Corporate crime

In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (i.e., a business entity having a separate legal personality from the natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals acting on behalf of a corporation or other business entity (see vicarious liability and corporate liability). For the worst corporate crimes, corporations may face judicial dissolution, sometimes called the "corporate death penalty", which is a legal procedure in which a corporation is forced to dissolve or cease to exist. Some negative behaviours by corporations may not actually be criminal; laws vary between jurisdictions. For example, some jurisdictions allow insider trading. Corporate crime overlaps with: white-collar crime, because the majority of individuals who may act as or represent the interests of the corporation are white-collar professionals; organized crime, because criminals may set up corporations either for the purposes of crime or as vehicles for laundering the proceeds of crime. The world's gross criminal product has been estimated at 20 percent of world trade. (de Brie 2000); and state-corporate crime because, in many contexts, the opportunity to commit crime emerges from the relationship between the corporation and the state. An 1886 decision of the United States Supreme Court, in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad , has been cited by various courts in the US as precedent to maintain that a corporation can be defined legally as a "person", as described in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment stipulates that, No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In English law, this was matched by the decision in Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd [1897] AC 22.

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Corruption

Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption may involve many activities which include bribery, influence peddling and the embezzlement and it may also involve practices which are legal in many countries. Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts with an official capacity for personal gain.

Organized crime

Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power.

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities.

Leader corruption depends on power and testosterone

Samuel Bendahan, John Antonakis

We used incentivized experimental games to manipulate leader power - the number of followers and the discretion leaders had to enforce their will. Leaders had complete autonomy in deciding payouts to themselves and their followers. Although leaders could m ...

Elsevier Science Inc2015