NCJ Number
152622
Journal
Current Issues in Criminal Justice Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: (March 1994) Pages: 244-255
Date Published
1994
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This analysis of Australia's response to corporate crime argues that the country's conceptualization of corporate crime needs to be reassessed so that responses can be developed that are more appropriate to the fundamental nature of this phenomenon.
Abstract
Criminal lawyers generally do not understand that traditional ideas of criminality that have emerged from notions of individual responsibility and punishment for misconduct often fit poorly with the corporate law context, especially when law violations have been committed by or on behalf of the corporation itself or where the legal fiction of the corporate form has been manipulated to achieve the personal objectives of corporate controllers. Thus, criminal law has been overemphasized as a mechanism for use against corporations and their controllers. In addition, carelessly drafted legislation has lumped civil and criminal provisions in the same section and has failed to adequately conceptualize sentences. Instead, corporate law, as well as corporate law enforcement and compliance strategies, should be closely related to the structure of the business and professional advisory communities, to patterns of conduct within the commercial community, and to attitudes and values of participants in these communities. The focus should be on earlier intervention, proactive educational programs, the development of a culture of compliance, along with the facilitation of private enforcement of the provisions of the Corporations Law. These efforts are needed before the problem of complex corporate crime trials is considered. Footnotes