Criminals wear many masks. The archetypal mask of Highwayman Dick Turpin, worn by modern day assailants such as burglars and hoodies epitomises the public perception of dangerous street criminals.
However a vast amount of crime is cloaked in an expensive suit of respectability and legitimate authority rather than a bandit` s mask. This invisible cloak of crime is worn by respectable corporations who can inflict serious yet indirect damage on society and its component individuals. Given the arbitrary nature of the definition of crime (Christie 2004), as well as the privileged status of those who define it this essay will proceed to delineate the relationship between crimes of the powerful as opposed to the more common petty street crime that frequently hits the headlines.
This essay will delineate some of the ingenious crimes committed by respected institutions such as banks, pharmaceutical companies, elected politicians and respected institutions and corporations in which the public often place a misguided trust. It will conclude that we must remain ever vigilant of legitimate authority, including the police and State, in order to protect ourselves. Just as we would take reasonable precautions to protect ourselves from street crimes such as muggings and burglary so we should critically regard the respectable institutions that form the bedrock of our society as being the potential perpetrators of invisible crime. This essay will delineate the relationship between crimes of the powerful as opposed to the more common street crimes such as muggings that usually hit the headlines.
For instance it has been calculated by the Audit Commission that each and every family in this country will eventually pay in the region of £40,000 towards the bailout of the reckless banks that were bailed out during the recent 2008 banking crisis. A handbag snatcher or street mugger would rarely escape with such a vast sum! Such sophisticated malfeasance is understandably hard to quantify and pin down and yet it yields extremely high dividends in comparison to the low dividends yielded by common street crime.
Criminals come in all shapes and sizes and from every strata of society. Status driven acquisitive crime has been discussed in many studies including those on corporate or workplace crime. The term “white collar crime” refers to this type of crime and was first coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939. At the time this was a very new and exciting concept as it had previously suited the wealthy genteel Edwardians to look down upon the impoverished criminal classes. This enabled the ruling elite to exert control over the proletariat rabble and thereby protect their financial interests. This idea of inherent privilege was also examined at length in the radical works of Marx and Engels (Marx & Engels 1848). Karl Marx felt that wealthy capitalists exploited the lower classes. It suited the elite plutocracy to label the poor as bad.
Laws of the land may be construed as the normative structure of the dominant group (Sellin 1938).Thus we have a criminal justice system that is replete with Justices and Magistrates emanating from a background of privilege and wealth. The seminal study by Edwin Sutherland helped bring about a shift and a change of perception. Criminals it seems could be ordinary and hardworking respectable individuals who dress smartly for work in a white collar shirt and a neat suit. They attract little attention since they are legitimately at the scene of the crime in contrast to a trespassing house breaker. According to routine activity theorists the propensity to criminal behaviour is normal and driven by opportunism and an easy target (Cohen & Felson 1979; Clarke & Felson 1993; Felson 1994). This theory may explain why recorded crime rose during the last century as prosperity grew bringing more opportunities. Routine activity theory also sits well with the incidence of occupational and corporate crime where temptation is ubiquitous (Punch 1996 p.213).
As well as the individual acting alone, the company as a separate entity can act in a criminal way (Box 1983). Studies on group polarisation known as the “risky shift” might explain why such corporate groups behave recklessly as in the case of the fatal Challenger decision (Pruitt 1971). Sutherland discusses criminal acts by American utilities companies such as General Electric in his book on white collar crime (Sutherland 1949; 1983). Clearly these sharp business practices are motivated by greed rather than need. Indeed since white collar criminals are in employment they cannot use the excuse of pressing poverty for their actions.
A more recent case of corporate crime was the Enron scandal that erupted in 2001 in America that involved power cut malpractice with utility companies. Enron was a hugely successful company and listed by Fortune Magazine as being the most innovative company from 1996-2001. Enron employed a creative accountant, Andrew Fastow, who used numerous tricks to hide Enron` s liabilities. This seemingly robust company encouraged investors to buy shares in a company that was in fact hiding huge liabilities.
