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