Corporate Crimes: Work Related Harm - Term Paper Example

INTRODUCTION Corporations have affected every area of our lives. Though we have corporations to thank for the inventions, creations and distributionof some of the things we are making use of in this day and age but certain illegal activities of corporations have also posed threat to the human health and safety. These activities not only affect consumers’ health (in instances of sales of health hazardous materials or false labeling etc) but also exist in the form of “crimes arising out of the employment relationship” (Tombs, 2008, p. 19). The corporations are responsible for the health and safety of the employees working for it. Corporate crime does not only include in its definition the crimes of tax evasion and the embezzlement of funds. It is a vast concept encompassing crimes ranging from threats posed to human health and safety to threats posed to the environment by the activities of the corporation. A corporation is liable if it does not take reasonable measures to prevent pollution of any kind (Tombs, 2008, p. 20). Corporate crime has been defined to mean two things; the illegal conduct of people of high social status who use their power as a means of breaking the law (Sutherland 1949) or the illegal conduct of a corporate personality (Braithwaite 1984, p. 6). THE MOST COMMON TYPE OF CORPORATE CRIME: WORK RELATED HARM Work related harm is the most common type of corporate crime (Farley, 1987); it is the one most commonly given attention (James 2006, p. 205). People still fall victim to corporate crime in their workplaces and this is because of the omission nature of these crimes. No one notices the lack of some safety devices in a tool until he is involved in an accident of sorts. Many victims of corporate crime are not aware of the liability of a corporation when they get injured. When it comes to work related harm, some workers find a way of explaining their injuries whereas some may be concerned of their work future in the event of seeking redress. Work related harm is widespread and one can easily find many instances of it in the daily life. For example, Westray explosion that took place in 1992 and killed 26 miners got much hype in the media however media was unable to expose the truth of powerful corporations and the corporate crime was swept under the rugs. McMullan (2006, p. 905) analyzing the issue said that “the absence in the presence of these varied truth-telling exercises was a social vocabulary of corporate crime. This absence marked the limit of the presss ability to tell the truth to powerful corporate and state interests, the place where their truth-telling was made coincident with the exercise of power and where workplace crime was made invisible in popular culture.” Interesting thing is that despite of being common this crime still exists and this is because of the lack of criminalization of corporate crime which has made it a lesser crime. STATISTICS ON CORPORATE CRIME It is unfortunate that criminalization of corporate crime has never featured the agenda of many states in the world. Developed states have poor records of criminalization of corporate crime while developing states are not even remotely aware of how corporations are responsible for some injustices (Tombs & Whyte 2007, p. 37). Looking at the data available for corporate crime it seems as if this crime is negligible and states can do without giving proper attention to it. However the reality is a complete opposite. Many authors have highlighted the inadequacies of the data on corporate crime. Tombs (2004) have clearly mentioned that little is known about deaths caused by work activities which explicitly points out towards the inadequacy of the data on work related corporate crime. Clinard & Yeager (1980, p. 300) have pointed out that centralized data on illegal behavior of huge organizations is unavailable which is very important for its prevention and control. Hartley (2008, p. 167), while talking about statistics on corporate crime, has mentioned the lack of precise definition of white collar and corporate crime as a reason for not having enough data on the same. Friedrichs (2009, p. 49) also pointed out “standardization of definitions and recording practices” and the cooperation among “criminal, civil and administrative agencies” as the basic requirement to ensure proper data collection on corporate crime. There is no doubt that the social and political structures have worked together to obscure corporate crime and if we look at the available data we will find out that they are far from presenting the true picture. International Labor Organization (ILO) (2005) as cited in Tombs & Whyte (2007, p. 37) estimated that yearly 2.2 million deaths (means 5,000 deaths daily) take place from work related accidents and diseases. This doesn’t include work related injuries which makes another 500 – 2000 entries depending upon the nature of job. It is the legal responsibility of employers under safety law to report injuries and incidents that take place in their work places however there is always under-reporting from their side. To tackle this issue of inadequate statistics HSE has initiated Labor Force Survey (LSF) from year 1993/94. It is conducted each year by the Office of National Statistics and is based on random survey design. Though there is criticism on LSF as well that its scope is limited since it asks only four questions to the respondents (Pickvance 2006 as cited in Tombs & Whyte, 2007, p. 39) however it has its own importance. As cited in Tombs & Whyte (2007, p. 39) LSF shows that employers only report “one quarter of reportable non-fatal injuries to employees” whereas in case of self-employed workers “it is less than 5 per cent”. Another worth noticing point when it comes to reporting crime is highlighted by Daniels & Marlow (2005: iv, cited in Tombs & Whyte, 2007, p. 39) which says ‘small firms are more likely to under-report or not report at all’. These percentages of reporting crime further vary from industry to industry however whatever the case may be bottom line is that ‘reporting rates are extremely low’ (Tombs & Whyte, 2007, p. 39). The data that has been produced by LSF far outweighs official data (Tombs 2004). Reporting is one issue; Tombs (2004) highlighted another very important issue and that is investigations and inspections; these are important aspects as well. Not having the report of an incident can said to be a base for not having investigation but the analysis conducted by Tombs (2004) shows that a large number of reported incidents are also not investigated. An analysis of five year period shows that number of investigations has increased but that too is because the number of reports has increased. If