The dishonesty of Enron was not confined to its creative accounting techniques. Enron had given large donations to the political campaign of a Californian Senator, Phil Gramm, who was duly elected. In return he passed legislation in 2000 to deregulate electricity commodities. This was beneficial to Enron who owned many power utilities. Following the legislation California had 38 serious rolling blackout power cuts. These were engineered by Enron to maximise profits. Any one power cut can seriously endanger life since power is essential for hospitals. This wholly unacceptable behaviour of corporations has been discussed by Stephen Box who asserts that one is seven times more likely to be killed by corporate negligence than a common street criminal (Box 1983).
A concerned whistle blower came forward in 2001 (BBC News 2002). Investors rushed to dump their shares. A white knight rescue attempt by another company failed and Enron filed for bankruptcy.
Another high profile case in the U. K. was that of the Polly Peck Company. This large concern was owned by tycoon Asil Nadir. He allegedly fleeced investors of millions of pounds and then fled the country to escape justice. He has recently returned to face justice, hoping that the current Government will assist a once generous Tory donor. The SFO have been preparing a case against him (Gammell 2010). This still wealthy tycoon has been tagged and must obey a strict curfew in his penthouse apartment. One may speculate that some of the perpetrators of outrageous financial crimes might have suffered extreme deprivation as children resulting in poor self control (Gottfredson & Hirschi 1990).
An industry that is rife with corruption is the Pharmaceutical industry (Braithwaite 1984). In 2002 The Serious Fraud office (SFO) launched an eight year long investigation into five drug companies known as Operation Holbein (SFO 2002). More than a million computer drives and files were seized from the homes and offices of the six companies involved (Bowers 2005). The police arrived with search warrants for six pharmaceutical companies but no arrests were made. The six companies accused were Generics U.K. Ltd., Kent Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Regent-GM Laboratories Ltd., the Gold Shield Group Plc., Norton Healthcare Ltd., and Ranbaxy U.K. Ltd.
The SFO accused the drug companies of conspiring to defraud the NHS through a price fixing cartel. Unfortunately for the SFO the case was thrown out of court on a technicality by Lord Justice Pritchard (Goswami 2011) leaving an eight year investigation in tatters. The reason that the case failed was that the indictment by the SFO was for price-fixing and price-fixing in itself is not a criminal offence. This defeat in a Court of Law has also has caused speculation as to the future of this Government body. The case was a very expensive one but all is not lost fortunately as the NHS has managed to recoup £34 million from the drug companies with the assistance of the Department of Health with civil as opposed to criminal proceedings. The civil proceedings were simple because the drug firms did not have a case and could settle without accepting liability. It is rather touchingly poignant that the operation was probably named after a “portrait of a gentleman” by the artist Hans Holbein that hangs on the wall of the office of the SFO deputy chairman. If only there were more true gentlemen in the unscrupulous world of business!
The SFO were right to attempt to bring criminal proceedings against these powerful companies that were attempting to milk the NHS of billions of pounds with the price-fixing of drugs. These included Warfarin that is used to thin the blood in those with thrombosis (Bowers 2005). Altogether at least thirty drugs were involved at great expense to the struggling NHS. Although the SFO was unsuccessful in this case it seems that harsh criticism of this taskforce by journals such as The Lawyer is unmerited.
The SFO has a long list of successful prosecutions to its credit. These include the sentencing in 2008 of five men involved in a ten billion US dollar worldwide Ponzi scheme. Two of the men were former British policemen and one was even a lawyer! The fraudsters were selling gold shares, a commodity, that had did not exist and had not even been mined. Ponzi schemes are fraudulent investment scams that pay the investors dividends using other investors` money rather than from the profits of the actual business venture itself. In effect they are robbing Peter to pay Paul. In some cases there is not even a genuine business venture and the whole edifice is as flimsy as a pack of cards. It is difficult to comprehend that there are so many criminals, such as Bernie Madoff, that are willing to perpetrate such scams upon naïve and trusting investors.
