1So far, in these lectures, we've been looking at crimes like robbery and murder -
2both from a historical viewpoint and also in contemporary society -
3and we've seen that the preoccupation in Western society with crime and with lawlessness
4is part of a long and continuous tradition,
5rather than something which is new and unique to modern society.
6But over the past seventy years or so, there has been a massive increase in one type of crime,
7which is what's known as 'corporate crime'.
8Corporate crime is crime which, as the name suggests,
9is connected with companies, with business organisations.
10It includes illegal acts of either individuals or a group within the company,
11but what is important is that these acts are normally in accordance with the goals of the company -
12they're for the good of the company rather than the individual.
13It's been defined as,
14quote, 'crime which is committed for the corporate organisation' - the company - 'not against it', unquote.
15So crimes like theft by employees -
16things like embezzlement or fraud against one's actual employer are excluded according to this definition.
17The employees may be involved
18but they're acting in the first place for the company -
19they may not even realise they're committing a crime
20or they may realise but they feel it's excusable because it's policy,
21or because otherwise they may lose their jobs.
22So here, really, we're talking about the links between power and crime.
23Now, this is one area that much less is generally known about than conventional or traditional crime.
24It has been relatively ignored by the mass media -
25for example, it tends to be under-reported in comparison with conventional crime in news broadcasts,
26and in crime serials and films and so on -
27they very rarely deal with corporate crime.
28And it also tends to be ignored in academic circles -
29there's been far more research on conventional crime and far more data is available.
30There are several reasons for this lack of interest in corporate crime, compared with other types of crime.
31It's often very complex,
32whereas with conventional crime, it's usually possible to follow what's going on without specialist knowledge.
33As well as this, whereas conventional crime usually has a lot of human interest,
34corporate crime often has much less.
35The third reason, and possibly the most significant one,
36is that very often the victims are unaware -
37they think their misfortune is an accident
38or that it's the fault of no-one in particular.
39They're unaware that they've been victims of a crime.
40So, when we look at the effects of corporate crime,
41we may find it's very difficult to assess the costs.
42But these costs can be very considerable in both their economic and social aspects.
43Let's look at the economic costs first.
44For example, if a company is producing fruit juice
45and it dilutes its product so that it's just a little below the concentration it should be,
46many millions of people may be paying a small amount extra for their carton of orange juice.
47Now small amounts like this may seem insignificant for individual customers -
48too small to worry about -
49but for the company, this deception might result in massive illegal profit.
50However, all studies of corporate crime agree
51that the individuals are in fact deprived of far more money by such crime
52than they are by conventional crime like robbery and theft.
53In addition to this, we have to consider the social costs of corporate crime
54and these are again very difficult to assess, but they are considerable.
55They're important because they can undermine the faith of the public in the business world
56and also, more importantly,
57because the main group of people they affect are, in fact, not the richer sections of society but the poorer.
58So here companies are robbing the poor to benefit the rich.
59There are two more points to do with corporate crime
60that I'd like to illustrate with reference to a specific event
61which occurred several years ago.
62This was an explosion of a large oil tanker
63which caused the loss of more than fifty lives of the crew.
64It was an explosion which never should have happened
65and a subsequent inquiry laid the blame not on anyone who had actually been on the tanker at the time,
66but on the owners of the tanker.
67They had deliberately decided not to carry out necessary repair work on the tanker as it was due to be sold,
68and it was this lack of repair work which was directly responsible for the explosion.
69Now this illustrates two points to do with corporate crime.
70First of all, that it does not have to be intentional.
71The owners of the tanker certainly did not intend it to explode.
72But very serious consequences can result from people or organisations
73not considering the possible results of their actions seriously enough.
74The main crime here was indifference to the human results
75rather than actual intention to harm anyone,
76but that didn't make the results any less tragic.
77And this leads me to my second point
78that corporate crime can have very severe consequences.
79It's not just a matter of companies making bigger profits than they should do,
80but of events which may affect the lives of innocent people,
81and yet very often, companies, because they say they didn't intend to harm anyone,
82can avoid taking responsibility for the results of their actions.
83And that has been a very dangerous loophole in the law.
84A further example of corporate crime was...