State-Corporate Crime and Major Financial Institutions: Interrogating an Absence

Friedrichs, David O.; Rothe, Dawn L.

doi:10.13169/statecrime.3.2.0146

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State Crime Journal

Volume 3, Issue 2

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State-Corporate Crime and Major Financial Institutions: Interrogating an Absence

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Author(s): David O. Friedrichs ¹ , Dawn L. Rothe ²

Publication date (Print, pub): 1 October 2014

Journal: State Crime Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: state-corporate crime, international financial institutions, crimes of globalization, systematic production of crime, criminological concepts of crime

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Abstract

The concept of state-corporate crime has been invoked and applied quite widely for more than 20 years now. We acknowledge the value of this concept but here address some of its conceptual limitations, especially in relation to crimes of large-scale investment and commercial banks, government-sponsored enterprises and international financial institutions. If the concept of state-corporate crime calls attention to the character and consequences of significant forms of crimes of the powerful, it tends to exclude attention to other forms of such crime. This article also addresses Steve Tombs' critique of state-corporate crime as it applies to what are here characterized as crimes of globalization. It considers the conundrum involved in a tension between achieving theoretical sophistication and in promoting effective responses to crimes of the powerful. It is a core premise of the analysis set forth here that in a rapidly changing, increasingly globalized twenty-first-century world, the forms of crime addressed here will necessarily attract more attention, especially relative to the traditional focus on conventional crime. A criminology that aspires to remain relevant in this environment must transform its understanding of crime.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): statecrime

Title: State Crime Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 20466056

ISSN (Electronic): 20466064

Publication date (Print, pub): 1 October 2014

Volume: 3

Issue: 2

Pages: 146-162

Affiliations

[1 ] University of Scranton;

[2 ] Old Dominion University;

