The Routledge International Handbook of the Crimes of the Powerful

577 Pages·2014·3.764 MB·English

by  Gregg Barak

The Routledge International
Handbook of the Crimes
of the Powerful
Across the world, most people are well aware of ordinary criminal harms to person and prop-
erty. Often committed by the powerless and poor, these individualized crimes are catalogued in
the statistics collected annually by the FBI and by similar agencies in other developed nations.
In contrast, the more harmful and systemic forms of injury to person and property committed
by powerful and wealthy individuals, groups, and national states are neither calculated by gov-
ernmental agencies nor annually reported by the mass media. As a result, most citizens of the
world are unaware of the routinized “crimes of the powerful,” even though they are more likely
to experience harms and injuries from these types of organized offenses than they are from the
atomized offenses of the powerless.
Research on the crimes of the powerful brings together several areas of criminological focus,
involving organizational and institutional networks of powerful people that commit crimes
against workers, marketplaces, taxpayers, and political systems, as well as acts of torture, terrorism,
and genocide. This international handbook offers a comprehensive, authoritative, and structural
synthesis of these interrelated topics of criminological concern. It also explains why the crimes
of the powerful are so difficult to control.
Edited by internationally acclaimed criminologist Gregg Barak, this book reflects the state of
the art of scholarly research, covering all the key areas including corporate, global, environmental,
and state crimes. The handbook is a perfect resource for students and researchers engaged with
explaining and controlling the crimes of the powerful, domestically and internationally.
Gregg Barak is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Eastern Michigan University
and the former Visiting Distinguished Professor in the College of Justice & Safety at Eastern
Kentucky University. In 2003 he became the 27th Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice
Sciences and in 2007 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Critical Division of
the American Society of Criminology. Barak is the author and/or editor of 20 books, including
the award-winning titles Gimme Shelter: A Social History of Homelessness in Contemporary America
(1991) and Theft of a Nation: Wall Street Looting and Federal Regulatory Colluding (2012). His most
recent book is the 4th edition of Class, Race, Gender, and Crime: The Social Realities of Justice in
America (2015) with Paul Leighton and Allison Cotton.
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With a truly global focus – between the contributors and the focus of almost 40 chapters, this
book spans five continents – Gregg Barak’s edited text brims with authority and insight. As
the crimes of the powerful are forensically and variously dissected, injustice and anger bubble
consistently close to the surface. If this masterful, cutting-edge call for radical change does not
help to shift the gaze of criminology upwards as well as down onto the usual suspects, we may
as well all give up . . .
Steve Tombs, Professor of Criminology, The Open University, UK
This text explores, with remarkable coverage, dexterity and precision, that most universal and
enduring of contradictions in capitalist social orders: How being ripped off, mutilated and killed
by a wealthy class of well-dressed people in shiny offices is generally ignored, pardoned and
indeed often encouraged by democratic systems of law and justice.
David Whyte, Professor of Socio-legal Studies, University of Liverpool, UK
This is an excellent collection that defines the state of the art in scholarship on state and corporate
crime. It is a must-read for graduate students and scholars who have an interest in crimes of the
powerful and is sure to make an important contribution to research in this area.
Peter Iadicola, Professor and Chairperson, Department of Sociology,
Indiana University – Purdue University, USA
The Routledge
International Handbook of
the Crimes of the Powerful
Edited by Gregg Barak
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 selection and editorial material, Gregg Barak; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Gregg Barak to be identified as author of the editorial material,
and of the individual authors as authors of their contributions, has been asserted
by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Routledge international handbook of the crimes of the powerful / edited by
Gregg Barak. — First Edition.
1. Organized crime. 2. Political corruption. 3. Corporations—Corrupt
practices. 4. White collar crimes. 5. Power (Social sciences) 6. Elite
(Social sciences) I. Barak, Gregg, editor.
HV6441.R688 2015
364.1—dc23
2014045769
ISBN13: 978-0-415-74126-2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-1-315-81535-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of illustrations xii
List of contributors xiii
Preface xix
Acknowledgements xx
I ntroduction: on the invisibility and neutralization of the
crimes of the powerful and their victims 1
Gregg Barak
PART I
Culture, ideology and the crimes of the powerful 37
1 Crimes of the powerful and the defi nition of crime 39
David O. Friedrichs
2 Operationalizing organizational violence 50
Gary S. Green and Huisheng Shou
3 Justifying the crimes of the powerful 62
Vincenzo Ruggiero
4 Corporate criminals constructing white-collar crime: or why
there is no corporate crime on the USA Network’s White Collar series
Carrie L. Buist and Paul Leighton 73
PART II
Crimes of globalization 87
5 Capital and catharsis in the Nigerian petroleum extraction
industry: lessons on the crimes of globalization 89
Ifeanyi Ezeonu
vii
Contents
6 State and corporate drivers of global dysnomie:
horrendous crimes and the law 105
Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal and Nikos Passas
7 Truth, justice and the Walmart Way: consequences
of a retailing behemoth 121
Lloyd Klein and Steve Lang
8 Human trafficking: examining global responses 132
Marie Segrave and Sanja Milivojevic
9 Globalization, sovereignty and crime: a philosophical processing 144
Kingsley Ejiogu
PART III
Corporate crimes 155
10 C orporate crimes and the problems of enforcement 157
Ronald Burns
11 C orporate-financial crime scandals: a comparative analysis
of the collapses of Insull and Enron 172
Brandon A. Sullivan
12 C orporate social responsibility, corporate surveillance
and neutralizing corporate resistance: on the commodification
of risk-based policing 186
Hans Krause Hansen and Julie Uldam
13 W almart’s sustainability initiative: greening capitalism
as a form of corporate irresponsibility 197
Steve Lang and Lloyd Klein
PART IV
Environmental crimes 209
14 C limate change, ecocide and the crimes of the powerful 211
Rob White
15 P rivatization, pollution and power: a green criminological
analysis of present and future global water crises 223
Bill McClanahan, Avi Brisman and Nigel South
viii
Contents
16 U nfettered fracking: a critical examination of hydraulic
fracturing in the United States 235
Jacquelynn A. Doyon and Elizabeth A. Bradshaw
17 T he international impact of electronic waste:
a case study of Western Africa 247
Jacquelynn A. Doyon
PART V
Financial crimes 263
18 B ad banks: recurrent criminogenic conditions in the US
commercial banking industry 265
Robert Tillman
19 F inancial misrepresentation and fraudulent manipulation:
SEC settlements with Wall Street fi rms in the wake
of the economic meltdown 278
David Shichor
20 A comprehensive framework for conceptualizing fi nancial
frauds and victimization 289
Mary Dodge and Skylar Steele
PART VI
State crimes 303
21 T ransnational institutional torturers: state crime, ideology and the
role of France’s savoir-faire in Argentina’s Dirty War, 1976 to 1983 305
Melanie Collard
22 P ara-state crime and plural legalities in Colombia 320
Thomas MacManus and Tony Ward
23 A ustralian border policing and the production of state harm 331
Michael Grewcock
24 G endered forms of state crime: the case of state
perpetrated violence against women 348
Victoria E. Collins
ix