Social Impact Of Corporate Crime

What is Corporate Crime?

According to US Legal, “corporate crime means crimes committed either by a business entity or corporation, or by individuals that may be identified with a corporation or other business entity (unknown, 2017). The FBI defines corporate fraud as: “The majority of corporate fraud cases pursued by the FBI involve accounting schemes designed to deceive investors, auditors, and analysts about the true financial condition of a corporation or business entity. Through the manipulation of financial data, the share price, or other valuation measurements of a corporation, financial performance may remain artificially inflated based on fictitious performance indicators provided to the investing public” (unknown, FBI, n.d.)

Corporate

Traditional property offenses, such as burglary and theft cost the U.S. about $18 billion each year, but losses due to corporate crime, including fraud and illnesses due to environmental pollution, are above a trillion dollars (Michel, Cochran, J.K,, & Heide, K.M., 2016).

So, why hasn’t the public been more aware of corporate crime? The public heavily relies on the media for its information, and there is that old news adage “if it bleeds it leads.” The public is more interested in the personal crimes of murder, rape, or car crashes on a local level; they could know someone who was involved in those crimes. Who owns the media and governs what is reported to the public, especially on a national level? “Political and corporate elites – who greatly influence the editorial content…” (Michel, Cochran, J.K,, & Heide, K.M., 2016). So, it appears that the public has not, until recently, been well informed of corporate crimes, either by the news or criminologists. According to Punch, “the subjects of business crime and corporate deviance have been sadly neglected by criminologists in favour of other areas such as street crime, low-level law enforcement, and the prison system” (Punch,