

When trying to categorise crimes of the powerful it can become problematic to differentiate between corporate and white collar crime because there is an overlap in the two. Vincenzo Ruggiero argued that corporate, white collar and organised crimes are all variants of the same form of crime and should be judged accordingly (Croall, 2001:7). Although crimes of the powerful are hard to detect, it is not to say that they don’t affect society. They may not be regarded in the same way as burglary, robbery or assault but the costs of the crimes of the powerful far outweigh that of ‘conventional’ or street crimes. It is estimated that 2% is added to the cost of every retail good, some estimates putting it as high as 15% all as a result of inventory shrinkage (Coleman, 2006:16). With that said we as a society are unknowingly paying for illegal activities in workplaces because most of the losses come from employee theft, in fact employee theft is said to cost more in losses than street crime and other types of theft put together (Coleman, 2006:16). In hindsight this proves that that the crimes committed by the powerful affect more people than other forms of crimes and often have a greater effect on us as the taxpayer (Sutherland, 1949:13).

There have been many attempts to calculate the exact economic cost of white collar and corporate crime, however there has been little luck in calculating an accurate estimate, in fact the actual number is believed to be immeasurable say some experts (Slapper and Tombs, 1999:59). As far as all conventional street crimes put together go, in the US, the figure of crimes of the powerful are estimated to be ten times greater (Slapper and Tombs, 1999:64). It just goes to show that more importantly than the fact that these crimes cost a lot more, they are also a lot more wide spread than many ‘ordinary’ crime forms. As well as that, using victimisation surveys shows that regardless of the fact that they are widespread, they are mostly underreported (Coleman, 2006:7). However with that said there are multiple reasons as to why these crimes are underreported and in the main it is because very often the victim does not recognise that a crime has taken place and therefore does not realise that they are a victim. Following that even when they were aware that a crime had taken place they did not necessarily establish that a white collar crime had taken place rather than any other type of crime (Coleman, 2006:8).

If the victim does not realise they are in fact a victim and puts the ‘crime’ down to bad luck, this creates an issue when trying to define the crimes of the powerful and thus creates an equal issue when it comes to attempting to create a punishment (Box, 1983:17), so how are authorities supposed to enforce laws and punish those responsible? Especially when the ‘victim’ has complied with the crime. Most often this happens within the medical industry when a doctor recommends treatment and oblivious to the medical procedures, puts trust in their doctor and thus agrees. On account of the fact that people put trust in their doctor, getting a second opinion may not be something they feel that they need to do and will agree to the recommended treatment in order to rectify what they are being told is wrong with their health (Benson and Simpson, 2009:3). However one in five patients who decided against putting all of their trust in one doctor and did opt for a second opinion were in fact told that it was not necessary for them to undergo the treatment that they had been recommended (Cornell University study, as cited in Coleman, 2006:39). With that said Gary Green makes a valid point that it is still difficult to define it as intentional criminality because it may simply come down to a difference in the opinion of each professional and thus would depend which professional the patient decided to put their trust in (Green, 1997:184). The ‘crime’ in question is known as over doctoring. Examples of over doctoring can be as simple as the unnecessary prescription of antibiotics which happens more often than you would think (Dr Sidney Wolfe as cited in Coleman, The Criminal Elite, 2007:39) in fact in American hospitals it happens twenty two percent of the time.

Crimes that are committed by big corporations are also hard to define and punish because usually multiple individuals may be responsible. A brilliant example of this is the Herald of Free Enterprises, the ferry capsized in 1987 and the disaster ended in the death of over 190 civilians. The ferry capsized because the doors to the car deck were not closed before the ship set sail and water leaked into the deck causing the ship to capsize in less than 90 seconds. Following this the coroner insisted that the actions of only three crew members could have changed the outcome of the ship capsizing that day. With that said, the victims’ families did not want justice to be bought upon individual crew members, they insisted that they would like the managers of the company to take responsibility because their negligence to check that the doors had been closed were really to blame for the disaster (BBC, 1987). So who is really to blame? Do you look at it in the most simplistic way and determine that the 3 crew members responsible for the closing of the doors and put the blame upon them, or do you take a more complex approach and look in to the fact that the management on the ship neglected to check that the doors had been closed and hold them responsible for the awful tragedy. This is one of many examples that prove the difficulty in defining and punishing corporate crimes, because of the complexity of the case made it extremely difficult for a conviction to stick.

