ABSTRACT
The considerable impact of corporate crime and the complex issues surrounding its control are generally absent from discussions of criminal justice. Indeed the definition and criminal status of this vast area of crime have long been debated by criminological and legal scholars (Croall 2001; Nelken 2007). Defining white-collar crime as ‘crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation’, Sutherland (1949: 9) sought to challenge the focus of criminology on lower-class crime and draw attention to the ‘human misery’ caused by illegal business activities, many of which were subject not to criminal but to regulatory law, and widely perceived as ‘not really crime’. While the subjectivity of calling them crime was strongly criticised (Tappan 1947) it raised important questions about the very distinctive way in which these offences are dealt with in relation to law, prosecution and punishment.