The lucrative returns of pharmaceuticals make them an attractive target for counterfeit by organised powerful crime groups. These are medicines that are deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled as to their identity and their source (WHO 2010).Use of such products can result in treatment failure and death. Both branded products and generic drugs are exposed to counterfeiting and may have identical packaging to the genuine product complete with the hologram. This level of sophistication can make detection difficult. They may deceive health professionals, pharmacists and hospitals. These counterfeit drugs may contain some or no active ingredients. They are found all over the world and eliminating them presents a huge public health challenge. It is often impossible to trace the source of these dubious products. Counterfeiters are extremely flexible in the methods they use and may repeatedly change their methods to prevent detection. This means that there is a paucity of data as to the real extent of the problem. The WHO estimates that one in ten of all medicines taken may be counterfeit. However the extent of the problem is disputed by statisticians and may be higher or lower (Baker 2009; Bialik 2010).
Some of the detected counterfeit drugs detected to date are Viagra for erectile dysfunction, Xenical for obesity, Zyprexa for bi-polar disorder, Lipitor to lower cholesterol, Metakelfin for malaria and numerous painkillers and over-the-counter products. A deadly counterfeit diabetes drug containing six times the requisite dose resulted in several deaths in China recently (WHO 2009). The U.K was flooded with counterfeit drugs in 2007 and this led to the eventual arrest of Kevin Xu, a citizen of the people `s republic of China and head of a large counterfeiting enterprise. The MHRA seized 40 000 of the estimated 70 000 fake products and the rest were lost in the supply chain. The medicines involved were those used to treat prostate cancer, schizophrenia and stroke. The legislation to deal with his problem is the Offences under the Medicines Act 1968 and the Trademarks Act 1990. The maximum sentence under the former is two years and under the latter the maximum sentence is ten years. The MHRA prefers to prosecute under the Trademarks Act for this reason. However this is not always easy as the purpose of this Act is to protect the intellectual property rights of the company rather than protect the safety of the consumer. Counterfeit medicines tested by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have been found to contain rat droppings and brick dust according to their head of enforcement Mr. Deats .
Karl Marx felt that wealthy capitalists exploited the lower classes in order to remain at the top of the metaphorical pecking order (Marx 1859; 1904). This exclusive situation is very much present in society today (Chambliss 1975; Young 1999).Today many wealthy capitalists endeavour to do this by employing canny accountants to give advice on ways of avoiding paying taxes to the government. Numerous tax havens exist such as the Cayman Islands and this has recently received a lot of media attention in the light of austerity budgets. Ordinary hard working tax payers are becoming increasingly angry about flagrant tax avoidance. There is a militant organisation called UK Uncut that protests against tax avoidance by companies such as Top shop (BBC News 2011). Rather embarrassingly for David Cameron, the boss of Top shop, Philip Green, was recently employed by him as an image consultant.
The wealthy donor to the Conservative Party, Lord Ashcroft, was also exposed as hiding all of his assets offshore. The fact that he donated huge amounts to the election campaign is especially galling. Furthermore a recent report by the respected Institute of Fiscal Studies has shown that the draconian austerity cuts are being disproportionately shouldered by the poorest sector of society (IFS 2010). This is manifestly unjust and the electorate is becoming increasingly restless with the Coalition government as recent street demonstrations have shown.
The general public is also very disenchanted with the behaviour of avaricious bankers who have been rewarding themselves with huge bonuses despite the collapse of many banks through mismanagement. This behaviour is beyond the comprehension of most ordinary mortals who are having moral panics (Cohen 1973; Garland 2008). The criminologist David Nelken said that the best way to rob a bank is to work in one (Nelken 2007). Several high profile banks have collapsed recently. These include Northern Rock, which precipitated the first run on a bank for decades. In America at least twenty eight banks collapsed including Lehman Brothers in 2008.
What on earth is going on here one may ask? Many say that the bankers gave out too many NINJA loans in America, NINJA being the acronym for no income, jobs or assets. This was known as the sub prime loan crisis. There is no doubt that bankers have been behaving recklessly in order to earn their sales commissions. Indeed these days a bank manager is required to be a good salesperson rather than a conscientious accountant. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that 279 banks have collapsed since 2008 (Smith & Sidal 2010). To add insult to injury greedy bankers such as Fred Goodwin have not only brought the Royal Bank of Scotland to the brink of destruction but have handsomely remunerated themselves with millions of pounds in bonuses. No wonder that he earned the nickname Fred the Shred! He was ridiculed and pilloried in the popular press for weeks.
