Corporations and Criminal Responsibility (Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice)

Contemporary concern about technological hazards posed by business enterprises has intensified interest in the criminality of corporations. Incorporating ideas from a wide range of literature, the book argues that there is no magic answer to corporate power, to issues of personal safety and their inter-relationship with criminal law and justice. The attention paid to corporate criminal liability by courts, legislatures, law reform bodies and international organizations has increased markedly in the past decade. As in the first edition, the book takes what might be called a panoptic approach to the subject. Corporations and their susceptibility to criminal law are examined from sociological, psychological, philosophical and organizational perspectives as the book progresses. This edition has been revised and updated to take account of the burgeoning scholarly literature. Detailed analysis of judicial and legislative movements in England and Wales, in other national jurisdictions and at the level of international organizations follows. Two new chapters, on corporate manslaughter and on comparative and international responses to corporate crime, accommodate these changes. The book is distinctive in combining legal analysis and discussion of law reform debates with a theoretical account of the relationship between legal institutions and the role of risk and blame in shaping criminal law and the practices of the criminal justice system. Business Corporations Wield Enormous Economic Power, And Legal Structures Largely Serve Their Interests. This Book Analyses The Background To The Demands To Use Criminal Law Sanctions Against Corporations, Including Demand For Corporate Manslaughter. 1. Safety And Public Welfare -- 1. Regulatory Offences -- 2. Real Crime And Real Persons -- 3. Corporations And Crime -- 2. The Role Of Criminal Law -- 1. Why Criminal Law? -- 2. Theories Of Punishment -- 3. Crime And Regulation -- 4. Corporate Sanctions -- 3. Attribution Of Responsibility -- 1. Social Constructions Of Crime -- 2. Blame Attribution -- 3. Cause And Blame -- 4. Institutional Influences -- 4. Criminal Responsibility And The Corporate Entity -- 1. Notions Of Criminal Responsibility -- 2. Culpability And Strict Liability -- 3. Groups, Associations, And Corporations -- 4. The Corportate Entity -- 5. Corporate Liability In England And Wales -- 1. Histrical Development -- 2. Corporate Liability -- A Maturing Idea -- 6. Corporate Manslaughter -- 1. Key Developments -- 2. Culpability And Risk -- 3. Unlawful Act Manslaughter -- The Forgotten Question -- 4. Corporate Killing -- A Proposed Offence -- 7. Comparative And International Solutions -- 1. Comparative Cautions -- 2. Common Law Variations -- 3. Civil Law Changes -- 4. Convergence -- 8. The Responsible Corporation -- 1. The Corporate Organization -- 2. Strict (vicarious) Liability Versus Due Diligence -- 3. People, Systems, And Culture -- 4. Individual Liability -- 5. The Responsible Corporation. Celia Wells. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [169]-184) And Index. "The book is distinctive in combining legal analysis and discussion of law reform debates with a theoretical account of the relationship between legal institutions and the role of risk and blame in shaping criminal law and the practices of the criminal justice system."--Jacket