« Home

Home » Criminology & Criminal Justice » Hale et al: Criminology 2e » Student resources » Further reading » Chapter 13

Hale et al: Criminology 2e

Chapter 13

References from the book:

Academic texts:

Alvesalo, A. (2003) The Dynamics of Economic Crime Control. Espoo, Finland: the Police College of Finland.
Exploring the nature and interaction of the macro- and micro-processes and forces that characterize corporate crime control, using Finland as an empirical case, this book includes unique ethnographic and interview-based material on how corporate crime work is incorporated into police work.

Box, S. (1983) ‘Corporate Crime’, in S. Box, Power, Crime and Mystification. London: Tavistock, chapter 2.
Over 60-plus pages, Box’s classic introduction to this area of study explores the scale of corporate crime, its invisibility, ways in which it must be explained, and issues of regulation and control.

Pearce, F. and Snider, L. (eds) (1995) Corporate Crime: contemporary debates. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Across 19 articles, this edited text covers a range of theoretical and empirical issues related to the incidence, nature, and regulation of corporate crime, including contributions by most of the leading corporate crime Scholars across the English-speaking world.

Szockyi, E. and Fox, J.G. (eds) (1996) Corporate Victimisation of Women. Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University Press.
The eight articles here take a gendered view of corporate crime, covering theoretical debates around corporate crime, case studies of particular industries and forms of crime, and discussing the nature of regulation as well as prospects for regulatory reform.

Tweedale, G. (2000) Magic Mineral to Killer Dust. Turner & Newall and the Asbestos Hazard. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tweedale meticulously documents the asbestos scandal and the central role of Turner & Newall as its largest producer, highlighting the socially constructed boundaries between legality and illegality and the lengths to that corporations will go to evade their legal and moral obligations at the expense of thousands of lives.

Other material:

Class Action (Director: Michael Apted, 1990)
Based upon one of the most infamous of all corporate crimes, the sale of the Ford Pinto, the movie follows legal efforts to secure compensation from a multinational car manufacturer for the victims of car ‘accidents’.

Enron—the Smartest Guys in the Room (Alex Gibney, 2005)
A 2005 documentary following the rise, demise, and pursuit through the criminal justice system of Enron, itself based upon a 2004 book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.

Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992)
A searing critique of the real estate industry in Reagan’s America, this film examines the personal traumas and interpersonal conflicts generated by working in a business where lying, cheating, and stealing all are in a day’s work.

The Insider (Michael Mann, 1991)
Based on a true story, this revolves around a former tobacco scientist violating contractual agreements to expose his ex-employer’s inclusion of addictive ingredients in cigarettes, while a journalist struggles to report the story via the national media.

Moore, M. (1998) Adventures in a TV Nation. The stories behind America’s most outrageous TV show. London: Boxtree.
The story behind the show TV Nation, axed after 17 episodes by the US TV network Fox, there is extensive coverage of corporate crime in this witty but savage indictment of American corporate politics, including the classic tale of ‘Crackers, the Corporate Crime-Fighting Chicken’.

The Corporation (M. Achbar, 2004)
An award winning documentary which provides a detailed diagnosis of the modern corporation as psychopathic, to be viewed alongside a read of Joel Bakan’s (2004) The Corporation. The pathological pursuit of profit and power, New York: the Free Press.

Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987)
A big budget Hollywood production with a predictably unrealistic ending, this is excellent at conveying the culture that surrounded the financial markets on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1980s, a culture captured in Gordon Gecko’s catchphrase, ‘Greed is Good’.

Further references:

For more detailed overviews of the issues raised in this chapter, two texts are worth noting. Hazel Croall’s (2001) Understanding White-Collar Crime (Buckingham: Open University Press) is an extremely clearly written, student-friendly text, though its coverage is, as its title implies, wider than corporate crime per se. Slapper and Tombs’s (1999) Corporate Crime (London: Longman) is much more focused upon corporate crime, though at times is written in a somewhat argumentative fashion, presupposing a greater familiarity with some of the key issues than Croall’s book. Criminal Justice Matters, always a useful student entrée into specialist topics within criminology, published a highly readable special issue in 1999 entitled Corporate and White-Collar Crime  (no.36, Summer).