NCJ Number
94327
Journal
Criminal Justice Ethics Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter/Spring 1984) Pages: 27-56
Date Published
1984
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This article identifies three types of illegal behavior common to complex organizations, outlines possible remedies, and assesses strategies for inducing organization leaders to take steps to reduce subordinates' illegal activities.
Abstract
Type I illegal behavior involves situations in which the sole or overwhelming motivation is to obtain a private advantage and in which cooperative relationships between an official and one or more recipients are central elements, as in bribery. Type II or unilateral illegal behavior occurs when the motivation is to obtain private advantage, but cooperative relationships with recipients are not centrally involved, as in acquisition of company funds for personal use or false reports. Type III illegal behavior occurs when mixed motive situations arise and private advantage is mixed with organizational and possibly societal advantage. Examples are FBI burglaries in offices of dissident political groups and patterns of collusive pricing. Remedies include replacing discretionary decisions by public officials with a system which relies on market factors, rotating officials, clarifying and detailing standards for various kinds of official actions, active inspection systems, continuous monitoring, system vulnerability assessment, and increased sanctions. Many of these remedies are effective if actively used, but organization leaders are often reluctant to act. It sometimes is helpful to impose sanctions on the entire organization, but the range of their impact is too broad. The most promising strategy threatens sanctions against leaders in order to induce them to use their knowledge of prevailing conditions and authority to challenge these conditions so that illegal behavior does not occur. The article uses case studies to demonstrate the application of this strategy in both the private and public sectors. It includes 169 footnotes.