Poverty of Theory in Corporate Crime Research (From Advances in Criminological Theory, V 1, P 31-55, 1989, William S. Laufer and Freda Adler, eds. -- See NCJ-115630)

• NCJ Number: 115633
• Author(s): D R Cressey
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 13 pages
• Sale Source: Transaction Publishers
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Because corporations cannot intend actions, none of their criminality can be explained in the framework of behavioral theory. Criminologists should acknowledge that corporation and organizational crimes are phantom phenomena.

Abstract

This acknowledgement will not reduce criminological concern for white-collar offenses and offenders, but it will place the focus where it belongs, i.e., on real persons within corporations and organizations who have the psychological capacity to intend crimes. Auditors and other accountants have an appropriate name for much of the behavior at issue: management fraud. This is deliberate deception by managers that injures others through misleading financial statements. Fraud of this kind is by definition perpetrated by corporation executives and other managers rather than by organizations, albeit on behalf of corporations. This is not to propose that corporations not be held criminally liable. Criminologists must use the legal definition of crime and must accept that the criminal law treats corporations as persons who commit crimes. The proposal is that criminologists acknowledge that no theory of crime causation can make sense of strict-liability criminality or any other criminality not intended. Corporations and organizations, being inanimate, cannot formulate criminal intent. 15 notes, 51 references.