River: Evans Creek. It traverses Sullivan County, Tennessee, end eventually
discharges into the Holston River, the principal source of drinking water for
Kingsport, Tennessee
Firm: Davis Pipe. The company manufactures and fabricates stainless steel,
alloy pipes, and fittings.
The company processes generate SPL, a hazardous waste that contains lead,
nickel, chromium, and acids.
Environmental law and regulations require that SPL be stored in holding tanks
and disposed of properly.
Davis Pipe used another method: it periodically pumped the toxic waste
directly into Evans Creek.
Large fish kills resulted.
FBI investigation followed.
Davis Pipe and two high-level managers were convicted of violating the Clean
Water Act. The individuals were put on probation and paid fines while Davis
Pipes paid a $400.000 fine and $1.8 million in clean-up expenses
Firm: Imperial Food Products
September 3, 1991: a fire swept through the Imperial Food Products chicken
processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, trapping and killing twenty-five
employees and injuring an additional forty.
Unsafe working conditions:
Plant equipment was aged
Maintenance personnel were kept busy repairing the equipment
Plant owners had padlocked exit doors, ostensibly to prevent
pilferage of meat by employees
Employees were trapped. After the accident, photographs of the
interior walls showed bloody hand prints where they tried frantically
and desperately to escape. Subsequent investigation showed that
nearly all the fatalities resulted from smoke inhalation
Safety precautions were minimal to non existent.
The
plant did not have automatic shut-off technology, which would have stopped
the flow of flammable liquids once the fire began
There was only one fire extinguisher near the chicken fryer, but it was not adequate
to control the inferno that developed.
A
witness said that locking the exit doors represented the most callous disregard for safety
and health, particularly since locked fire exits are so fundamentally to basic common sense safety
principles … You don’t need to lock a door from the outside to maintain security. For a few
dollars cost, an inside push bar lock would have provided security and safety. For a
few dollars cost. We all went through fire drills in our elementary and high schools.
Everyone in this room is aware that you don’t block egress through fire exits (U.S.
Congress, House of Representatives, 1991:139).
The
State of North Carolina fined the company $ 808.150, and the plant’s owner
pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to nearly twenty years’
imprisonment. As part of the plea agreement, charges against his 29 year-old son and
the 56 year –old plant manager were dropped (Los Angeles Times, 1992)
Firm: Arthur Andersen. Founded in 1913, it was one of the
largest accounting firms in the world. For decades after its
founding, it was also an exemplar of ethical accounting practices
and took pride in its reputation as such
By the 1960s Andersen created a consulting division that worked
with corporate clients to adopt and use computers and other
technological developments. In time the consulting division also
began advising clients on business strategy and risk management.
Accountants hired to audit a company’s books were also
expected to help persuade their clients to use the firm’s
consultants as well.
Andersen figured in more than one high profile corporate
criminal scandal of the 1990s
Enron Corporation was one of Andersen’s largest and most profitable clients.
David Duncan, the auditor responsible for Enron rapidly became an
influential figure at Andersen.
When Enron launched the series of fraudulent and criminal debt hiding
structures that led to its downfall, Duncan and his employer signed off.
When it appeared almost certain that Enron’s transactions would face close
and critical external scrutiny, attorney at Andersen recommended that
documents pertaining to its dealings with Enron be altered or shredded.
Thousands of pages of material related to its dealings with Enron and its
accounting work were destroyed.
A few months after Enron imploded, disclosures of similar accounting crimes
occured at WorldCom, another Andersen client and one of the world’s
largest supplier
of the telephone and wireless services
After Enron’s collapse, David Duncan and other executives
pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to cooperate with
the government in exchange for a light sentence and immunity
from prosecution in other cases.
On June 15, 2002, Andersen was found guilty in a Houston,
Texas, courtroom, of destroying evidence in the Enron case.
The firm promptly charged that the verdict was “wrong” and
represented only a “technical violation” of law, but in October
2002, Andersen was sentenced to five years’ probation and fined
$500.000. In May 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the
conviction. Many of Andersen’s former partners are targets of
lawsuits from shareholders left with near-worthless stock.
Andersen
stopped
auditing
public
companies after 89 years in the business
and cut its workforce from 28.000 to 1.000.
It was a catastrophic fall for a firm that
once was a trusted member of the “Big
five” accounting firms with offices
throughout the world.