looked into carefully, one can easily conclude that many reported cases have also remained uninvestigated. Set aside the minor injuries, the cases which are categorized as ‘major injuries’ also remained unattended. The following table as presented by Tombs (2004) clearly shows the difference in the number of major injuries reported and investigated in 2000/2001. This doesn’t stops at investigation. Very few of those being investigated are prosecuted and then sentenced. This is truly a sad picture because corporate giants easily find their way out of this nuisance whereas their acts only agitate the suffering of their employees. From the above given discussion it is clear that not only reporting rates but also the investigation and inspection rates are low. The statistics on all of these matters must be scrutinized. Departments need to understand their responsibility and without any influence should investigate the reported cases. The current statistics are not only unreliable but simply obscure the reality of corporate harm. THE CHALLENGE OF PROSECUTING CORPORATE CRIME According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) cancer and heart diseases account for more than half of the work related deaths in the world and take up to 4% of the GDP of the world in terms of treatment and benefits. The attitude that has led to many corporations going scot free with their crimes includes the lack of the political will to nail such offenders. Along with the lack of political will, most corporations’ activities are sanctioned by the law. Most corporations are seen in light of their economic activities and the benefits they have brought to a certain society. With the images they have portrayed, there is rarely any willingness to find corporations guilty even when they blatantly go against the standards they claim to stand by. Corporate personalities use millions of their financial resources to build names for themselves. A lot of their money goes into maintaining the corporate image and part of the reason they don’t get sued with ease is because of this image. Another reason is that by using millions of dollars corporations justifies their crime for the sake of profit maximization in a capitalist society. Ultimately, the need to increase the capacity of a company and to improve its efficiency over others of its kind goes over and above the need to maintain proper safety and health standards in the company. This is the main reason companies will spend less money on ensuring that their employees are well dressed and are working in humane conditions just so that they can maximize their profits. Instances abound where reasonable safety standards were no longer being adhered to and this led to workplace disasters that caused loss of lives and property. It is important for a company to be able to increase its capacity and profits without having to place the safety and well being of its employees or its final consumers on the line. It is true that the rush to maximize on profits is the main cause of corporate crimes in many states but this is a level that every corporate personality can go over and risk less losses in the long run. CONCLUSION In the UK, the health and safety at work act is the acting legislation that has placed the responsibility of ensuring protection in workplaces on the employers and the employees. According to a recent audit, this dual responsibility placed on the employers and the employees was not the best possible move for the UK since the HSE has not been able to balance its responsibilities of inspection investigation and prosecution. There is an inadequate reporting of injuries within the jurisdiction of the HSE and even then, there is still a very tiny percentage of those that were reported that were investigated. The HSE seems to be having on its plate more than it can handle since it has never been able to prosecute even 50% of the cases that were reported to it. Given that the cases that were reported to it did not even constitute a majority of its jurisdiction, HSE clearly has a lot to work on. It is clear from the performance of the HSE over the years that corporate crime cannot be tackled using criminal law (Gobert & Punch 2003, p. 53). It may be feasible on a theoretical level but not on a practical level. It is clear from the culture of many states that there is no way under any circumstance the criminalization of corporations’ activities will ever lead to their prosecutions. This does not mean that states should abandon legislating against some of the activities of some corporations within their jurisdictions. One of the ways of making this a win-win for all the parties concerned is to ensure that workers are unionized. This will ensure that the rights of workers to humane treatment in their workplaces are maintained. In other words, it will stop the management of the corporation from being excessively authoritative and harming the workers as a result. Workers can use the advantage of their numbers to agitate for the changing of their working environments or whatever condition they feel needs to be changed. It is simple and much easier with their numbers especially if they have a common employer and are more conversant with their own issues. There is a lesser chance of being victimized by the employer when employees use their unions to agitate for their rights as workers. REFERENCES 1. Braithwaite, J., 1984, Corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry, London: Routledge. 2. Clinard, M. & Yeager, P., 1980, Corporate crime, London: Collier MacMillan Publishers. 3. Farley, J. E., 1987, American social problems: an institutional analysis, Prentice-Hall. 4. Friedrichs, D. O., 2009, Trusted Criminals: White Collar Crime in Contemporary Society, edn 4, USA: Cengage Learning. 5. Gobert, J. J. & Punch, M., 2003, Rethinking corporate crime, UK: Cambridge University Press. 6. Hartley, R. D., 2008, Corporate crime: a reference handbook, USA: ABC-CLIO. 7. James, P, 2006, Health and safety at wor and its relevance to employee relations research, Employee Relations The International Journal, vol. 28, no.3, pp. 205-209. 8. McMullan, J. L., 2006, ‘News, Truth, and the Recognition of Corporate Crime’, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, pp 905-939. 9. Sutherland, E. H., 1949, White Collar Crime. New York: Dryden Press. 10. Tombs, S., 2008, ‘Corporations and Health and Safety’, in Minkes, J. & Minkes, L., Corporate and White Collar Crime, London: Sage Publications Ltd. 11. Tombs, S. & Whyte, D., 2007, Safety Crimes, UK: Willan Publishing Ltd. 12. Tombs, S., 2004, ‘Workplace Injury and Death: social harm and the illusion of law”, in Hillyard, P. et al., eds., Beyond Criminology? Taking harm seriously, London: Pluto Press. Read More