This is not just a recent phenomenon as it happened in 1995 to Barings Bank in Singapore when Nick Leeson became carried away with his investment strategy. Maybe Leeson and the other bankers were impelled by youthful creative testosterone to act in this way (Kanazawa 2003).
It has been calculated by the National Audit Office in 2009 that each and every family in this country will eventually pay in the region of forty thousand pounds for the bank bailout. Yet what do the shareholders now get for their unwilling investment? It appears they receive little in the way of gratitude from the rescued banks as they continue to reward themselves with huge bonuses while refusing to lend to small businesses.
Many bankers are exhibiting signs of anti social or sociopathic behaviour. They are in effect behaving like psychopaths or “snakes in suits” (Babiak & Hare 2006). While many human beings behave in an altruistic manner there is a small sub group that appear to be motivated entirely by self interest (Hare 1993). The term psychopath was coined by Hervey Cleckley in his textbook which analysed the behaviour patterns of people without scruples or conscience (Cleckley 1977). Psychopaths are described as being endowed with superficial charm, glibness, supreme self confidence and self belief. They do not hesitate to walk over others to get what they want. The profile of a psychopath perfectly describes that of many greedy bankers. Attempts have been made to quantify the exact extent of such corporate crime in terms of financial costs (Slapper & Tombs 1999).
The behaviour of corrupt financiers may also be explained in terms of Game Theory or the Prisoners Dilemma. Game Theory shows how mutual co-operation or altruism will benefit both parties moderately (Poundstone 1992). However if one person only cheats then he may emerge as the supreme victor at the complete expense of the other non-cheating participant. This cheating behaviour might be more prevalent in those with few emotional ties or bonds to a community (Hirschi 1969).
This has led some social scientists to speculate that there may be an evolutionary niche for such selfish behaviour. In others words successful psychopaths may have evolved in society via a process of natural selection and so we see them everywhere today in the guise of rich bankers, politicians and businessmen. A check list has been designed to detect these traits that include lack of empathy, callousness and supreme narcissism (Hare 2003). Maybe would be bankers should be made to take the PCL test to ascertain latent psychopathic tendencies?
In July 2010 Metropolitan Chief, Sir Paul Stephenson gave a lecture on organised crime groups at the John Harris Memorial lecture in London. The boss of Scotland Yard said that were as many as six thousand criminal groups currently under the police radar (Greenwood 2010). However this list of suspects does not include the greedy bankers who have fleeced the country of billions of pounds with their reckless investments and huge bonuses!
The types of crime under the police radar include drugs smuggling, people trafficking, financial fraud and counterfeiting. Clearly the numbers game is being won by the all omnipotent crime syndicates. No wonder that the police are waging an impossible battle with this invisible type of crime. It is far easier for a police officer to wage war on the motorist than it is delve into complicated and arcane crime labyrinths. Sir Paul said that there was no nationally co-ordinated means of tackling organised crime and he believed their activities cost the economy about forty billion pounds annually. The Mafia earns 9 per cent of the GDP in Italy according to Confesercenti. These are worrying crime figures but caution is clearly required when bandying statistics around in this manner. This sum of forty billion pounds may be compared to the sum of seven billion pounds that Barclays Bank paid out in bonuses in 2010-2011.
One has to look at this in the context of how much of taxpayers money is also being wasted by legitimate authorities who are running our economy such as elected politicians and financial institutions. These institutions have defrauded the taxpayer of considerable sums in a way that mimics the operations of organised crime groups. No wonder then that the average police officer prefers to target motoring crime! The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has come under criticism in 2011 by the Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May.
This crime busting outfit was created in 2006 by the Labour Government to deal with sophisticated crime. The agency was criticised by the Conservatives for only managing to recover £78 million from the proceeds of crime in the three years between 2006 and 2009. The cost of running the agency was put at £1.2 billion meaning that the operation was running at a loss to the taxpayer. In July 2010 there was a trumpeted fanfare of massive reform and overhaul of SOCA to be replaced by the NCA or National Crime Agency. This acronym is nowhere near as sexy or as memorable as the acronym SOCA. It seems that each time a new political Party takes the reins of power they feel the need to put their own individual political stamp on the country.
