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Sanctioning corporate crime: How do business executives and the public compare?

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Abstract

Previous literature on attitudes toward the punishment or seriousness of criminal behavior has largely neglected to focus systematically upon five issues: (1) public perceptions of corporate illegality rather than perceptions of street crime or other forms of white-collar lawlessness; (2) how evaluations are conditioned by the degree of culpability and harm an offense involves; (3) the circumstances under which citizens will support the use of legal sanctions against an individual executive as opposed to a corporate entity; (4) the public's willingness to support criminal as opposed to civil intervention into various kinds of illegal corporate activities; and (5) how business executives' attitudes toward corporate legal sanctioning compare to those held by the general public. Through a survey of residents and business executives in a midwestern metropolitan area, an attempt was made to shed light on these issues. The analysis revealed a pervasive willingness among the sample to embrace the use of civil sanctions against corporations regardless of the circumstances surrounding the conduct being rated. By contrast, advocacy of civil remedies against executives and criminal penalties against either the corporation or its executives was found to vary considerably according to the culpability and harm manifested by a given illegal act. Also, public support for sanctioning corporate behavior was consistently higher than the support evidenced by executives, especially where the sanctions were directed at individual corporate managers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michigan State University, Michigan, USA

    James Frank

  2. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, USA

    Francis T. Cullen & Lawrence F. Travis

  3. SUNY-Albany, Albany, USA

    John L. Borntrager

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  1. James Frank
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  2. Francis T. Cullen
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  3. Lawrence F. Travis
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  4. John L. Borntrager
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Frank, J., Cullen, F.T., Travis, L.F. et al. Sanctioning corporate crime: How do business executives and the public compare?. AJCJ 13, 139–169 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02887507

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