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.