Article

Publisher ID: statecrime.3.2.0146

DOI: 10.13169/statecrime.3.2.0146

SO-VID: 795a44dc-dcb8-4b4c-bb16-69320fb10a4d

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

References

Admati, A. and Hellwig, M. ( 2013) The Bankers' New Clothes . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Antonio, R.J. ( 2012) “After Neoliberalism: Whither Capitalism?” in G. Ritzer, ed., Companion Sociology . Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.
Bacon, F. ([1620] 1963) “Novum Organum”, in F. Bacon, ed., The Complete Essays of Francis Bacon . New York: Washington University Press.
Barak, G. ( 1991) Crimes by the Capitalist State: An Introduction to State Criminality . Albany: State University of New York Press.
Barak, G. ( 2012) Theft of a Nation: Wall Street Looting and Federal Regulatory Colluding . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Black, W.K. ( 2005) The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One . Austin: University of Texas Press.
Calavita, K., Pontell, H.N. and Tillman, R.H. ( 1997) Big Money Crime: Fraud and Politics in the Savings and Loan Crisis . Berkeley: University of California Press.
Carruthers, B.G. ( 2012) “What's Haute in the Sociology of Finance?” Contemporary Sociology 41( 6): 739– 747.
Chambliss, W. ( 1989) “State-Organized Crime”, Criminology 27( 2): 183– 208.
Clements, J.D. ( 2012) Corporations Are Not People . San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Clinard, M.B. and Yeager, P.C. ( 1980) Corporate Crime . New York: Free Press.
Cochrane, J.H. ( 2013) “Running on Empty”, The Wall Street Journal , 2–3 March, pp. C5– C6.
Cohen, S. ( 2001) States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering . Cambridge: Polity Press.
Davis, G.F. ( 2009) Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped America . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dullien, S., Kotte, D.J., Marquez, A. and Priewe, J. ( 2010) The Financial and Economic Crisis of 2008–2009 and Developing Countries . New York: United Nations.
Ferguson, C.H. ( 2012) Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America . New York: Crown Business.
Friedrichs, D.O. (ed.) ( 1998) State Crime ( vols I and II). Aldershot: Ashgate.
Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2002) “State-Corporate Crime in a Globalized World: Myth or Major Challenge?” in G.W. Potter, ed., Controversies in White-Collar Crime . Cincinnati: Anderson.
Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2010) Trusted Criminals: White Collar Crime in Contemporary Society (4th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2013a) “Wall Street: Crime Never Sleeps”, in S. Will, S. Handelman and D. Brotherton, eds, How They Got Away with It: White Collar Criminals and the Financial Meltdown . New York: Columbia University Press.
Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2013b) “Transcending the Conventional Definition of Crime: Toward a Twenty-First Century Criminology”, A paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Atlanta, November.
Friedrichs, D.O. and Friedrichs, J. ( 2002) “The World Bank and Crimes of Globalization: A Case Study”, Social Justice 29( 1/2): 12– 36.
Friedrichs, D.O., and Rothe, D.L. ( 2013) “Crimes of Globalization as a Criminological Project”, in F. Pakes, ed., Globalization and the Challenge of Criminology . London: Routledge.
Gifis, S.H. ( 1975) Law Dictionary . Woodbury: Barron's Educational Series.
Green, P. and Ward, T. ( 2004) State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption . London: Pluto Press.
Hagan, J. ( 2010) Who Are the Criminals? The Politics of Crime Policy from the Age of Roosevelt to the Age of Reagan . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Islam, M., Seitz, N., Millar, J., Fisher, J. and Gilsinan, J. ( 2013) “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: A Case Study in the Politics of Financial Reform”, Journal of Financial Crime 20( 2): 148– 162.
Kauzlarich, D. and Matthews, R. ( 2006) “Taking Stock of Theory and Research”, in R.J. Michalowski and R.C. Kramer, eds, State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business & Government . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 239– 250.
Keefe, P.R. ( 2013) “Buried Secrets”, The New Yorker , 8–15 July, pp. 50– 63.
Kramer, R.C. ( 1990) “From White-Collar to State-Corporate Crime”, Conference Paper, North Central Sociological Association, Louisville, 22 March.
Kramer, R.C. ( 1994) “State Violence and Violent Crime”, Peace Review 6( 2): 171– 175.