Criminal opportunities
Criminal opportunities are
arrangements or situations that
offer potential for criminal
reward with little apparent risk
of detection or penalty (Coleman 1987)
White collar crime – the
criminally predisposed
Tempted individuals possess qualities or
experiences that make them more likely than peers
who lack these distinctions to weigh the
exploitation of lure.
The supply of predisposed organizations and
tempted individuals varies temporally and spatially
The most striking revolution of the
twentieth century was the rapid expansion
of the population of organizations. In the
United States the number grew fivefold
between 1917 and 1969, and in the past
three decades alone it tripled. As a result
the population of profit, non-profit and
governmental organizations in the United
States rivals in number the population of
individuals
Characteristics of individuals sentenced for federal street crimes and
white collar crimes, United States, 1995-2002
Characteristics
Race (percent African
American and Hispanic)
Gender (percent male) 92.8
Education
Less than high school
High school graduate
Some college
18.4
College graduate
Age
Under 21
21-30
31-40
41-50
50+
Average age
31.8
Average number of cases
Annually
Street offenders
white collar offenders
48.5
32.3
72.7
38.6
39.7
17.1
28.7
30.2
2.8
19.5
10.4
41.8
29.1
15.7
31.8
1.6
24.6
29.4
250
44.2
44.2
2.600
8.205
Decades of research shows that street
offenders disproportionately hail from
poor and working class backgrounds.
The work performed by the working
classes is unlike work performed by those
situated higher in the class structure
Work
Much of the work done by working class citizens is
physically hazardous or mind numbing. Normally they
work under the direct supervision of and on schedules
constructed by others.
Subordination is one of the most important distinguishing
characteristics of working-class employment.
Most workers share a common status, and prospects for
upward mobility are limited in any case.
Not surprisingly also, in their work worlds those who work
too rapidly or maintain distance from co-workers in hopes
of being noticed by superiors are derided as “rate busters”
or “company men”.
One does not want to give the impression of being too eager
or of trying too hard. (Dunk, 1991)
“In the factories I’ve worked in, if you talk
down to another worker you can expect to be
“punched out”. The basic operating procedure
of academia and graduate school …..are based
on competitive game playing, which in working
class setting would make you an outcast…. In
my previous work environments this type of
behaviour had specific names: “brown nosing”
and so on ….. The modus operandi among
middle-class
careerists
is
based
on
competition.” (Langston 1993)
Competition
In competitive cultures, people generally evaluate
personal success in terms of wealth and material
possessions. Competition need not be economic,
however. Establishing or maintaining respect by
peers for exceptional achievement is priority for
many. Humans compete for attention from
superiors, assignments, and career advancement.
At each new level of my career, I had pushed my goals higher.
When I was an associate, I wanted to be a vice president. When
I became a vice president, I wanted to be a senior vice president
…. When I was earning $20.000 a year, I thought, I can
make $ 100.000 ….. When I was making a $ 1 million, I
thought I can make $ 3 million. There was always somebody one
rung higher on the ladder, and I could never stop wondering: is
he really twice as good as I am? Ambition eclipsed rationality. I
was unable to find fulfilment in realistic limits … The hours
grew longer, the numbers grew bigger, the stakes grew more
critical, the fire grew even hotter
I think I was arrogant enough at the time to believe that
I could cut corners. Not care about details that were
going on and not think about consequences. One of my
great faults is – I refused to deal with everyday details
that people have to deal with to make sure that mistakes
aren’t made. And I think, in that way, there may have
been arrogance where I didn’t have to deal with details –
that these details were meant for other people, not for me
(Waksal, 2003)
Enron
At Enron corporation management policies required each
year that employees be evaluated on a forced curve so that
15 percent would receive performance ratings of
unacceptable (Cruver, 2002). The pervasive insecurity
generated in competitive environments like this provides
powerful motivational pushes towards misconduct.
Desire to be the former is fuelled in part by fear of
becoming the latter
Suffice it to say any annual ranking that plummeted you
lower than your previous assessment gave many people a
reason to start a course of antidepressants or switch from
beer to Bourbon. A reduction in your ranking status
would affect your salary, your self-esteem, your standing
among your peers, and, worse of all, your bonus. Once
wounded with an “issues” ranking, like a stricken
animal in a herd, other employees would begin to shun
you as you might draw lions” (Brewer, 2002)
References:
 Katherine S. Williams, Textbook on Criminology, Oxford University Press, 2004
 Edwin H. Sutherland, White-Collar-Criminality, American Sociological Review,
1940
 Neal Shover, Andy Hpchstetler,Choosing White Collar Crime