Criminologists and the Social
Movement Against Corporate Crime
Ronald
C. Kramer
StuartL. Hills (ed.), Corporate Violence: Injury and Death for Profit. Totowa,
New Jersey:Rowman and Littlefield, 1987.
J.Maakestad,
and Gray Cavender, Corporate
Francis T. Cullen, William
Crime Under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond. Cincinnati, Ohio:
Anderson, 1987.
The appropriate role for intellectuals.. .is to try to contribute to the
work of mass, popular, democratic libertarian movements (Chomsky,
1987: 54).
crime is a serious social problem and an important
criminological topic. Business corporations, large and small, inflict
enormous economic costs on American society through theirwrong?
doing. Corporations also engage in numerous transgressions that result in
death and injury for thousands. Geis (1973: 183) put it bluntly and succinctly:
"Corporate crime kills and maims." Transnational corporations relocate these
costs and hazards throughout the Third World (Michalowski and Kramer,
1987). Can these corporate harms be prevented or controlled? Can criminolo
gists make an effective contribution to an organized effort to reduce the suf?
fering and death which result from corporate crime? Two recent books indi?
cate that criminologists have played a vital role in a social movement against
corporate criminality in the recent past, and could play an even greater role in
thismovement in the future.
Throughout American history there have been social movements that
sought to limit the growth of corporate capitalism and to curtail the abuses of
power by big business (Zinn, 1980). During the 1960s therewas a resurgence
of such movements. The New Left led a radical attack on the business system
Corporate
and the corporate statewhich is an integral component of that system (Perrow,
1972; Gitlin, 1987). The civil rightsmovement, organized labor, consumer ad
Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan
KRAMER
is Associate
RONALD
University,
of
Kalamazoo, MI 49008, where he teaches in the Criminal Justice Program and is an Associate
theCenter for the Study of Ethics.
146 Social Justice Vol.
16,No. 2
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147
Corporate Crime
vocates, women's groups, and environmentalists, among others, raised specific
protests against big business and the capitalist social relations thatdominate in
corporate America.
There emerged from this a very general social movement against corporate
wrongdoing. It tookmany different forms and raised a number of specific is?
sues, such as environmental pollution, unsafe consumer products, and danger?
ous working conditions. The movement helped to resurrect the study of white
collar and corporate crime by professional criminologists. Criminologists in?
creasingly came to define harmful corporate acts as crimes and to bring them
within theboundaries of the field of criminology.
In Corporate Crime Under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond,
Francis Cullen, William Maakestad, and Gray Cavender argue that criminolo?
gists played an important role in a general social movement against white
collar crime. They claim that the Ford Pinto trial can best be understood as a
product of thismovement. According to Stuart Hills, criminologists need to
continue their involvement in such a movement. In the "Epilogue" to his an?
thology, Corporate Violence: Injury and Death for Profit, Hills calls for
criminologists to engage in a "vigorous effort to expose corporate criminal?
ity..." and to become more involved in a campaign to reduce the suffering
caused by harmful corporate acts.
What role have criminologists played in this diffuse and diverse social
movement? What role should theyplay? Should we engage in a moral crusade
(praxis) to curb the abuses of corporate power and bring corporations under
greater democratic control? What exactly is it that criminologists can con?
tribute to such a movement? These important questions provide a framework
for evaluating the important contributions these books have to offer.
Although many criminologists choose to concretely participate in social
movement organizations, as intellectuals with expertise in an issue, themost
significant impact we can make is through contributing the special knowledge
and insights we have gained through our theory and research into corporate
crime.
As inmost other areas of study, criminological work would
volve four primary tasks:
seem to in?
1.
To describe the nature, extent, costs, and social organization of cor?
2.
porate transgressions.
To uncover the causes and conditions that give rise to these organiza?
tional
3.
acts.
To describe and explain the criminalization process with regard to
are not illegal, let
corporate acts. Many harmful corporate actions
and
economic
the
does
role
What
alone criminal.
political power of
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148
Kramer
corporations play in the law creation process? What,
role of the state in advanced capitalist societies?
in effect, is the
To analyze the social control of corporate offenses and offenders.
How can corporate crime best be prevented and controlled? How can
4.
corporate organizations be successfully adjudicated and sanctioned
by state legal institutions?What structuraland organizational changes
would reduce corporate violence?
To carry out the first two tasks,we need to clarify which standards were
used to classify a corporate act as "crime." This scholarly effort is not limited
to the proscriptions of state law, as Shapiro (1983) asserts, butmay expand the
boundaries of inquiry through the use either of other legal norms (such as civil
or regulatory law) or of broader social standards, such as human rights
and Kramer, 1987). All
(Schwendingers, 1970; Kramer, 1985; Michalowski
definitions of crime are infused with a moral agenda, including those that use
the standards of state law. To describe any behavior as crime, we should be
willing to openly state thevalues that lead us to thatjudgment. The question of
why the state proscribes some acts by law, but not others, is important.Like?
wise, it is important to understand why the state chooses one legal mechanism
(criminal, civil, or administrative) over another in response to corporate law
violations.
four tasks are interrelated and connected to social movements
against corporate crime in a variety of ways. Case studies of corporate harm,
such as Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed or Mark Dowie's
"Pinto Mad?
ness" aroused and motivated people to get involved in themovement. For the
movement to continue and grow, factual and objective information is needed
which also raises people's consciousness about the consequences of certain
corporate behaviors. Thus, Geis (1982: 176) has argued that to "best produce a
social and political atmosphere inwhich thematter of white-collar crime is re?
garded of high importance," we need to have "dedicated persons embark on an
These
impassioned
crusade...."