Kramer, R.C. and Michalowski, R.J. ( 1991) “State-Corporate Crime”, Paper prepared for American Society of Criminology Meeting, Baltimore, 7–12 November 1990, revised: September 1991.
Kramer, R.C., Michalowski, R.J. and Kauzlarich, D. ( 2002) “The Origins and Development of the Concept and Theory of State-Corporate Crime”, Crime & Delinquency 48( 2): 263– 282.
Krippner, G.R. ( 2011) Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Laufer, W.S. ( 2006) Corporate Boards and Guilty Minds: The Failure of Corporate Criminal Liability . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lessig, L. ( 2011) Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It . New York: Twelve.
Lin, K.-H. and Tomaskovic-Devey, D. ( 2013) “Financialization and US Income Inequality, 1970–2008”, American Journal of Sociology 118( 5): 1284– 1329.
Madrick, J. ( 2011) Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
McLean, B. and Nocera, J. ( 2010) All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis . New York: Portfolio.
Michalowski, R. ( 2010) “In Search of State and Crime in State Crime Studies”, in W. Chambliss, R. Michalowski and R. Kramer, eds, State Crime in the Global Age . Cullompton: Willan Publishing.
Michalowski, R.J. and Kramer, R.C. ( 2006) State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business & Government . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Morgenson, G. and Rosner, J. ( 2011) Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon . New York: Times Books.
Mullins, C.W., and Rothe, D.L. ( 2008) Blood, Power, and Bedlam: Violations of International Criminal Law in Post-Colonial Africa . New York: Peter Lang.
Ross, J.I. (ed.) ( 2000) Varieties of State Crime and Its Control . Monsey: Criminal Justice Press.
Rothe, D.L. ( 2009) State Criminality: The Crime of All Crimes . Lanham: Lexington Books.
Rothe, D.L. ( 2010a) “Dragon Rising: The International Financial Institutions and China's Aid Policy on Weakened States”, in W. Chambliss, R. Michalowski and R. Kramer, eds, State Crime in the Global Age . Cullompton: Willan Publishing.
Rothe, D.L. ( 2010b) “Facilitating Corruption and Human Rights Violations: The Role of International Financial Institutions”, Crime, Law and Social Change 53( 5): 457– 476.
Rothe, D.L. ( 2010c) “International Financial Institutions, Corruption and Human Rights”, in M. Boersma and H. Nelen, eds, Corruption and Human Rights . Antwerp: Intersentia.
Rothe, D.L. and Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2014) “Controlling Crimes of Globalization: A Challenge for International Criminal Justice”, in W. de Lint, M. Marmo and N. Chazal, eds, Crime and Justice in International Society . London: Routledge, pp. 246– 266.
Rothe, D.L. and Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2015) Crimes of Globalization . London: Routledge.
Rothe, D.L., Mullins, C.W. and Muzzatti, S. ( 2006) “Crime on the High Seas: Crimes of Globalization and the Sinking of the Senegalese Ferry Le Joola”, Critical Criminology: An International Journal 14( 2): 159– 180.
Rothe, D.L., Mullins, C.W. and Sandstrom, K. ( 2009) “The Rwandan Genocide: International Finance Policies and Human Rights”, Social Justice 35( 3): 66– 86.
Rothe, D.L., Ross, J., Mullins, C., Friedrichs, D., Barak, G., Kramer, R., Kauzlarich, D. and Michalowski, R. ( 2009) “That Was Then, This Is Now, What about Tomorrow? Future Directions in State Crime Studies”, Critical Criminology: An International Journal 17( 1): 3– 13.
Sorkin, A.R. ( 2010) Too Big to Fail . New York: Penguin Group.
Stanley, E. ( 2009) Torture, Truth and Justice: The Case of Timor-Leste . New York: Routledge.
Sutherland, E.H. ( 1949) White-Collar Crime . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Tombs, S. ( 2012) “State-Corporate Symbiosis in the Production of Crime and Harm”, State Crime 1( 2): 170– 195.
Tully, S. ( 2013) “The Rebirth of Fannie & Freddie”, Fortune , 1 July, pp. 91– 95.
Will, S., Handelman, S. and Brotherton, D. (eds) ( 2013) How They Got Away with It: White Collar Criminals and the Financial Meltdown . New York: Columbia University Press.
Wonders, N. and Danner, M. ( 2006) “Globalization, State-Corporate Crime, and Women”, in R.J. Michalowski and R.C. Kramer, eds, State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business & Government . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 98– 115.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Admati, A. and Hellwig, M. ( 2013) The Bankers' New Clothes . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[2] Antonio, R.J. ( 2012) “After Neoliberalism: Whither Capitalism?” in G. Ritzer, ed., Companion Sociology . Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.

