Sociologia e Criminologia-Acesso Aberto
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Multinational Corporate Crime: an Undeveloped Area of Criminological Inquiry

Barak G

In this article I make a case for the study of multinational corporate crime (MCC) as a sub-area of criminological investigation. After discussions on defining deviancy both down and up and on the need for seriously examining the workings of MCC and its control, the rest of the article uses three illustrations to describe the routinized noncriminal enforcement of these crimes. These depictions of criminal impunity include the restructuring of harmful security investments, the rigging of interbank interest rates, and the avoidance of taxes and exploitation of labor. Each of these very diverse set of circumstances underscores the contradictory nature between the criminal sanctions on the books and the systemic nonenforcement of these same criminal laws in action. Such routinized differences in the capitalist state’s response to MCC as contrasted with other corporate and non-corporate crimes in conjunction with the obvious need for developing theories and empirically-based policy responses to these multinational corporate crimes, offer a justification for its own area of criminological inquiry.