Corporate Crime – Crime committed by a company in order to make profits.

Occupational Crime – Crime committed by a worker against the company e.g. an employee who
makes false expenses claims. Also called White Collar Crime.

Corporate crimes are offences committed by or on behalf of large companies and directly profit the
company rather than the individuals. Slapper and Tombs (1999) suggest that there is a diverse range
of corporate crime and that it is wide spread. They have identified 6 types of corporate crime
explained below:

Paperwork and Non-compliance: These are crimes where the correct

permits or licences are not obtained or companies fail to comply with
health and safety regulations.

Environmental or Green Crimes

Even though green crimes can be committed by individuals it is more likely that they will be
committed by corporations. There are various types of green crime that are associated with
corporations such as:

Illegal dumping of toxic or hazardous waste.

Discharge or emission of dangerous or toxic substances into the air, soil

or water supply.

Destruction of wide areas through deforestation, oil spills or unchecked

exploration.

Manufacturing Offences: These involve offences that link directly to what it is the corporation is
producing or selling and are mainly offences against the consumer. They
can include:

 Incorrect labelling or misrepresentation of a product.

 False Advertising

 Producing unsafe or dangerous products.

 Producing counterfeit products.

Labour Law Violations: These include offences such as failing to pay legally required minimum
wages, ignoring dangerous working conditions or causing and/or concealing industrial diseases. They
can also include health and safety violations and are likely to hit the lowest earning workers hardest.
 Unfair trade practices: These include things like false advertising
and anti-competitive practices such as price fixing or illegally
obtaining information of rival businesses.

Financial Offences: These include offences such as tax evasion and

concealment of losses and debts.

Corporate Crime in Official Statistics

Corporate crime is under-represented in the official crime statistics for a number of reasons:

 Powerful People – very often the people involved in corporate crime are extremely powerful
and have the ability to persuade government and the criminal justice system that what they
have done is not that serious or even illegal.

 Hard to detect – Corporate cover ups and networks of powerful people mean that many
offences are either never detected or if they are it is much later when the damage has
already been done.

 Lack of Prosecution – even when offences are detected quite often, they are not prosecuted
within the criminal justice system. For example, a Health and Safety violation will more likely
be dealt with by the Health and Safety Executive rather than the criminal justice system, and
environmental offences are more likely to be dealt with by the Environment agency.