NCJ Number
105837
Editor(s)
S L Hills
Date Published
1987
Length
221 pages
Annotation
This anthology of 14 articles documents the nature, extent and causes of the physical harm and risk of harm inflicted on consumers, workers, and the general public by corporate decisionmaking; corporate negligence; the quest for profits at any cost; and willful corporate violations of health, safety, and environmental laws.
Abstract
Articles documenting corporate actions that have victimized consumers cover the dangerously flawed design of the Ford Pinto and Ford's efforts to protect and advance profits while putting consumers at risk of death and severe injury and A.H. Robins' persistent marketing of the Dalkon shield in the face of evidence that it exposed users to serious infection, sterility, and death. The corporate 'dumping' of hazardous products on foreign markets with more lenient consumer protection laws than the United States is also reviewed. Articles on corporate actions that have victimized workers focus on hazardous working conditions in coal mines, cotton mills, and chemical plants and the attendant coverups. Articles on the corporate destruction of communities and the environment address chemical dumping as corporate policy and arson for profit. A series of articles on the personal accounts of corporate employees, 'whistle blowers,' and middle managers reveal the flexible moralities and corporate pressures that influence them to violate the law and their personal ethical principles. The epilogue argues for the inclusion of business misconduct in public and legal concepts of crime and deviance which has the potential of inflicting more public harm than 'street' crime. Article notes and subject index.