Such a social and political atmosphere may lead to the increasing crimi
nalization of harmful corporate acts by various legislative bodies and the
courts, or to a mass movement to democratize theAmerican economy. Strate?
gies for the social control of these corporate acts also largely depend on an ad?
equate understanding of the causes of such organizational crime and of the
forces giving rise to these acts of violence. A deeper under?
macrosociological
standing of the origins of corporate crime could improve the efforts of labor
unions, consumer and environmental organizations, prosecutors' offices,
courtrooms, the Congress, or democratic socialist organizations to design
control strategies aimed at reducing the likelihood of these crimes. These
groups would also need empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the strate?
gies and sanctions adopted.
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Corporate Crime
Stuart Hills' anthology on corporate violence
first task outlined above. Hills' purpose is to:
is an attempt to perform the
heighten awareness of the vast scope of serious harm caused by the
illegal acts of "respectable" business executives who impersonally
kill and maim many more Americans than streetmuggers and as?
sailants (p. vii).
Hills certainly accomplishes that goal. The book's 14 articles are designed
to disabuse readers of the notion thatcorporate capitalism is victimless.
This volume is the first to focus solely on the issue of corporate violence.
This alone makes thebook valuable. Corporate violence, according toHills, is:
actual harm and risk of harm inflicted on consumers, workers, and the
general public as a result of decisions by corporate executives or
managers, from corporate negligence, the quest forprofits at any cost,
and willful violations of health, safety, and environmental laws (p.
vii).
Most of the literatureon white-collar and corporate crime?
and the pub?
lic perception of these crimes?
tends to focus on the economic effects of
these acts. By highlighting the physical harm caused by corporate crime, this
book makes an importantcontribution.
The first three parts of the anthology focus on a different category of vic?
tims: consumers, workers, and the general public. The final part presents
voices from inside the corporate bureaucracy. The "Epilogue" sketches out
some important theoretical ideas on the causes of corporate crime.
The firstpart, on the consumer as victim, startswith Mark Dowie's classic
expose of theFord Pinto and its dangerous gasoline tank.Dowie's article doc?
uments the problems with thePinto as well as the arrogance and power of the
Ford Motor Company as it fought to keep a dangerous automobile on the
highway. The tragic case of the Dalkon Shield intrauterinedevice is the sub?
ject of the next two selections. Washington Post reporterMorton Mintz de?
scribes the immense suffering of thousands of women who used this defective
birth control device. Federal District Court JudgeMiles Lord's scathing re?
buke of the top officials of theA.H. Robins company, themanufacturer of the
Dalkon Shield, is also reprinted here. The final article in this section isMother
Jones magazine's
report on the dumping of hazardous products in the Third
World, which editorMark Dowie calls the corporate crime of the century.
The second part focuses on injury and death in theworkplace. Four selec?
tions deal with unsafe working conditions in a steel mill, a coal mine, a silver
recycling plant, and textilemills in the South. All vividly document the dan?
gers of work in capitalist America, and the horrifying toll it takes on workers.
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Kramer
This section is somewhat limited, however, for it only deals with industrial
hazards. As the industrial base of thenation shrinks, absorbing an ever smaller
percentage of the labor force, the nature of corporate violence in thework?
place has also started to change. The modern service workplaces have their
own forms of hazards: long hours at CRT's
(computer monitors), with expo?
sure to radiation, and dangerous materials in laboratories and hospitals as we
expand medical service technologies. One of the biggest corporate crimes of
all is the impoverishment of a whole new category of low-level service work?
ers who must suffer the violence of poverty or near-poverty because corpora?
tions are increasingly replacing well-paid, unionized jobs with low-paid, part
time, limited benefit work.1
Articles in the thirdpart describe the destruction of community and the en?
vironment through corporate wrongdoing. Matt Tallmer discusses chemical
dumping as a corporate way of life, while law professor Christopher Stone
notes the limits of the law in dealing with a particularly egregious case of cor?
porate chemical dumping. James Brady provides an excellent analysis of ar?
son, arguing that the greatest profits often accrue to respectable banks and real
estate corporations whose lending policies and development practices create
the incentives for this often deadly crime.