The coalition are hoping to introduce radical changes in the Police Force with the introduction of elected Police Commissioners. The theory behind this startling innovation is that those elected by the public would be more accountable to them. Needless to say all this political tinkering with policing has not gone down well with the Association of Chief Police Officers commonly designated as ACPO.
This police company is also to be stripped of its power to run undercover units following recent controversies about its Ratcliffe on Stour operation. Embarrassed Police Minister Nick Herbert has announced that ACPO is to be stripped of all operational duties following the risible antics of undercover officers. Under cover officers employed to infiltrate activist groups ended up being the main protagonists and perpetrators of the acts of sabotage. This resulted in the police National Public Order Unit becoming an object of hilarity and ridicule. Certainly in January 2011 the press had a field day devoting several pages to the salacious, seedy exploits of the hapless police officer Mark Kennedy, who now says that he lives in fear of his life.
The National Public Order Unit costs five million pounds a year to run. It was set up initially to infiltrate animal rights groups who had sent letter bombs in the 1990`s. The Unit appears to have lost its way. The secretive Unit has now received such a blare of publicity one has to wonder about its future operational success. It seems that all the organisations which are attempting to uphold law and order are currently falling into disrepute. It is small wonder then that so many powerful crime groups are evading capture or detection and driving Sir Paul Stephenson to despair.
The police have also come under fire for using the controversial kettling technique of crowd control. The premise of kettling is to prevent the crowd running riot and causing mayhem and criminal damage. However the technique has a serious drawback in that it indiscriminately herds up large numbers of innocent passersby. In 1989 bad policing of crowds led to the Hillsborough disaster where many football fans were crushed to death.
Recently the technique of kettling was used during the student riots and this led to many complaints and threats of lawsuits. Innocent tourists as well as legitimate student protesters were kettled for several hours without food, drink or access to bathrooms. Some people fainted and many were hypothermic as the day turned to night. Some young school children started to burn their school books in an effort to keep warm. This was maliciously interpreted as acts of vandalism. However the poor children interviewed were clearly cold, hungry and frightened. This incident portrays the abuses of those holding the reins of power. These are certainly crimes against humanity. It depicts the abuse of Government State power as well as police powers of unlawful detainment. The angry Home Secretary even spoke of using water cannon against the crowd. Imagine the distress that would have caused to the already freezing cold hypothermic children.
The police have also attacked innocent bystanders without provocation. Recently Ian Tomlinson was killed by an unprovoked blow to his back as he walked passed a row of policemen at the G20 protests in London.
The police have also used pepper spray that has resulted in deaths. The peaceful anti racist protester Blair Peach was bludgeoned to death by a police baton in 1979.
The weaponry of the police is becoming more suited to Armed Forces personnel. The police now use tasers and other supposedly less lethal weapons. A new long range acoustic device (LRAD) was used in Philadelphia University on peaceful students and lecturers. This ultrasonic device causes excruciating pain in the ear as well as disorientation and collapse. It may even lead to deafness! Here in England the mosquito device has been used in South Wales and an Oxford shopping precinct to deter young people from loitering (BBC News 2008). The Mosquito emits a painful ultrasound noise that can only be heard by young adults and children. It has been rightly criticised by human rights groups such as Liberty and Amnesty.
The police have also abused the stop and search powers of the anti terrorism Acts to target and harass ethnic minorities. In 1981 the hated SUS Laws gave rise to the Brixton and Toxteth riots. Plainly most of those stopped and searched are not terrorists. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that minority groups have been unfairly discriminated against by police use of Stop and Search Laws (Ministry of Justice, 2008/9; Travis 2010). Indeed following the Lawrence inquiry the police were branded as being “institutionally racist”. Institutional racism was a term first coined by Sir William MacPherson following police failures in the investigation of the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence (MacPherson 1999). It referred to a collective failure to provide an appropriate service to people because of their ethnicity (Phillips 2010).The Director General of Prisons Martin Narey warned that the prison service is institutionally racist in 2001 and proportionately more BME groups have died in custody (Phillips & Bowling 2002). It has also been estimated that BME groups are up to eight times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police using anti terror legislation. Indeed the Archbishop John Sentamu, who is from Uganda, complained that he himself has been stopped and searched several times when wearing secular clothing. Dr. John Sentamu believes that he has been stopped by police purely because of his Ugandan heritage. Under section 44 of the Anti Terrorism Act 2000 the police can stop and search anyone in a designated place on the merest hint of a suspicion. Any person the police might not like the look of may be searched under the pretext of national security. This has led to flagrant abuse of the powers by police officers.
