Class, Corporate Crime and Criminal (In)justice

• In Event: Roundtable: Class Inequality in Criminal Justice Policies and Practices

Abstract

Since the early 2000s several Western countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom, have enacted criminal laws aimed at holding corporations accountable for seriously injuring and/or killing workers and/or member of the public. This paper critically examines the factors that have contributed to the development and enforcement of criminal laws that deal with workplace injury and death. Of particular interest are the assumptions, agendas and relations of power that inform these laws, the factors that help to produce legal categorizations of corporate harm and wrongdoing. In addition to probing the official discourses that shape corporate criminal liability in each jurisdiction, the paper examines the enforcement (or lack thereof) of these laws, scrutinizing various charges and convictions to date. The goal is to explore the extent to which the development and enforcement of corporate criminal liability laws challenge and/or reinforce corporate capitalism. In this respect a central concern of this paper is the class relevance of corporate crime law reform.

Author

• Steven Bittle, University of Ottawa