In the fourthpart, Hills moves to a description of specific acts of corporate
violence from the perspective of men who have worked in the corporate bu?
reaucracy. Leading off this section is Kermit Vandivier's widely reprinted ar?
ticle on the falsification of lab data by B.F. Goodrich officials who sought to
conceal dangerous safety defects in the design of aircraft brakes. Next is
James Carey's interview with a former executive of a major pharmaceutical
company convicted of distributing unsafe drugs. The final selection is the
storyof a whistle-blowing engineer who exposed engineering deficiencies and
defects in nuclear power systems on themarket. These accounts of corporate
insiders show the ease with which people abdicate moral responsibility for
dangerous decisions in organizational settings and develop rationalizations for
their life-threateningactions.
In the "Epilogue," Hills returns to the theme of the "ethical numbness" of
corporate executives and managers. Corporations, as complex hierarchical or?
?
an ethical
ganizations, routinely generate a pragmatic structural amorality
?
numbness
which results in decisions that cause immense human suffering.
"How is itpossible," he asks, "thatmen who are basically moral and decent in
theirown families?
perhaps even generous in civic and charitable contribu?
are able to engage in corporate acts that have extraordinarily inhu?
tions?
mane consequences?"
(p. 190). The key to understanding this phenomenon,
not in thepathology of evil individuals but in the cul?
to
"lies
Hills,
according
tureand structureof large-scale bureaucratic organizations within a particular
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Corporate Crime
151
political economy" (Ibid). Thus, Hills also tries to address the second task
outlined above, the explanation and understanding of corporate crime.
Hills begins with a brief examination of the organizational pressures and
dilemmas that confront corporate executives in a capitalist economy. He
breaks no new ground here, but provides a solid review of some of the struc?
tural conditions that influence corporate criminal acts. He does make an im?
(1957)
portant theoretical contribution, however, by taking Sykes and Matza's
"techniques of neutralization" and applying them to corporate executives in
some detail. Others, going back to Sutherland, have suggested thatpart of the
learning process related to all types of white-collar crime involves the learning
of "vocabularies of rationalization" within the occupational subculture. But
Hills has added to this basic insight a detailed exposition of these techniques
with regard to corporate managers.
The "Epilogue" concludes with a brief consideration of the question of
how corporate violence can be controlled. Hills notes that in recent years a va?
rietyof legal reforms have been proposed to stem the tide of violent corporate
acts. He is pessimistic about the chances for such proposals to be implemented
in the present political climate. Even if these legal reforms were adopted, he
notes, theywould do "nothing to change the basic economic forces in a capi?
talistic system that continue to generate pressures to use illegal or morally
questionable means to achieve corporate goals" (p. 201). Hills then points out
that although several importantmovements continue to press issues concern?
ing corporate wrongdoing, ultimately:
a broad-based democratic political movement will be necessary to
prevent furthermassive environmental destruction and human suf?
fering caused by the practices of multinational corporations whose
marketing and production facilities now span the entire globe (p.
202).
Following Geis' earlier plea, Hills argues that social scientists should at?
tempt to stimulate thismovement by fostering public awareness through their
writings and research. As he observes:
Perhaps at this juncture...a necessary and crucial step is to educate
the public to the horrendous consequences of corporate wrongdoing
?
the damaged human lives, disease-stricken bodies, and other ill?
nesses and injuries inflicted on workers and consumers. Until there is
greater public understanding of the relationship between corporate
decision-making and human suffering, indeed, until there is a public
sensibility thatprovokes moral outrage at this corporate indifference,
the far-reaching structural reforms that could make a major and last?
ing difference are unlikely to occur (Ibid.).
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Kramer
Hills does not underestimate the difficulties with this strategy. Powerful
political and economic interests strongly resist such reformulations of crimi?
nality, and charges of bias are hurled at "moral entrepreneurs" who don't pre?
tend to be "value neutral." I shall have more to say about this strategy,which I
and
whole-heartedly support, but first, let us turn to Cullen, Maakestad,
Cavender, who argue that criminologists have been engaged in a movement
thathas already placed corporate crime under attack.
In Corporate Crime under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond,
Cullen et al. undertake the thirdand fourth tasks outlined above. They attempt
to describe and explain the criminalization process with regard to corporate
crime and to analyze social control efforts directed at corporate offenders.
"Our purpose," they note, "is to provide some understanding of why corpora?
tions such as Ford have come under attack by the criminal law at this point in
history when similar conduct would have escaped criminal prosecution little
more than a decade earlier" (p. x). They also wish to study "the relationship
between corporations and criminal law" (Ibid), in order to determine if
"sanctions directed against corporate entities may play a meaningful role in
deterring waywardness in the business community" (p. 351). As the authors
point out, "this book tells the story of theFord Pinto trial" (p. ix). That story,
however, is placed within a larger context, and the significance of the story for
the futureprevention and control of corporate crime is assessed.
