ABSTRACT
The collapse of major banks and corporations amid revelations of false accounting and fraud have been felt around the globe and alert attention to the worldwide impact of white collar and corporate crime. Despite this, much political, popular and academic focus on transnational crime has been concerned with organised crime. Yet legitimate and illegitimate industries alike exploit the opportunities provided by globalisation to move capital and production outside the reach of regulators, and both are involved in illegal forms of cross-border trading. The global activities of corporations and financial institutions, often the focus of antiglobalisation protests, often involve far greater harm than many conventional crimes, even transnational ones. The study of white collar crime has always involved unmasking the activities of seemingly respectable occupational groups and organisations. At the same time, the study of crimes of the powerful has always posed fundamental questions about how crime is popularly and legally defined and about the role of criminalisation. Such issues remain pertinent in an era of globalisation, indeed they may be more so.