In 2009 there were around 150 thousand searches carried out by over zealous police officers (Ministry of Justice, 2008/09). This unacceptable police behaviour contravenes the Race Relations Act of 1974 which was amended in 2003. Tourists innocently taking photographs of iconic buildings such as the London Eye fell foul of the draconian legislation and many ethnic minorities were harassed (UK PoliceOnline 2010). This led to widespread complaints by civil liberty groups such as Liberty. Following a test case by a complainant in 2010, a judicial precedent was set. Henceforth the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the powers of stop and search were being abused and therefore deemed illegal.
The powers of the State have come under a lot of scrutiny recently.
Civil liberties groups are concerned at the gradual intrusion of the State into their personal lives. There are countless CCTV cameras for each citizen in the U.K. and the Orwellian predictions of 1984 have well and truly arrived. Each of us is approximately caught on camera one thousand times a week! A school was criticised for having no fewer than one hundred cameras trained on its pupils. One million innocent people have had their DNA placed on a National Database against their wishes. Local Authorities have spied on blameless households using RIPA terrorist legislation looking for such heinous crimes as those relating to school catchment areas or parking misdemeanours.
There was a public outcry at David Blunkett` s idea of ID cards which have now been shelved. However the use of biometric devices is increasing and even used in schools to check attendance via fingerprinting children as they arrive. This is wholly unacceptable and I complained about this treatment of learners in my role as School Governor. Recently a Protection of Freedoms Bill has been proposed by the coalition to try and counter this incipient erosion of freedoms by the all powerful and watchful State. It is also rather ironic that politicians who make the laws have been recently exposed as breaking the laws with their expenses!
It seems that any person in a position of power may be tempted to abuse this power. This is the case in unseen crimes such as domestic violence which is seldom reported to the police. There is often a lot of stigma attached to being bullied and the victim might feel ashamed. This idea of shame is summed up in the excellent title of a book by domestic violence campaigner, Erin Pizzey called “scream quietly or the neighbours might hear”. Women may also be harassed sexually and even sexually assaulted by their partners or beaten brutally (Dobash & Dobash 1979; 1992)). The strong in any society often seek to dominate the weak.
It is often the case that those in a position of power or authority may be tempted to abuse their position. This finding was demonstrated by the infamous Stanford Prison experiment conducted in Stanford University (Zimbardo 1972). Half of the students were dressed as prisoners and half as prison guards. The pretend student prison guards behaved in such a bullying manner to the fake prisoners that the experiment had to be halted as the students started to show signs of a break down. People are easily corrupted by power and this has important implications for the weak and vulnerable in our society.
It appears that the urge for financial gain, status and hierarchical advantage motivates much of human behaviour and this may lead to transgressions of the prevailing laws in the particular jurisdiction.
Human beings evolved to compete for scarce food resources and territory via survival of the fittest (Darwin 1872;Ardrey 1966; Dawkins 1989). Therefore these competitive instincts need to be kept under control. The hunting instincts of prehistoric man may be compared to the dangerous and competitive urges in modern man (Buss 2005). These competitive urges may motivate status driven, acquisitive crime and power related crimes. Like a prehistoric hunter modern man may metaphorically “go for the kill” to seal a business deal. Often powerful groups or individuals get away with their wrongdoings.
As the title of Reiman` s critique suggests ”the rich get richer and the poor get prison (Reiman 1984). Therefore the conclusion of this analysis is undoubtedly that malfeasance will inevitably occur in the ubiquitous quest to ascend the hierarchical and materialistic ladder.
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