This is a fine book, one that criminologists studying corporate crime will
benefit from reading. It is an ambitious book that reads like three or four dif?
ferentbooks in one: a discourse on the social movement against white-collar
crime; an introduction to the study of corporate crime (Chapter 1); a treatise
on corporate criminal liability; and, in places, a novel telling the dramatic
story of the Ford Pinto trial. This problem in formmay stem frommuftiple
authorship. The concluding chapter and the overall framework, however, res?
cue the book from incoherence. The Pinto case is not fully understandable
without placing it in the context of the social and legal changes thathave led
to the attack on corporate crime; the trial itself can be used as a springboard
for examining the future role of criminal law in bringing corporate criminality
under control.
Part I of the book, "Corporate Crime under Attack," consists of three
chapters which respectively detail the emergence of a social movement against
white-collar crime; review the nature and extent of the corporate crime prob?
lem; and present an historical overview of the development of corporate
criminal liability. Part n, "The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond," gives an account
of theFord Pinto trial and attempts both to tie the book together and to assess
theoverall significance of the case for the control of corporate illegality.
The social movement framework sketched in the first chapter analyzes
many people's emerging concern with the transgressions of political and eco
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Corporate Crime
nomic elites in the 1960s and 1970s. This is viewed as a general social move?
ment, "an emergent focus of a shift in cultural values that has yet to converge
into a well-defined reformmovement" (p. 5). Cullen et al. direct theirattention
primarily at two aspects of thismovement against white-collar crime: the initi?
ation of criminal prosecutions by federal prosecutors and the production of
criminological research. Three themes are stressed:
1. That themovement is rooted in a general crisis of legitimacy;
2.
That it has revitalized the legal system and academic
and
criminology;
That the effects of themovement so far have been largely symbolic.
According to the authors, the genesis of themovement lies in the legitima?
tion "deficit" or "crisis" brought on by many of the social and political events
of the past 20 years. These events?
the civil rightsmovement, theVietnam
?
and
others
have
War, Watergate,
many
"challenged our faith inmajor so?
cial institutions or the ideals on which they are based" (p. 10). Furthermore,
"these events have challenged the legitimacy of law and the legal apparatus
and ultimately the legitimacy of the social order" (p. 13). Drawing on Weber
and Habermas, they argue that the expansion of state activitymakes problem?
atic the legitimacy of the political system, a situation which is aggravated by
events which reveal basic contradictions in thepolitical economy.
This raises an important theoretical issue with serious implications for so?
3.
cial movements attempting to prevent and control corporate harms. Why does
the expansion of the state provoke a legitimation crisis? Is it because people
begin to see clearly that the state functions to protect and reproduce the capi?
talisteconomy, and thus come to understand thepolitical economy as an inter?
connected whole? Or does the state's expansion into the sociocultural sphere
politicize matters formerly taken for granted and raise expectations that it can?
not satisfy due to the fiscal crisis which confronts government? If it is the lat?
ter, thenpeople will simply demand less government and thiswill play into the
hands of that liberal theorywhich locates freedom in civil society. State action
to curtail corporate wrongdoing, then,will be rejected along with all other at?
tempts to expand the state at the expense of the "freedom" of civil society. If,
on the other hand, the crisis of legitimacy is seen as a crisis of the corporate
capitalist system as a whole, then the demand may be for the people to gain
greater control over the state in order to impose controls on corporate offend?
ers or to implement structuralchanges in the political economy. An awareness
of this contradiction is absent from Cullen et al.'s analysis of the legitimation
crisis and its implications for theiruse of the social movement concept.
The authors go on to argue that the general crisis of legitimation led to a
crisis of professional and intellectual legitimacy for both the legal profession
and academic criminology, resulting in a professional reorientation. For the
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Kramer
legal profession, a recommitment to equal justice led tomore federal prosecu?
tions of white-collar offenders. For criminologists, the exploration of alterna?
tive paradigms and the production of research on the crimes of the powerful
ensued. These professional reorientations are characterized by the authors as
"revitalization movements." The movement against white-collar crime, they
argue, consists primarily of prosecutorial and research activities which draw
on existing customs and ideologies in such a way as to serve to revitalize the
legal order and academic criminology.
For federal attorneys thismeant a recommitment to the ideology of equal
justice and the individual case motif, while for criminologists it involved a
reaffirmationof the dominant liberal ideology, the traditional research agenda,
and the concern for policy analysis. Since they have addressed the issue of
white-collar crime in a way consistent with the ideals and customs of their
professions, the movement against white-collar crime led by lawyers and
criminologists has been largely symbolic. As the authors conclude:
The response of the legal order and of academic criminology to the
crisis of legitimacy maintained continuity with the past through the
revitalization of traditions thathave historically excluded a consider?
ation of the crimes of the powerful. As a result, despite important ex?
ceptions, the bulk of federal prosecutions have been against the non
elite for individualistic crimes that victimize the organization, and
criminological research has continued to detach white-collar crime
from the organization and the political economy. We must conclude
that, to date, the impact of theprosecutions and the research often has
been more symbolic than real with respect to the crimes of thepower?
ful (p. 25).
