Day 6- Corporate Crime

• Can corporations commit murder?

In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (a business entity having a separate legal personality from the persons that manage its activities), or by individuals acting on behalf of a corporation or other business entity. Corporate crime is organised, although in some cases negligence or ignorance is the source of the crime versus planning it. A good example of this would be companies that disregard health and safety precautions for their employees resulting in death.

If a person is responsible for the way they drive and are not allowed to make excuses about not seeing speed limit signs, then corporate owners should also be responsible for the way they drive their company- and should not be able to make excuses if the product that they are selling is harmful to customers or employees.

On the other hand, if an employer has 1,000 employees in various areas of a country, it is nearly impossible
for that one person to be sure of the condition of every product being sold to customers. In these such cases, if is found that the employer made gestures to ensure the safety of employees and customers, then I think the blame should be moved to other employees responsible for the death.

I believe that the top employees should be held in the highest responsibility if they are cutting the most profit and are responsible for their employees. They should be dilligent to keeping their employees safe, as well as their customers that purchase their product. For instance, if a company sells baby toys that are made with unsafe materials and a child dies, then the employer should be responsible for the unsafe condition of the product because it was not tested well enough to have been packaged and sold to consumers.

All in all, if found guilty of not attempting to provide safe conditions for employees and safe products for customers, then yes, corporations- and their employers should be held resposible for the deaths caused.

There was a case of corporate manslaughter against Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd in relation to the death of Alexander Wright on 5 September 2008.
Mr Wright, a junior geologist of the company Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings was taking soil samples from inside a pit which had been excavated as part of a site survey when the sides of the pit collapsed crushing him.
Peter Eaton, a director of the company has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter. Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd has also been charged with failing to provide safe workplaces for their employees.
Their reviewing lawyer Kate Leonard explained:
"Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 an organisation is guilty of corporate manslaughter if the way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a death and amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care to the person who died.  A substantial part of the breach must have been in the way activities were organised by senior management. I have concluded that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction for this offence."
Mr Eaton will appear in court on June 17th 2009.  Mr. Eaton will face charges both as an individual and on behalf of the company.

Because Mr. Eaton was negligent to the safety of his company that resulted in death, he is being tried for the death of Mr. Wright. Peter Eaton was the first case of convicted corporate manslaughter.

Day 5- Auto Theft Stats

Auto theft or motor vehicle theft is characterized by someone stealing a vehicle- including automobiles, buses, motorcycles, snowmobiles or trailers- from another person.
Some methods of stealing automobiles include

• Theft of an unattended vehicle without keys- includes breaking and entering and taking the vehicle.
• Theft with access to keys- otherwise known as "Taken Without Owner's Consent".
• Opportunistic theft- taken with keys visibly present, such as idling.
• Carjacking- using threats or violence to apprehend the vehicle.
• Fraudulent Theft- agreeing to sell a vehicle without recieving money from buyer.

Generally there is two reasons why criminals steal cars- because they need transportation (either short or long term), or they will sell the parts of the vehicle for profit. According to Statistics Canada, in 2009 about 300 cars a day were stolen.

The most common stolen cars vary in price, from the Honda Civic, to the Cadillac Escalade. Although in 2010, the Honda Civic is the most stolen car in Canada- in places such as Alberta, more Fords are stolen per year versus Hondas. The top 10 stolen cars in 2010 were:

1. 2000 Honda Civic SiR 2-door
2. 1999 Honda Civic SiR 2-door
3. 2002 Cadillac Escalade 4-door 4WD   
4. 2004 Cadillac Escalade 4-door 4WD
5. 2005 Acura RSX Type S 2-door
6. 1997 Acura Integra 2-door
7. 2000 Audi S4 Quattro 4-door AWD
8. 2003 Hummer H2 4-door AWD
9. 2006 Acura RSX Type S 2-door
10. 2004 Hummer H2 4-door AWD 

Surprisingly, the most cars are stolen in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the runner up is Abbotsford, BC. The Top 10 places in Canada are:

1. Winnipeg, MB     1,714*
2. Abbotsford, BC    1,001
3. Edmonton, AB     832
4. Regina, SK          734
5. Calgary, AB         638
6. Vancouver, BC      630
7. Saskatoon, SK     615
8. Montreal, QC        600
9. London, ON          489
10. Hamilton, ON        480

*(Per 100,000 population)

There are many ways to deter thieves from stealing your vehicle. Some include doing things like:

• Always roll up your windows all the way when leaving your vehicle and lock it up.
• Don't leave keys in view or in the ignition. It only takes a moment for someone to jump in and drive away.
• Keep your vehicle registration and proof of insurance on you- don't leave them in the glove box.
• Do not leave valuable items such as laptops, sports equipment or packages in clear view. Keep them covered and out of sight.
• Try to park in a well lit, busy area.
• Get your car parts marked. This could deter thieves, as they resell car parts and this would make your car a less attractive target.
• To prevent having your car towed by thieves, park with your wheels sharply turned and use your emergency brake.
• If you park in your own private garage, make sure you lock both the garage and your car.

