White-Collar Crime and Police Crime: Rotten Apples or Rotten Barrels?

Abstract

In the research literature on white-collar crime, there seems to be a tendency to claim individual failure rather than systems failure. Occupational crime is often emphasized at the expense of corporate crime. In the research literature on misconduct and crime by police officers, however, there seems to be a tendency to claim systems failure. It is argued that police crime is a result of bad practice, lack of resources or mismanagement, rather than acts of criminals. Based on two empirical studies in Norway of business and police crime, this paper is concerned with the extent to which the rotten apple theory versus the rotten barrel theory can explain crime in business organizations and police organizations.Keywords: rotten-apple theory; rotten barrel theory; business crime; police crime; empirical study Brief biographiesPetter Gottschalk is professor of information systems and knowledge management in the department of leadership and organizational management at the Norwegian School of Management. Dr. Gottschalk has published several books and research articles on crime and policing. He has been the CEO of several companies before becoming an academic.

Reasons for Gaps in Crime Reporting: The Case of White-Collar Criminals Investigated by Private Fraud Examiners in Norway

“…A white-collar criminal is typically a member of the privileged socioeconomic classes in society (Sutherland 1949) who is involved in illegal activities and commits nonviolent acts for financial gain (Gottschalk 2012). The white-collar criminal is a person of respectability who commits crime in a professional setting, where criminal activities are concealed and disguised in organizational work .…”

Blame Game and Rotten Apples in Private Investigation Reports: The Case of Hadeland and Ringerike Broadband in Norway

“…Attribution theory suggests that, all else being equal, the odds are in favour of making a personal attribution (Keaveney, ). We return to the issue of personal blame versus organisational blame in terms of rotten apples versus system failure (Gottschalk, ).…”

“…A person can be called a rotten apple for being a bad individual among a good group. The term has been applied especially to police corruption (Gottschalk, ).…”

“…A person can be called a rotten apple for being a bad individual among a good group. The term has been applied especially to police corruption (Gottschalk, 2012a). The theory of system failure recognises that systems never can take complete control over humans and systems can never completely register what humans are doing.…”

«Grey» Importation over the Russian-Chinese Border: What’s New?

“…В ряде проведённых исследований было выявлено, что в полиции, как правило, очень низкий, стремящийся к нулю уровень внутренних сообщений о фактах коррупции [Crank 1999;Johnson 2005]. Возникновение большого количества таких сообщений является скорее позитивным индикатором и свидетельствует прежде всего о наличии «испорченных яблок», а не о системных дефектах, когда неформальная экономическая деятельность является результатом действий отдельных недобросовестных полицейских, а не сетевого взаимодействия [Porter, Warrender 2009;Gottschalk 2011].…”