This analysis is valuable and raises significant issues for criminologists to
reflect upon. The issues, however, are worthy of an extended analysis, even of
book-length treatment. The genesis of the movement against white-collar
crime, for example, needs a more in-depth treatment than it receives here. The
narrow focus on federal prosecutors and academic criminologists is both a
strengthand a weakness in this chapter. It is a strengthbecause we need to
know what role criminologists have played, and could play, in thismovement.
Thus, it is important to know thatcriminologists have responded to the issue
of white-collar crime in a way which revitalizes the discipline, but has had
only symbolic effects on the problem. This kind of analysis points theway for
criminologists to begin tomake a more effective response.
The weakness of this narrow focus, however, is that it leaves unanalyzed
major portions of the largermovement. I agree with the authors that crimino?
logical involvement in the study of corporate crime can only be understood
against the backdrop of the social and political events of the 1960s and 1970s.
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155
They see these events as a trigger for a legitimation crisis that drew attention
to contradictions in the political economy, and challenged the legitimacy of
the legal system. They argue that this, in turn,brought on a crisis of intellec?
tual legitimacy in the discipline which led to a professional reorientation and
criminological involvement in themovement against white-collar crime. Al?
though I don't believe that the discipline as a whole has changed thatmuch,
this analysis does seem to apply tomany of the criminologists now engaged in
corporate crime research. The analysis, however, leaves out the social move?
ments and moral entrepreneurswhose actions triggered the crisis of legitimacy
and called into question the corporate system. The civil rights movement, the
New Left, the consumer movement led by Ralph Nader, the antiwar move?
ment, the environmental movement, and the liberationmovements of women
and gays contributed to the creation not only of a legitimation crisis that
eventually influenced academic criminology, but also to the largermovement
against corporate wrongdoing.
These forces can be characterized as emancipatory social movements
based on practical-moral reasoning in a struggle against the corporate state, its
dominant institution, the corporation, and against the technical-instrumental
reasoning that guides this structural formation. These movements laid bare the
contradictions of thepolitical economy and directed our attention to the crimes
of the powerful. The moral crusaders and social activists who led these
movements (some of whom were criminologists) have played a far greater role
in the general movement against corporate crime thanhave federal prosecutors
and academic criminologists, whose contribution to thismovement is more
recent. It should also be noted thatmuckraking or investigative journalists
have long played a very important role in exposing the crimes of corporations.
All of these groups constitute an importantpart of themovement against cor?
porate crime and need to be brought into the analysis. Although Cullen et al.'s
analysis of the genesis of the social movement against white-collar crime is
valuable, it is limited. Their contribution would have been greater had they
devoted more than one section in one chapter to a theme which ties thewhole
volume together.
The importance of the themes of revitalization and symbolic effects in the
first chapters has already been noted. Yet several omissions also limit these
contributions. The revitalization hypothesis, for instance, is certainly plausible,
but the authors fail to document it.The discussion of the customs and ideolo?
gies of the legal profession and academic criminology are very truncated, and
little in the way of evidence is presented to substantiate the assertion that
white-collar crime prosecutions and research have revitalized these practices
and ideals.
I certainly agree with the proposition thatwhite-collar crime prosecutions
and research have had only symbolic effects, but is this the case because these
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Kramer
effortshave been carried out within the customs and ideals of their respective
professions? Itmay well be, but little evidence is presented to document this
claim. It is not clear tome how the pursuit of traditional criminological ques?
tions as posed by Sutherland necessarily minimizes criminology's "intellectual
obtrusiveness" with respect to the crimes of the powerful. This lack of obtru
siveness has more to do with the limitations and ideological biases of the theo?
retical frameworks inmainstream criminology than itdoes with anything else.
In fact, the twin problems of prosecuting the non-elite for crimes against the
organization and of the continuing research traditionwhich detaches white
collar crime from the context of the organization and political economy prob?
ably stemmore from the acceptance of the dominant ideology under corporate
capitalism than theydo from the specific customs and ideals of these two pro?
fessions. (I realize that the two are interconnected.) Prosecutorial decisions
and scholarly work that take the existing political and economic system for
granted and operate with a profoundly individualistic bias will reproduce the
inability to perceive the system's foundation of corporate crime, which has
historically hampered our efforts to understand and control it.Once again, it is
not so much what Cullen et al. have said that concerns me, but ratherwhat
theycould have contributed had they extended their analysis of themovement
against white-collar crime beyond the confines of a limited idea and a single
chapter.
Although the primary purposes of Corporate Crime under Attack: The
Ford Pinto Case and Beyond are to analyze both the use of the criminal law to
control corporations and the social context inwhich this "attack" has occurred,
the authors felt compelled to also include a description of the nature, extent,
and costs of corporate crime. Chapter 2 presents a general overview of the
"corporate crime problem." It emphasizes "the ways inwhich business entities
may illegally force financial burdens upon society, damage the social fabric,
and physically assault unsuspecting citizens" (p. 38). In a brief review of the
troublesome definitional issues thathave plagued this area of study,Cullen et
al. define corporate crime simply and adequately as "illegal acts potentially
punishable by criminal sanction and committed to advance the interests of the
corporate organization" (p. 41). Their discussion of images of the crime prob?
lem points to important efforts to revise the public definition of crime to take
into account the problems of white-collar and corporate crime. After they re?
view the limited extant data on the prevalence of corporate crime, theypresent
an overview of the economic, social, and physical costs of corporate criminal?
ity.This is a very good chapter for thosewho know little about the nature, ex?
tent,and costs of corporate crime. Itwould be excellent for students. Like the
Hills anthology, it drives home the extremely important point that corporate
crime is violent crime.
