The Compliance Model of Employment Standards Enforcement: An Evidence-based Assessment of its Efficacy in Instances of Wage Theft

This article critically assesses the compliance model of employment standards (ES) enforcement through a study of monetary employment standards violations in Ontario, Canada. The findings suggest that, in contexts where changes to the organization of work deepen insecurity for employees, models of enforcement that emphasize compliance over deterrence are unlikely to effectively prevent or remedy ES violations

Crisis, what crisis? Regulation and the academic orthodoxy

What can criminology or socio-legal studies tell us about the causes of the financial crisis – a failure of regulation, at the very least – or ways in which further such crises might be prevented, mitigated, responded to? The article begins by setting out the emergence and dimensions of the academic orthodoxy on regulation – a series of shared assumptions regarding feasible and desirable forms of regulation. Then it undertakes quantitative and qualitative content analysis of work on regulation and the crisis to assess the extent to which this orthodoxy has been reassessed in the light of events since 2007

The Shifting Imaginaries of Corporate Crime

This article begins by setting out an analysis of the process of conventionalizing corporate crime that arises from the symbiotic relationship between states and corporations. Noting briefly the empirical characteristics of four broad categories of corporate crime and harm, the article then turns to explore the role of the state in its production and reproduction. We then problematize the role of the state in the reproduction of corporate crime at the level of the global economy, through the “crimes of globalization” and “ecocide,” warning of the tendency in the research literature to oversimplify the role of states and of international organizations. The article finishes by arguing that, as critical academics, it is our role to ensure that corporate crime is never normalized and fully conventionalized in advanced capitalist societies

Prisoners of the Capitalist Machine: Captivity and the Corporate Engineer

This chapter will focus on how engineering practice is conditioned by an economic system which promotes production for profit and economic growth as an end in itself. As such it will focus on the notion of the captivity of engineering which emanates from features of the economic system. By drawing on Critical Realism and a Marxist literature, and by focusing on the issues of safety and sustainability (in particular the issue of climate change), it will examine the extent to which disasters and workplace accidents result from the economic imperative for profitable production and how efforts by engineers to address climate change are undermined by an on-going commitment to growth. It will conclude by arguing that the structural constraints on engineering practice require new approaches to teaching engineers about ethics and social responsibility. It will argue that Critical Realism offers a framework for the teaching of engineering ethics which would pay proper attention to the structural context of engineers work without eliminating the possibility of engineers working for radical change

Corporate environmental responsibility and criminology

This article addresses corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and aims to present a criminological analysis of it. We studied the opinion of a number of principle actors involved in CER in Europe in order to determine how they perceive it in terms of its definition, aetiology and approaches. For each of these dimensions we relate back to a criminological framework to ascertain how it is positioned in the green criminological debate. We start out by providing information on what corporate environmental responsibility is and how it relates to corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. Then we outline the theoretical framework in accordance with the three central themes for the criminological analysis of CER: definition, aetiology and approaches. We also explain the method that was used (semi-structured interviews). Next, we present the results according to the same threefold structure. Finally we discuss these results in a last part, which is divided in two. First, we look at the challenges that the criminological perspective poses for CER in terms of definition, aetiology and approaches. The second part of the discussion turns the question around and wonders how CER could contribute to greening criminology

Injustice upon Injustice: London 2012 and the Enduring Legacies of Bhopal

Today, 2nd December, marks yet another anniversary of the gas leak at the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India – now, twenty seven years ago, in 1984. But this is not a matter of historical record – for remarkably, disgustingly, not only has justice for the victims still not been secured, but even as we write, further injustices continue to pour down on the people of that city. Satinath Sarangi, a leading Bhopali-based actvist, has just told us this: "The perpetrators of the worst corporate massacre in history are absconding from charges of culpable homicide for the last 19 years and the corporation that is sheltering this fugitive from justice for the last 10 years is now the main sponsor of London Olympics 2012. It has been 27 years and the victims of Bhopal are still awaiting justice; time the international community sat up and took notice.

Bhopal: Flowers at the Altar of Profit and Power

“We are not flowers offered at the altar of profit and power. We are dancing flames committed to conquering darkness and to challenging those who threaten the planet and the magic and mystery of life”. So said Rashida Bee, a Bhopal survivor who lost six family members in the disaster. In December 1984, a massive gas leak killed thousands in and around a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India; tens of thousands have died since, and many more have had their lives and livelihoods devastated. The US-based company and its CEO remain absconders from Indian justice. They have consistently denied, obfuscated and used the resources at the disposal of the powerful to evade any legal judgment. This book draws on a considerable literature to make a social scientific judgment of their liability for the world’s worst industrial ‘disaster’. It attempts to convey some of the horrendous events and consequences of the gas leak itself, before examining Union Carbide’s responses to and 'explanations' of the disaster, contrasting these with more persuasive explanations. The book then poses, and answers, a key question: was the disaster unforeseeable and therefore preventable? In conclusion, we explore corporate rationality and in particular reflect on the view that everything has its price, that money can compensate for any loss or injury. It is this view which helps to explain the manoeuvrings that went into the determination of the deeply problematic legal “settlement” for the victims of Bhopal – a sordid compromise between unequal parties which offers no justice, but underlines why the struggle of Rashida Bee and others around the globe continues