[3] Bacon, F. ([1620] 1963) “Novum Organum”, in F. Bacon, ed., The Complete Essays of Francis Bacon . New York: Washington University Press.

[4] Barak, G. ( 1991) Crimes by the Capitalist State: An Introduction to State Criminality . Albany: State University of New York Press.

[5] Barak, G. ( 2012) Theft of a Nation: Wall Street Looting and Federal Regulatory Colluding . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

[6] Black, W.K. ( 2005) The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One . Austin: University of Texas Press.

[7] Calavita, K., Pontell, H.N. and Tillman, R.H. ( 1997) Big Money Crime: Fraud and Politics in the Savings and Loan Crisis . Berkeley: University of California Press.

[8] Carruthers, B.G. ( 2012) “What's Haute in the Sociology of Finance?” Contemporary Sociology 41( 6): 739– 747.

[9] Chambliss, W. ( 1989) “State-Organized Crime”, Criminology 27( 2): 183– 208.

[10] Clements, J.D. ( 2012) Corporations Are Not People . San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

[11] Clinard, M.B. and Yeager, P.C. ( 1980) Corporate Crime . New York: Free Press.

[12] Cochrane, J.H. ( 2013) “Running on Empty”, The Wall Street Journal , 2–3 March, pp. C5– C6.

[13] Cohen, S. ( 2001) States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering . Cambridge: Polity Press.

[14] Davis, G.F. ( 2009) Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped America . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[15] Dullien, S., Kotte, D.J., Marquez, A. and Priewe, J. ( 2010) The Financial and Economic Crisis of 2008–2009 and Developing Countries . New York: United Nations.

[16] Ferguson, C.H. ( 2012) Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America . New York: Crown Business.

[17] Friedrichs, D.O. (ed.) ( 1998) State Crime ( vols I and II). Aldershot: Ashgate.

[18] Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2002) “State-Corporate Crime in a Globalized World: Myth or Major Challenge?” in G.W. Potter, ed., Controversies in White-Collar Crime . Cincinnati: Anderson.

[19] Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2010) Trusted Criminals: White Collar Crime in Contemporary Society (4th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.

[20] Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2013a) “Wall Street: Crime Never Sleeps”, in S. Will, S. Handelman and D. Brotherton, eds, How They Got Away with It: White Collar Criminals and the Financial Meltdown . New York: Columbia University Press.

[21] Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2013b) “Transcending the Conventional Definition of Crime: Toward a Twenty-First Century Criminology”, A paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Atlanta, November.

[22] Friedrichs, D.O. and Friedrichs, J. ( 2002) “The World Bank and Crimes of Globalization: A Case Study”, Social Justice 29( 1/2): 12– 36.

[23] Friedrichs, D.O., and Rothe, D.L. ( 2013) “Crimes of Globalization as a Criminological Project”, in F. Pakes, ed., Globalization and the Challenge of Criminology . London: Routledge.

[24] Gifis, S.H. ( 1975) Law Dictionary . Woodbury: Barron's Educational Series.

[25] Green, P. and Ward, T. ( 2004) State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption . London: Pluto Press.

[26] Hagan, J. ( 2010) Who Are the Criminals? The Politics of Crime Policy from the Age of Roosevelt to the Age of Reagan . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[27] Islam, M., Seitz, N., Millar, J., Fisher, J. and Gilsinan, J. ( 2013) “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: A Case Study in the Politics of Financial Reform”, Journal of Financial Crime 20( 2): 148– 162.

[28] Kauzlarich, D. and Matthews, R. ( 2006) “Taking Stock of Theory and Research”, in R.J. Michalowski and R.C. Kramer, eds, State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business & Government . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 239– 250.

[29] Keefe, P.R. ( 2013) “Buried Secrets”, The New Yorker , 8–15 July, pp. 50– 63.

[30] Kramer, R.C. ( 1990) “From White-Collar to State-Corporate Crime”, Conference Paper, North Central Sociological Association, Louisville, 22 March.

[31] Kramer, R.C. ( 1994) “State Violence and Violent Crime”, Peace Review 6( 2): 171– 175.

[32] Kramer, R.C. and Michalowski, R.J. ( 1991) “State-Corporate Crime”, Paper prepared for American Society of Criminology Meeting, Baltimore, 7–12 November 1990, revised: September 1991.

[33] Kramer, R.C., Michalowski, R.J. and Kauzlarich, D. ( 2002) “The Origins and Development of the Concept and Theory of State-Corporate Crime”, Crime & Delinquency 48( 2): 263– 282.

[34] Krippner, G.R. ( 2011) Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

[35] Laufer, W.S. ( 2006) Corporate Boards and Guilty Minds: The Failure of Corporate Criminal Liability . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[36] Lessig, L. ( 2011) Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It . New York: Twelve.

[37] Lin, K.-H. and Tomaskovic-Devey, D. ( 2013) “Financialization and US Income Inequality, 1970–2008”, American Journal of Sociology 118( 5): 1284– 1329.