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Corporate Crime
Given the seriousness of the corporate crime problem, the authors ask:
"How has this problem been attacked in the past and inmore recent times?"
The third chapter examines the legal responses in different historical periods
to corporations that engage in socially injurious practices. It also attempts to
show how changes in the socioeconomic system and our understanding of the
concept of "person" have shaped these legal responses. The legal system, they
?
in an unprecedented if still rudimentary fashion?
argue, is "now prepared
to bring corporate illegalities, especially violent illegalities, within the reach of
the criminal law" (p. 78).
This chapter's importantcontribution to the discussion of thehistorical de?
velopment of the corporation is especially valuable because of Cullen et al.'s
account of the evolution of corporate criminal liability. Itpresents a very good
overview, especially for those not familiar with this history. Drawing on
D?rkheim, Marx, andWeber, theypoint to three factors of primary importance
to an analysis of the corporation's development:
the centralization of political authority in the state, the shift in the
economic structure from feudalism throughmercantilism to capital?
ism, and changes in "person" as a legal concept (p. 106).
They conclude that throughout its historical development the corporation
has consistently enjoyed a special and preferential status in the law. As a cre?
ation of the state and contributor to its economic vitality, this is not surprising.
For much of its history the corporation was recognized as a person, enjoying
constitutional protections while bearing few responsibilities and obligations.
This longstanding corporate immunity from the criminal law has only begun
to recede somewhat in the 20th century.Today the law recognizes the criminal
culpability of corporations, setting the legal stage for further extensions of
corporate liability.
These developments in the law of corporate criminal liability provide the
context in which the Ford Pinto trialwould develop. In Part II of the book,
Cullen et al. turn to the trial of theFord Motor Company on charges of reck?
less homicide and present the actual account of the case. The fourth chapter
describes how a conservative Republican prosecutor from Indiana blamed
Ford for the deaths of three teenagers in a fieryPinto crash. According to the
authors, the fact that an unprecedented indictment like this could be handed
down in a community like Elkhart?
which takes pride in traditional values
?
movement
and practices
suggests that "the
against white-collar crime and,
more specifically, the attack on questionable corporate conduct have reached
the heart of middle America" (p. 180). This location, however, becomes more
that many of the most powerful pop?
ulist/progressive sentiments against the large corporation were born in the
Midwest. We should not fall into the trap of lettingpolitical elites rewrite our
understandable
if we
recall
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158
Kramer
history for us by casting the heartland as the home of the "silent (and presum?
ably right-wing)majority."
The next two chapters examine the obstacles to be overcome before Ford
could be prosecuted on charges of reckless homicide and the drama of the trial
itself.The long period of preparation, the change of venue, the jury selection
process, the adverse rulings on the admissibility of evidence which gutted the
prosecution's case, the courtroom battles between prosecutor Mike Cosentino
and defense attorney James F. Neal, and the final verdict which acquitted Ford
are described in gripping detail.
The authors' narrative of the fascinating Ford Pinto trial reads like a fast
paced novel. But why did theymake the Pinto case the core of their book?
Two reasons are given. First, this case provided themwith a means of illus?
trating theirmain proposition that "social and legal changes have combined to
fuel an attack on corporate lawlessness and tomake even themost powerful
members of the business community vulnerable to criminal prosecution" (p.
310). Second, the case also provided them with a starting point for
"considering what lies ahead regarding the use of the criminal law in the con?
trolof corporate conduct" (p. 311).
The latter issue is the topic of the concluding chapter. It begins with a re?
view of corporate criminal prosecutions initiated in recent years. The authors
state that the prevalence of these cases "supports the contention that corpora?
tions remain under attack by the criminal law" (p. 311); they also discuss what
they see as major obstacles to the prosecution of corporations. The first set of
obstacles is ideological. What people think about crime is important, they ar?
gue. Although there have been significant changes in theway the public and
legal agents think about white-collar and corporate crime (due to the social
movement against these crimes), traditional images of crime still exert consid?
erable influence over the operation of the criminal justice system. However,
Cullen et al. expect these ideological obstacles to diminish in theyears ahead.
The second and third sets of obstacles to corporate criminal prosecutions
are legal and structural ones. Legal obstacles include both conceptual issues
concerning corporate criminal liability and constitutional protections thatwere
initially designed for powerless individuals, but which are now applied to al?
ready powerful corporations. The structural obstacles have to do with the
pragmatic aspects of law enforcement with regard to complex organizations.