Day 4- Hypermasculinity and Sexual Assault

• Explain how sexual behaviour could be socialized in males. Do you think that males who commit sexual assault are "hypermasculine"? Why and where do men learn "hypermasculine" behaviour?

Hypermasculinity is a psychological term for the exaggeration of male stereotypical behavior, such as an emphasis on strength, aggression, body hair, and smell. This means that men are led to believe that they are not manly enough unless they posess these traits. Many men with these exaggerated traits are envolved with sexual assault. Scientists believe this is not just because of a desire for sex but rather of power and domineering. I believe that men with hypermasculinity are more likely to assault another person not only becuase of the way they were brought up but also it may be bred in them to take control in situations where food, shelter, things, women, or other desirable traits are envolved. Drugs and alchohol may also be factors in the violence by subduing men's ability to stop violent impulses.

The way boys are raised should definately affect the way they feel they need to be as they become adults. For example, a boy whom is raised by a hockey playing father and a basketball playing mother will likely be envolved in sports either at the request of the parents or just the exposure to it. This boy will be sorrounded by people that believe violence is good for getting what you want. On the other hand, a boy who is raised by parents that believe sports are a waste of time may be less likely to exert physical violence on another person, due to the fact that he was not exposed to this exersion himself.

The best example of scrutinized hypermasculinity would be in jails, where men are frequently sexually assaulted. When nearly all the male inmates have symptoms of hypermasculinity, it shows that this coincides with sexual assault in nearly all cases.

Phillip Garrido was a man that had continually raped and beat girls in highschool. Later in his life, he would kidnap and continually rape a girl by the name of Jaycee Duggard. She would have his children, and would be forced to live in the backyard of Phillip and his wife Nancy Bocanegra for 18 years. Phillip, prior to being arrested for the kidnap and rape of Jaycee, discussed his struggle with his own violent sexual impulses, admitting that they were "hurting his loved ones". Jaycee gave birth to 2 girls while in captvity by Garrido. Jaycee was subdued and hid in the backyard for all this time. Phillip would have been driven by his supposed "sexual impulses" to assault Jaycee. His hypermasculinity may have been fueled by a drive for power that grew due to being an outsider in school or a car accident that may have caused a brain injury in his teens. I wouldn't doubt that he also assaulted his wife, but she never came forward to this, probably due to being afraid of her husband.

Day 3- Clifford Olson and Marc Lépine

These two serial or mass murders are examples that show that Canada isn't the only North American country that has crime.

Clifford Olson reaked havoc on British Columbia in the 80's, killing many young people over a period of aroung three months. His victims varried in age, the youngest being 9 years old. His first crimes were little things like B&E's and theft, and later evolved into assault on children. He was jailed for these, and was known in prison as a "senator" or a "stoolie" because he wrote many letters honing polititians about prison conditions and he was a tattle tale- eagerly ready to tell the guards what others were doing wrong. This may be deviant behavior, because it would make the other prisonmates mad, and eventually resulted in him needing protection.

In 1981, Olson seduced Joan Hale, a woman that had survived an abusive marriage, and they had a son together. Only a few days after they were married, Olson killed Sandra Lynn Wolfsteiner, and she was the one of the first youths that he would go on to kill.

Olson had odd behavior like driving thousands of kilometers in a matter of weeks or darting throught the city as he walked- into back alleys and doing U-turns multiple times. He was often seen with young people in his car and seemed to like giving his victims beer and pills that knocked them out.


Marc Lepine was a mass murderer from Quebec who hated women. He entered a university in December, 1989 and shot down 14 women, as well as wounding another 10 women and 4 men. He had an intense feeling of hatred towards women apparantly because of the fact that they had been taking jobs away from men for many years. This may also have stemmed from having trouble with past girlfriends turning him down- his last girlfriend became pregnant which made him very happy because she was less likely to leave him. Things turned bad when Lepine’s girlfriend insisted on her right to have the pregnancy terminated - this was militant feminism if ever he heard it and  it seemed to be the last straw for Lepine.

He had trouble with being rejected all his life. It turned out that earlier in the same year, 1989, he had been rejected for a place at the University of Montreal’s engineering faculty as well as the Canadian Armed forces because they thought he was mentally unstable.

I think that Olson was a deranged man- by the time Olson was 41 years old, he had spent only four years of his adult life as a free man. Even when he was a small child he was beligerant and got into a lot of trouble. As far as I can see, his family was very normal and there was no reason to believe that his criminal behavior was caused by problems in the home.
Lepine was a sad man I believe- one too many rejections and the possibility that he was an outcast in society I believe contributed to all the murders he commited. Maybe if Lepine had more people in his life that had protected him or stood up for him, those murders may not have happened.

Although both were horrific crimes- in Olson's case I think the problem was initiated by nature- but that Lepine's case was a matter of nurture.