Corporate Crime Is Not Like Burglary

Corporate crime is (is not) like burglary.

Corporate crime is like burglary. Both crimes are about the taking of property to satisfy personal greed. Both types of crime involve using stealth to avoid attracting attention during the commission of the crime. Both often involve the use of deception to make the criminal activity appear legitimate to an observer. Both crimes often involve abusing a position of trust, such as accountant, or maid. Corporate crime and burglary differ in the details of how the crime is committed, but the essence is the same: theft. The essential difference between the crimes is that of scale. Burglary affects one victim at a time, on a limited scale. Corporate crime almost always involves numerous victims at a time, and a significantly higher property value than burglary does. Corporate crime is also much harder for prosecutors to prosecute than burglary. It is less well-defined than burglary, as corporate regulations can be complicated and ambiguous. There are also many opportunities for corporate criminals to engage in quasi-legal crimes by moving their illegal activities to jurisdictions with liberal laws or corrupt governments that can be easily bribed. In spite of the differences, corporate crime and burglary are usually more similar than different.

Corporate criminals and burglars usually commit their crimes for personal gain at the expense of others. Falsifying income reports in order to make a stock more attractive to investors and artificially inflate its value deprives the investors of money, just as picking the locks on their houses and stealing jewelry does. The theft does not appear as obvious or direct to the casual observer, but the value of an artificially inflated stock will eventually drop, resulting in losses for all investors. The type of person who would steal a television from a home and sell it on the black market is the same type of person who, given a different background and education would hire illegal immigrants for less than minimum wage in order to save money and increase profits. Burglars use stealth to avoid detection. Skilled burglars usually have a multitude of methods for entering a building quickly, without appearing suspicious or making noise. Corporate criminals also hide their activities, for example, hiding illicit profits in Swiss bank accounts, which are hidden from government auditors.

Both kinds of crime often involve using stealth to make the criminal activity look legitimate. Sophisticated burglars often disguise themselves as repairmen, moving companies or other professionals who would have reason to be entering buildings and taking valuable items with them. The Sugar Land, Texas police department is looking for information about a burglar who pretends to be a computer repairman, enters business and removes laptop computers to "repair" them. (SUGAR LAND...) Most businesses do not expect laptop computer repairs to involve sale on the black market. This burglar's methods are not all that different from Halliburton's theft of money from the United States government. Halliburton had the trust of the government when it overcharged the military for food and oil. The theft was carried out through providing misleading information in order to make the charges appear legitimate. Corporate criminals frequently disguise their criminals activities as legitimate business practices. Enron had independent auditor Arthur Anderson sign off on its fraudulent accounting practices in order to make them appear legitimate to investors and regulators. (SimonP, et. al.) The accounting practices were, in fact not legitimate, and were being used to keep stock values artificially high.

Corporate crime usually involves abusing a trusted position for personal gain. Burglars frequently exploit trust relationships between the criminal or his associates and the victim. When there is a relationship, it usually involves the criminal performing some service for the victim in order to gain information to facilitate the burglary. Any occupation that involves entering the homes or businesses of others offers an opportunity to examine properties as targets for burglary. Maids, repairmen and delivery drivers all have trusted positions analogous to those of accountants and executives in the opportunities they provide to steal property. Corporate executives have a perfect position to engage in all manner of abuse. Workers can be subtly intimidated in to not reporting unsafe working conditions. Regulators can be bribed. Investors can be deceived. There is little difference between this sort of corporate abuse and a maid leaving the back door unlocked so that a burglar can come in.

The most significant difference is the number of people affected by the crime. Burglary is usually directed at a specific victim, while corporate crime usually abuses a large number of victims at once. Just as corporate executives earn more money than delivery drivers, corporate criminals steal more money than most burglars. The number of potential victims helps corporate criminals increase their profits. While a burglar has to target one victim at a time, limiting the amount he can steal, corporate criminals can often steal from thousands or tens of thousands of victims at a time. All of Enron's investors were victims of the accounting scandal. The investors operated under the assumption that the company was earning profits, when, in fact, it was not. This false assumption caused investors to buy stock at prices they otherwise would not have. This theft by deception affected all the investors because the stock they were buying was actually next to worthless.

Corporate crime can be much more difficult to prosecute than burglary because there is more ambiguity about the legality of corporate activities. It is very clear in most situations that it is illegal to break in to a building and steal property. The legality of accounting practices, for example is not always clear, as accounting is a complicated activity requiring a significant amount of training to understand. Corporate criminals can also bypass the laws of their home country by conducting their illegal activities in countries that have weaker laws. Maintaining dangerous working conditions, threatening workers who demand safer conditions and firing workers who attempt to form unions is highly illegal in the United States. Any corporate executive who engaged in such activities would be fined or jailed. Such activities go unpunished in Indonesia, where Nike maintains its factories. In 1996, when Haryanto, a new employee lost two fingers because the emergency shut-off switch on the machine he was using did not work properly. When Haryanto formed a labor union, he was suspended from work. (Haryanto) In the United States, the factory would have been shut down by the government, and the managers responsible would have been charged criminally. Burglars cannot shift the illegal portions of their activities to jurisdictions where they are not illegal.