Science, values and politics: an insider’s reflections on corporate crime research

Abstract

Diverse social and political forces have long shaped research on corporate crime and its social control in the U.S., and they have responded to this work in plural and contradictory ways. These forces range from the abstract and institutional to the local and personal. In this essay, I reflect on my three decades of research experience in this arena in an examination of these forces and their implications for research and public policy. More overtly than other forms of criminological research, the study of corporate lawbreaking has conjoined issues of values and politics with issues of science. This feature of the work has made consistently problematic such foundational questions as how to define the subject of inquiry, how to study it, and how to communicate about it. While this volatility has contributed to the ongoing marginalization of this research stream in both academic criminology and regulatory policy, it has also created a certain intellectual dynamism that should attract future generations of investigators to these questions, and to greater cross-disciplinary efforts to address them. Such developments may even pave the way to greater consideration of such research by policy-makers, should socioeconomic conditions in the U.S. and around the world raise the public salience of corporate wrongdoing.'Why do you want to study corporate managers? We know how they think.''…a book entitled Corporate Crime automatically puts us on guard to defend the corporations…such a book should never have been written in the first place.'

Een wolf onder de wolven. Ethiek en Ethische Commissies in criminologisch onderzoek naar ‘the powerful’

“…This direction leads to one conclusion: the ethics-review process has homogenized social research and pauperized the social sciences.' (Walters, 2008;Xu, 2016;Yeager, 2008). Daarnaast kan er sprake zijn van bedreigingen, van smaad en van het in diskrediet brengen van onderzoeksresultaten (Alvesalo-Kuusi & Whyte, 2017; Tromp, 2010) en van bezorgdheid van uitgevers over mogelijke juridische acties door de onderzochte populatie (Dodge & Geis, 2006).…”

“…Deze editie werd gecensureerd, omdat de uitgever niet wilde dat de onderzochte bedrijven identificeerbaar waren, omdat hij bang was voor juridische consequenties en (dus ook voor) het betalen van financiële compensaties aan die bedrijven . Beperking vindt ook plaats door censuur of het selectief (of niet) verlenen van subsidie aan kritisch onderzoek (Alvesalo-Kuusi & Whyte, 2017;Brusten, 1981;Bunt, 2015;Hope & Walters, 2008;Walters, 2003;Yeager, 2008). Dergelijke beperkingen van kritisch-criminologisch onderzoek en onderzoekers roepen allerlei complexe ethische vragen op.…”

Youths’ Views on Corruption Control in China

“…According to Sumner (1990), criminal law and common morality are not sufficient to describe specific social behaviors, and those in power have the capacity to include or exclude certain deviant behavior as a category of the law. Such a process is, therefore, unavoidably political (Harris, 2003;Yeager, 2009). Indeed, the determination of whether a particular action is corrupt depends very much on the direction in which political groups seek to influence public opinion at specific historical junctures.…”

The Inaugural Issue of the Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime

“…Simpson (2019), Alvesalo-Kuusi and Whyte (2018), Geis (2015), Teachout (2014), and Yeager (2009) have delivered recent state-of-the-art reflections and assessments. These same criminologists have also provided historical frameworks for the developing areas of white collar and corporate crime inquiry.…”

“…While incorporating both applied and substantive disciplines, the journal also welcomes qualitative, quantitative, and historical contributions from a plurality of perspectives within the traditions of participating in the examination of white collar, corporate, organized, transnational, state, nonstate, and state-corporate crime. Simpson (2019), Alvesalo- Kuusi andWhyte (2018), Geis (2015), Teachout (2014), andYeager (2009) have delivered recent state-of-the-art reflections and assessments. These same criminologists have also provided historical frameworks for the developing areas of white collar and corporate crime inquiry.…”