Thus, the structureof corporate organizations and the lack of resources on the
part of law enforcement agencies can lead to severe difficulties in detecting
corporate crimes, deciding to prosecute them, building a case against the cor?
poration, bringing them to trial,and winning the trial.
In the next section, Cullen et al. examine a number of circumstances they
believe will insure the continuation, if not the escalation, of themovement
against corporate crime. Although they do not overestimate how much things
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Corporate Crime
159
have changed, they nevertheless insist thatmeaningful changes have taken
place, and that these changes will continue to bring corporations under attack.
The most significant change, they argue,
is that people have come to think differently about corporations:
about the potential for executives to pursue profits at any cost, about
the harm that companies can inflict, about the social responsibility
that business should exercise, and about what constitutes a tolerable
level of risk as corporate decisions affect thewelfare of workers, con?
sumers, and entire communities (p. 335).
Empirical indicators are cited to document the shiftingof moral boundaries
concerning acceptable corporate conduct. Further, the increasing number of
prosecutions could have a dialectical effect on the social and moral context
which brought them about in the firstplace:
like thePinto case, then,not only arise from a favorable
context, but also sharpen or reifywhat constitutes acceptable or de?
viant corporate behavior. The result,which now seems to be in pro?
Prosecutions
is that efforts at social control escalate: corporate trials
strengthen emergent moral boundaries, which in turn create new
pressures for holding corporations criminally liable (p. 336).
cess,
In this chapter the authors also consider two final issues which have
prompted much debate: corporate deterrence and the question of whether or
not corporations are an appropriate object of criminal sanctions. With regard
to the latter issue, they argue that sanctioning the corporation is "the most pru?
dent and equitable policy," and thatprosecutors should not be limited to im?
posing individual criminal liability. On the question of deterrence, while some
commentators seem to believe thatcorporations are "invincible criminals" and
that efforts to achieve corporate crime control are "much ado about nothing,"
Cullen et al. suggest that there are plausible reasons to believe that criminal
sanctions can reduce corporate lawlessness. They advance several supporting
lines of analysis, which they admit are speculative and in need of further in?
vestigation. Among the reasons for believing in deterrence, theymention the
rationality of corporate executives, the fact that criminal sanctions can serve as
contingencies which organizations must address, and the educative effects of
criminal sanctions. They also suggest that corporations may be prompted to
implement organizational reforms in an effort to avoid future legal problems
since executives find the sanctioning process disrupting and discomforting.
Cullen et al. are certainly not unaware of the organizational and broader
structural conditions that generate corporate crime. Although they do not dis?
cuss these conditions in any depth, they clearly recognize the limits these
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160
Kramer
factors impose on the sanctioning of corporate offenders.
macrosociological
Nor are they suggesting that the criminal law is unlimited and somehow a final
solution to theproblem of corporate crime. They do believe, however, that the
criminal law can play an important role in bringing corporations under greater
control. As they observe:
corporations do not appear to be invincible offenders; for a variety of
some direct, some indirect?
reasons?
sanctions against corporate
entities may play a meaningful role in deterring waywardness in the
business community (p. 351).
Criminal sanctions may indeed have a meaningful role to play in bringing
corporate crime under control, as Cullen et al. assert, but it is important to
stress that they can't do the job alone. Those organizational and structural
conditions at the root of corporate wrongdoing must not only be acknowl?
edged, but also changed. Corporate criminality will not be significantly re?
duced or eliminated unless there are structural changes in American society
and the capitalist world economy. As Clinard and Quinney (1973: 221) have
pointed out:
Criminal law alone simply does not assure compliance as long as
those corporations that are controlled exercise political control and
influence over regulatory agencies and courts. What is needed is
greater political control by the public over the corporations and their
power and influence in the political economy. And only with basic
changes in the culture and structureof American society will therebe
a solution to corporate crime.
The social movement against corporate crime must be a part of a broader
movement to transform the institutional structure of corporate capitalism. I
have argued that the social movement against white-collar crime, described by
Cullen et al., grew out of a broader set of movements which began to chal?
lenge corporate power along a number of differentfronts in the 1960s. And the
movement to prevent and control corporate crime will only be successful if it
joins with these other movements to create pressure for economic and political
change. As Barnett (1981: 23) has noted:
If we are to reduce production-related crime rather thanmerely re?
distribute its gains, we need tomove away from either corporate or
state capitalism and toward a participatory economic democracy.
Both books reviewed here lend support to this position. Cullen et al. ob?
serve that the effects of themovement against corporate crime have so far
been largely symbolic, "bolstering the legitimacy of the legal and economic
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161
bringing about few fundamental institutional or structural
As noted, Hills explicitly calls for "a broad-based demo?
342).
changes" (p.
cratic political movement" to bring about structural changes thatwill prevent
thehuman sufferingand environmental destruction brought about by corporate
practices. Although this position does not necessarily rule out legal reforms
and the use of criminal sanctions, itdoes imply that theprevention and control
of corporate crime will ultimately depend on challenges to the political and
economic structure of corporate capitalism by some organized
social
order while
movement(s).
