Braithwaite, John (1951–)

IN 2003, John Bradford Braithwaite was a professor and federation fellow in the Law Program at Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences. Braithwaite also served as the chair of the Regulatory Institutions Network. He was educated at the University of Queensland, where he received his Ph.D. in sociology in 1977.

Braithwaite is a well-known and highly respected scholar in the field of criminology as a pioneer of new research and theories in white-collar crime. In his book, Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry (1984), Braithwaite reports: “Pharmaceutical companies face great temptations to mislead health authorities about the safety of their products. It is a make-or-break industry. Many companies get virtually all their profits from just two or three therapeutic winners. Most of the data that the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee relies upon in deciding questions of safety and efficacy is data from other countries, particularly the United States. Inquiries into scientific fraud in the United States have shown there is a substantial problem of fraud in safety testing of drugs in America, just as has been documented in Japan.”

John Braithwaite has pioneered white-collar crime research in pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

Braithwaite's other books and work focus on corporate crime and accountability, and more recently, restorative justice and responsive regulation (examinations of retribution versus restoration in corporate criminal punishment).

In addition to his position at Australian National University, he has held a number of prestigious academic and professional appointments. These include a 2001 visiting research professorship in the law school at New York University, a visiting fellowship at the American Bar Foundation, 1988–94; directorship of the Australian Federation of Consumer Organizations, 1982–84; criminologist at the Australian Institute of Criminology, 1978–82; and a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship and visiting lecturer in the University of California, Irvine, program in social ecology. He has also served as an officer or consultant to many government agencies, as well as on the editorial boards of several academic journals.

Braithwaite is the recipient of numerous academic awards and distinctions given by academic as well as practitioner-based organizations. His notable awards include the Donald R. Cressey Award for his contributions to white-collar crime education and prevention, given by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in 1988, and the Outstanding Scholarship Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, given in 1990 for his book Crime, Shame and Reintegration.

His research also related to white-collar crime has focused on the topics of corporate crime control, regulation, punishment, public policy, and compliance. His studies of industry-specific white-collar crime have focused on healthcare, including research on the nursing home and pharmaceutical industries. Apart from his distinguished research career, Braithwaite has been a valued mentor for aspiring criminologists.