A study in criminal theory with special reference to white collar crime

Abstract

This study begins with a brief account of the views currently held of the historical development and preoccupations of criminology, the latter having tended to assume the criminality of behaviour without inquiring into the processes by which such behaviour comes to be delineated as criminal. A growing body of opinion would seem to argue for a return to the legal bases of criminality as an initial perspective, with the addition of a discussion of extra-legal factors and their contribution to the understanding of the process of labelling behaviour as criminal. White collar crime is selected as a field of study which lends itself to the type of analysis of legal and extra-legal factors, appropriate to the research problem. The review of studies of white collar criminality in Chapter 2 reveals a relatively recent move away from the almost semantic concern with whether or not white-collar crime is crime to a concern with the solo-economic context within which such criminality occurs. The historical account of business organisation in the nineteenth century which follows in Chapter 3 provides a framework for the understanding of the changes which occurred and the characteristics of the business world which emerged. Within this framework the law relating to companies developed and an account of this and the reforms which have taken place up to the present day follows in Chapter 4. The evolution of the concept of corporate criminality, indispensable in any discussion of how certain company activities came to be regulated, follows in Chapter 5. The pattern of offences and of the enforcement of sanctions by the Board of Trade is outlined in Chapter 6. The concluding chapter pinpoints some of the limitations as well as some of the problems raised by this overall approach.