Ideology and the Ethics of Economic Crime Control (From Ethics, Public Policy, and Criminal Justice, P 133-155, 1982, Frederick Elliston and Norman Bowie, eds - See NCJ-86248)

• NCJ Number: 86256
• Author(s): D C Smith
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain Publishers, Inc
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

White collar crime and organized crime are poles of a spectrum of business enterprise, more or less deviant, and an ideological approach to these poles of the business spectrum inhibits the formulation of a realistic policy for controlling economic crime.

Abstract

Studies of legitimate business can be used as a basis for understanding the deviant practices of organized crime, so as to locate its perpetrators and regulators within a common perspective. The effort to isolate organized crime from the perspective of its being deviant business practice is an ideological invention of the right, which emphasizes individual virtues such as loyalty and self-discipline. Radical opponents of organized crime portray it is an alien community within our midst conspiring to undermine the basic moral and economic orders of society. This portrayal of organized crime has been used to justify the expansion of repressive law enforcement activities. By contrast, ideologies of the left see white collar crime as a symbol of capitalism's moral bankruptcy and emphasis on wealth and power, which can only be revised by the introduction of a socialist system. This ideological approach to perspectives of economic crime inhibits the development of a rational centrist approach to the control of economic crime.