When discussing the complexity of the crimes of the powerful there are more than one ways of looking at these complexities. Crimes at this level are so complex they are difficult to detect, not only from a public point of view but also from the point of view of the criminal justice system. Organisational crime is crime committed by businesses within their economic activities. Many organised criminals use legitimate businesses as a front to their illegitimate business. An example of this is the scandal at Enron, they lied about their profit margins and stands accused of a range of shady dealings, including concealing debts so they didn’t show up in the Company’s accounts (BBC, 2002). The company created a smoke screen in order to cover their losses so that their customers would not pull their money out of the business. The way they used such complex methods to cover their financial loses was so complex that they went undetected by any criminal justice system and not only that but also went unnoticed by their customers.

Although it is very hard to detect these crimes, criminologists have noticed that even when they are detected they seem to disappear and become invisible within the criminal justice system. When closely looked at if crimes of the powerful are compared to crimes of the ‘typical’ offender, there is an insight to suggest that there are things that the criminal justice system misses (Box, 2004:3). With that said it looks as though the system has an ulterior motive to ‘conceal crimes of the powerful against the powerless, but to reveal and exaggerate the crimes of the powerless against everyone’ (Box, 2004:5). Is it possible to assume that this is because many crimes committed like this appear with no obvious intent, but rather there a consequence of negligence of any difference to regulations? Or could we assume that the diffusion of responsibility within larger companies and the unlikelihood of the party responsible being punished, is the reason that crimes of the powerful are so under represented compared to that of street crime. Although, as mentioned earlier, crimes of the powerful are far more numerous and costly to the public, as civilians we see that street crime is far more heavily detected and then emphasised in today’s society. Criminology is traditionally and almost exclusively focussed on crimes of the poor. However the dominant understanding of the crime problem misrepresents the bigger picture and is an inaccurate representation of crime. It is not a fair representation of crime to assume that the majority of crime committed is street crime committed by the working class. Following his study of white collar crime Sutherland (1983) stated ‘people of all socioeconomic classes engage in criminal activity. The key difference is how they are dealt with.’ With that said it would appear that because of the difference in the crimes committed by the working class and the crimes of the powerful affects the way in which the crimes are handled within the criminal justice system. For example the complexity of the crimes committed by the powerful leave the justice system with very little resources when trying to define and punish the people responsible, whereas because the nature of street crimes give more obvious suspects there is more that the criminal justice system can do to define and punish these crimes.

In reflection of crimes of the powerful, how can it be proven that a person in power has even committed the crime in question? Most of the crimes committed by those in a position of power usually go undetected either because of their complexity or because the crime that they have committed is almost impossible to identify, for example transferring small amounts of money from multiple bank accounts. However even when the crimes are detected it is very difficult to identify exactly who is to blame for the crime. For example The Herald of Free Enterprises, it was unclear whether the workmen or the company’s management team were responsible for the tragedy that took place in 1987. With that said even when the ‘criminal’ themselves knows what they are doing is wrong, this does not necessarily mean they do not have their own set of justifications which allow them to commit the act guilt free. A study by Matza and Sykes, The Techniques of Neutralisation’ attempts to explain this (Schlegel and Weisburd, 1994). The theory is based around adolescents and the way that they justified their delinquent behaviour. Matza and Sykes argue that the adolescents did not completely reject the values of conventional society or have a set of values that directly contradicted general cultural values, more that they have a set of ‘subterranean values’ that rationalise or justify the deviant behaviour. Although the theory is based upon adolescents it can be applied to that of crimes of the powerful. People in positions of power are able to justify their actions by their own personal gain, meaning they too have their own set of subterranean values that allow them to do so. Since there is an obvious difficulty or maybe even bias when dealing with crimes of the powerful there is a very slim chance of improvement of defining and punishing such crimes. However if the public were to find out about the costs of the crimes they are unaware of, it may spark some sort of uprising. In hindsight maybe the difficulty in defining and punishing crimes of the powerful isn’t such a bad thing after all.

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