Political and White
Collar Crime
Terrorism
Crimes of the Powerful
Terrorism
• Definitions Vary Widely
• “The use of violence to influence the political, social,
or religious attitudes and/or behaviors of others”
• “Premeditated, politically motivated violence,
designed to spread fear and perpetrated against
civilians”
• “Defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the
unlawful use of force and violence against persons or
property to intimidate or coerce a government, the
civilian population, or any segment thereof, in
furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R.
Section 0.85).”
“START” DATA
• National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and
Response to Terrorism
• University of Maryland
• Convergence of several databases + new additions from media
• What qualifies:
• Intend to coerce/intimidate/convey message beyond immediate
victims
• Aimed at attaining political/social/religious goal
• Context outside of legitimate warfare
• Almost 100,000 terrorist incidents between 1970 and
2010
• 43,000 bombings, 14,000 assassinations, and 4,700 kidnappings
From START data
• Terrorism events have declined substantially since the
1970s
• Turbulence of late 1960s-1970s
• Left Wing (Weathermen) and Right Wing (White supremacists)
• The terrorist events that have occurred have been much
larger in magnitude
• Oklahoma city bombing
• First WTC bombing
• 9/11
• Roughly one half of terrorism cases world wide, and onethird in the U.S. remain unsolved
Terrorist attacks on U.S. soil
Salmonella
Poison
1970
1980
1993 OK
WTC bomb
1990
9/11
2000
2010
Types of Terrorism
• Domestic terrorism
• U.S.
• Left Wing (Weathermen, Eco-Terrorism)
• Right Wing (Militias, Timothy McVeigh)
• International terrorism
• 9/11 attack
• State terrorism
• Against domestic or foreign “enemies”
• German atrocities against Jews circa WWII
Terrorism and the Media
• Scholars have pointed out that there is a natural
match
• Terrorists depend on media
• Use event to coerce larger audience: high visibility
targets, graphic acts, pre-event contact with media
outlets, post-event videos
• Media as a natural venue for terrorism
• Dramatic, violent, visual, timely (vs. wars which are
protracted, highly complex…)
• HIGH RATINGS
Response to Terrorism
• Difficult balance
• Aggressive response  detection, deterrence
• Concern  civil rights, overreaching
• Examples
• USA Patriot Act
• Warrantless search and seizures, wiretapping, etc.
• Global War on Terror
• Interrogation techniques, use of drones to
assassinate, etc.
Situational Crime Prevention
• Reduce opportunities for offending
• Gains in technology, training, and enforcement techniques
likely played a role in the reduction of terrorist attacks
• Monitoring of bomb-making materials,
airport security, FBI stings, etc.
Boston Bombing in Context
•
•
•
•
Domestic or Foreign?
Media Coverage
Response
Situational Crime Prevention
• Pressure cooker bombs with kitchen timers
• 26 mile course, densely packed with spectators
Crimes of the Powerful
• Organized Crime
• White Collar Crime
• Occupational Crime
• Corporate Crime
Organized Crime
• Criminal activity committed by groups with some manner of
formalized structure
• Primary goal is typically money and power
• Some ambiguity here
• Street gangs versus drug cartels
• Terrorist groups
Just how organized is it?
• The Alien Conspiracy Model (foreign criminals)
• Highly organized and centralized
• Sicilian “Mafia” (La Cosa Nostra) as poster child
• Mafia code (loyalty, respect, discipline), secret oaths,
• Local, ethnic group model
• Strong family ties and obligations related to kinship and ethnicity
• Distrust of outsiders and government
• Capacity for organization and cooperation among groups
• Ability to cultivate good will of local residents
• Influence limited to cities/geographical areas
Crimes of the organized
• Illegal Industries
• Gambling, narcotics distribution, loan sharking, extortion,
insurance scams, fencing…
• Violence associated with enforcement
• Legitimate industry
• Used to launder money + create monopolies + extort
• Restaurants/food, garbage disposal, garment manufacturing, labor
unions, construction…
• Political
• Bribery, fixing elections, coercing agents of criminal justice, etc.