Itmay well be that the issue of corporate crime is the catalyst that can
bring together a diverse array of existing groups in a largermovement to es?
tablish political control over corporations and move us toward a participatory
economic democracy. The concept of crime carries with it an enormous moral
stigma. That is why Sutherland insisted thatwhite-collar offenses be called
crime, even if they were handled by civil courts, regulatory agencies, or by
agencies outside the legal system. He wished for the stigma of "crime" to be
attached to these acts so that thepublic could be more effectivelymobilized to
fight against them. If the violent practices of corporate entities come to be
widely viewed as crime, the attendantmoral stigmamay help to provoke pub?
lic outrage at the corporate system and to create broader political support for
social movements seeking to change that system. As Hills points out in his
"Epilogue":
It is the hope of a more humanistic criminology...that once a large
part of thepublic broadens its conception of what constitutes criminal
violence and begins to perceive more clearly the connections between
in corporate bureaucracies and serious
callous decision-making
more
will become actively involved in a po?
citizens
physical harms,
liticalmovement to bring about fundamental changes in the political
economy and quality of American life (p. 203).
This role of helping the public-at-large reconceptualize harmful corporate
actions as crime in an effort tomobilize a political movement for structural
change is themajor way that criminologists see themselves contributing to the
reduction of corporate criminality. It is a role thatdraws the ire of some crimi?
nologists (see Shapiro, 1983). But themajority of researchers in this area of
study appear to support this stand. The critical question, in my opinion, is:
How effective are we at communicating the knowledge we have to the public
and to other relevant audiences? Are we in fact reaching anyone?
As Cullen et al. point out, there is some evidence thatwe have had some
effect:moral boundaries have shifted; people are beginning to thinkdifferently
about the issue of corporate crime and prosecutions of corporations are in?
we would like.A
creasing in number. That impact, however, is far fromwhat
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162
Kramer
broader social movement to challenge the political economy of corporate cap?
italism has not been mobilized; there has been little assistance to the specific
movements working forprogressive change. Why is that?
One possibility is thatwe do not yet know enough. Our theory and re?
search is not good enough to provide us with the knowledge to be of any help.
Perhaps our descriptions of the nature, extent, and costs of corporate crime are
not accurate. Perhaps our theories do not provide explanations and under?
standings of the conditions that lead to these crimes. Perhaps we do not under?
stand the corporate eriminalization process well enough to assist those groups
working for the greater eriminalization of corporate wrongdoing. And perhaps
our research on the social control of corporate organizations sheds no light on
themost effective strategies and sanctions. I suspect thatour knowledge about
these issues is insufficient,but as these two books demonstrate, we do have
some specialized knowledge that could be of use to those working for struc?
turalchange.
The other possibility, of course, is thatwe are not effectively communi?
cating what we know to the appropriate audiences. We are not reaching the
public in any significantway, and we are not reaching the groups and individ?
uals on the front lines working for progressive social change. Jacoby (1987a;
1987b) has recently charged that,unlike an earlier generation of intellectuals,
younger left intellectuals do not write for the general public and educated
reader on significant social issues. Located primarily within the university,
with all of its incumbent pressures and threats, left intellectuals write mainly
for each other in specialized jargon. As Jacoby (1987b: 266) observes: "One
thousand radical sociologists, but no C. Wright Mills." He goes on to note:
issue is not their talent, commitment, or knowledge; it is that
have
surrendered a public prose and role. Since their lives have
they
unfolded almost entirely on campuses, they direct themselves to pro?
fessional colleagues but are inaccessible and unknown to others.
The
Jacoby's critique seems to me to hit themark concerning criminologists
who work in the area of corporate crime. Very oftenwe do notmake the effort
to communicate with a broader audience. We seem to spend too much time
and energy talking to each other in scholarly journals or at professional con?
ferences. Insights gained about the problem of corporate crime are not shared
as widely as they could be. If the social movement against corporate wrong?
doing is to have any impact, if it is to aid the largermovement which aims at
structural change in theAmerican political economy and the capitalist world
system, then criminologists who study corporate crime will have tomake a
greater effort to be heard by relevant audiences. We must learn to use themass
media more often and more effectively (Barak, 1987). We will have to engage
inwhat Touraine (1981) calls "sociological interventionism"; that is,we must
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163
Corporate Crime
serve as advisers to social movement groups and attempt tomake visible to
activists and the public the social relations that are masked and distorted by
thepower and ideology of the corporate system.
As we do this, however, we must be careful not to separate social theory
and social movements. As Aronowitz (1988: 59) points out:
Theory is theprocess by which people become conscious of the con?
ditions of theirexistence and formulate ideas based on theirhopes for
social transformations. Ideas gain their force by being fused with so?
cial movements.
My hope is that the ideas and insights of criminologists working in this
field can be fused with a broad social movement thatwill prevent and bring
under control the sufferingand death caused by corporate violence.
NOTES
1.
I am indebted toRay Michalowski
for this observation.
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