[38] Madrick, J. ( 2011) Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

[39] McLean, B. and Nocera, J. ( 2010) All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis . New York: Portfolio.

[40] Michalowski, R. ( 2010) “In Search of State and Crime in State Crime Studies”, in W. Chambliss, R. Michalowski and R. Kramer, eds, State Crime in the Global Age . Cullompton: Willan Publishing.

[41] Michalowski, R.J. and Kramer, R.C. ( 2006) State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business & Government . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

[42] Morgenson, G. and Rosner, J. ( 2011) Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon . New York: Times Books.

[43] Mullins, C.W., and Rothe, D.L. ( 2008) Blood, Power, and Bedlam: Violations of International Criminal Law in Post-Colonial Africa . New York: Peter Lang.

[44] Ross, J.I. (ed.) ( 2000) Varieties of State Crime and Its Control . Monsey: Criminal Justice Press.

[45] Rothe, D.L. ( 2009) State Criminality: The Crime of All Crimes . Lanham: Lexington Books.

[46] Rothe, D.L. ( 2010a) “Dragon Rising: The International Financial Institutions and China's Aid Policy on Weakened States”, in W. Chambliss, R. Michalowski and R. Kramer, eds, State Crime in the Global Age . Cullompton: Willan Publishing.

[47] Rothe, D.L. ( 2010b) “Facilitating Corruption and Human Rights Violations: The Role of International Financial Institutions”, Crime, Law and Social Change 53( 5): 457– 476.

[48] Rothe, D.L. ( 2010c) “International Financial Institutions, Corruption and Human Rights”, in M. Boersma and H. Nelen, eds, Corruption and Human Rights . Antwerp: Intersentia.

[49] Rothe, D.L. and Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2014) “Controlling Crimes of Globalization: A Challenge for International Criminal Justice”, in W. de Lint, M. Marmo and N. Chazal, eds, Crime and Justice in International Society . London: Routledge, pp. 246– 266.

[50] Rothe, D.L. and Friedrichs, D.O. ( 2015) Crimes of Globalization . London: Routledge.

[51] Rothe, D.L., Mullins, C.W. and Muzzatti, S. ( 2006) “Crime on the High Seas: Crimes of Globalization and the Sinking of the Senegalese Ferry Le Joola”, Critical Criminology: An International Journal 14( 2): 159– 180.

[52] Rothe, D.L., Mullins, C.W. and Sandstrom, K. ( 2009) “The Rwandan Genocide: International Finance Policies and Human Rights”, Social Justice 35( 3): 66– 86.

[53] Rothe, D.L., Ross, J., Mullins, C., Friedrichs, D., Barak, G., Kramer, R., Kauzlarich, D. and Michalowski, R. ( 2009) “That Was Then, This Is Now, What about Tomorrow? Future Directions in State Crime Studies”, Critical Criminology: An International Journal 17( 1): 3– 13.

[54] Sorkin, A.R. ( 2010) Too Big to Fail . New York: Penguin Group.

[55] Stanley, E. ( 2009) Torture, Truth and Justice: The Case of Timor-Leste . New York: Routledge.

[56] Sutherland, E.H. ( 1949) White-Collar Crime . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

[57] Tombs, S. ( 2012) “State-Corporate Symbiosis in the Production of Crime and Harm”, State Crime 1( 2): 170– 195.

[58] Tully, S. ( 2013) “The Rebirth of Fannie & Freddie”, Fortune , 1 July, pp. 91– 95.

[59] Will, S., Handelman, S. and Brotherton, D. (eds) ( 2013) How They Got Away with It: White Collar Criminals and the Financial Meltdown . New York: Columbia University Press.

[60] Wonders, N. and Danner, M. ( 2006) “Globalization, State-Corporate Crime, and Women”, in R.J. Michalowski and R.C. Kramer, eds, State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business & Government . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 98– 115.

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