![]() The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime explores the complex interplay of factors involved when corporate cultures normalize lawbreaking, and when organizational behavior is pushed to unethical (and sometimes inhumane) limits. Enron.Ĭorporate crimes were once thought of as victimless offenses, but now-with billions of dollars and an increasingly global economy at stake-this is understood to be far from the truth. Gilbert Geis, University of California, Irvine Pontell, University of California, Irvine The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate CrimeĮdited by Henry N. Subsequently, it sketches a neo-functionalist approach that puts corruption in a specific social context.With respect to East/Central Europe, corruption is presented as a betrayal ofpublic trust that serves specific requirements of an emerging ``extortioniststate.'' These requirements relate to the expansion of extortion opportunitiesand their institutionalization into a semblance of a Tule of law system. This article offers first a critical discussion of both moral theories of corruption and the thesis that posits a link between corruption and democracy deficit in post-communist countries. ![]() The political structureitself creates corrupt practices that become a structural feature of transition societies. As post-communist societies move towards open market systems and corruption is no longer limited to the public sector, politics is transformed into a potent tool for illegal transactions. Moral outrage and lack of comparison distorts the understanding of the natureand politically determined functions of governmental corruption in post-communist transition. The common element for both crimes is the fact that representatives of the state abuse their power and official position for their own benefit. The debate on the differences between bribery and extortion, however, is a contested one, and has followed two lines of argument: respectively, the degree of coercion involved in the crime and the role (or modus operandi) of public officials in the bribery and extortive scheme. Extortion has often been compared with bribery, since both crimes can be defined as an unlawful conversion of properties and goods belonging to someone else for one’s own personal use and benefit. In contrast with the traditional understanding of extortion racketeering as “defining activity of organized crime,” some scholars have also focused on “extortion under the color of office,” or, in other words, extortion perpetrated by public servants or politicians in their official capacity. In economic terms, it is a transfer of value and creates no economic output. However, others contend that extortion by Mafia-type organizations should not be counted as an economic activity but rather be considered as an illegal form of taxation imposed by quasi-political groups. Some scholars argue that extortion racketeering as a Mafia crime should be defined as sale and provision of extralegal protection services-protection of property rights, dispute resolution, and enforcement of contracts. Extortion as an organized crime activity can involve both episodic extortion practices and well-rooted systemic practices over a certain territory, where the latter is usually regarded as perpetrated by Mafia-type criminal organizations. In this sense, the simplest form of extortion displays one offender who receives a one-time benefit from one victim, while the most sophisticated form is illustrated by racketeering, whereby an organized crime group systematically extorts money from multiple victims. Academic literature classifies extortive practices according to their degree of complexity and involvement of organized crime. Extortion as a crime has long attracted the interest of scholars, and much effort has been put into coining a precise definition that would allow distinguishing it from other similar predatory practices such as blackmail, bribery, coercion, and robbery.
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