The Mafia
• Mafia is often used as general term
• Usually refers to Italian Americans (Sicilian)
• La Cosa Nostra (“our thing” in Italian)
• Fodder for entertainment media (Sopranos, The Godfather,
Goodfellas)
• Famous New York crime families (Gambino, Genovese)
• Joseph Valachi testimony (1963) before the Senate
• The organization and crime families do exist, but the level of organization
often exaggerated
• Does “stand apart” because of its pervasiveness, control over
illegitimate markets, and penetration into legitimate industry
Law Enforcement Methods
• Headhunting
• Target heads of organized crime families, use informants +
surveillance to indict
• Successful?
• Fairly successful at knocking off “heads” but still organized crime
• Organized Crime Control Act (1970)
• Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Statutes
• Prosecutor ability to provide witness protection
The Russian Mafia
• The new media darling
• Law and Order, more recent movies
• Similar to Italian Mafia
• Both began by extorting money from fellow immigrants and quickly
moved into other areas, and both have reputation for violence
• Differences
• Less cultural/ethnic loyalty, partnerships more opportunistic
• Fewer “bosses” who collect a cut of illicit ventures, greater flexibility
White Collar Crime
• Edwin Sutherland
• “A crime committed by a person of respectability and high social
status in the course of his occupation”
• Urged criminologists to focus on crimes of the upper class, as
opposed to street crime (still an issue today)
• What is “counted” counts
• Sutherland’s study of 70 largest corporations: official records
revealed over 980 law violations (fraud, bribery, antitrust)
• Much “War Profiteering”
More recent typology of WCC
• Occupational Crime
• Crimes committed by individuals in the course of their
occupation for personal gain
• Theft/embezzlement, medical fraud by physicians, therapist
having sex with client…
• Corporate or Organizational Crime
• Crimes committed by corporations (and their
executives) for the benefit of the corporation
• Organizations include small business and blue collar
endeavors (auto repair shops)
Occupational Crimes
• Employee embezzlement and pilferage
• Collective embezzlement
• Savings and Loans crime wave in the 1980s (land flips)
• Professional Fraud
• Lawyers, Physicians
• How many hours to bill clients
• Unnecessary procedures and surgeries, Medicaid/Medicare fraud
Organizational Crime
• Many organizational crimes are “blue
collar”
• Auto repair, appliance repair
• 20/20 and 60 minutes stings
• Fraudulent businesses (roofing,
blacktop)
• Small businesses
Corporate Crime
• Fraud, Cheating, Corruption
• The Enron Scandal
• Not alone—the most egregious of the 1990s/2000s era
• Halliburton, WorldCom, Rite Aid, Adelphia…
• Enron = cooking books  stocks price (overstate earnings, hide losses) +
energy market
• Accounting firm (Arthur Anderson) complicit the fraud
• 31 people indicted (Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay)
• More on the “Great Recession” and bailout
Corporate Crime II
• Other financial
• Price Fixing / Collusion (gas prices)
• False advertising (bait and switch)
• Corporate Violence
• Unsafe work conditions (miners, asbestos)
• Unsafe products (contaminated food)
• FORD PINTO CASE, PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY, Asbestos
• Pollution
Cost of WCC
• Cost MUCH higher than street crime
• $17 billion vs. roughly $400 billion
• 16,000 homicides vs. 100,000 unnecessary deaths
What causes WCC?
• Lenience?
• Double standard embedded in culture—not “real” criminals
• Weak/absent regulations –rely on “ethics” and self-regulation
• Difficulty in proving crime (complex, good lawyers, lack resources to
prosecute)
• SEC  over 10 years, 600 cases referred for prosecution, and less than 1/3
resulted in convictions with less than 1/6 resulting in jail or prison time
• Weak punishment  civil settlements with no admission of
wrongdoing
• Fines often less than 1% of corporate PROFITS for a year
Irony
• Conservatives cry out for punishment for street crimes, but
believe that much corporate “crime” can be cured by selfregulation
• Liberals decry harsh punishment, especially for non-violent
offenders, but believe that WCC could be reduced greatly
through prison time
• Corporations more “rational” than individuals?
Psycho Corporations
• Psychopaths:
• Insensitive, Manipulative, Superficial charm, Above-average
intelligence, Absence of psychotic symptoms, Absence of anxiety,
Lack of remorse, Failure to learn from experience, Egocentric,
Lack of emotional depth
• Corporations are not supposed to be compassionate or think of
long-term consequences