United Kingdom

Invisible Crimes

Policymakers, law-enforcement officers and social scientists paid little attention to the phenomenon of white-collar crime and corporate crime until the 1970s. These crimes were invisible crimes insofar as many people were unaware that such crimes were being committed, there was little statistical data and what there was related to a handful of offenses. There was very little research into occupational and organizational crime, and responsibility for controlling such crimes was divided among a large number of agencies; controlling white-collar and corporate crime was not on the political agenda and the public was relatively unconcerned. Given the North American origins of the terms white-collar, white-collar crime, and corporate crime, it is not surprising that academic study of white-collar and corporate crime in the UK was slow to develop.

These crimes remained invisible until a series of high-profile cases pushed control of occupational and organizational crime up the political agenda. The scandals of the Lonhro, Guinness takeover of Distillers (1986); Blue Arrow share dealings (1987); Harrods takeover; the Bank of Credit and Commerce International collapse (BCCI, 1991); the posthumous discovery that Robert Maxwell misappropriated funds in the Mirror Newspaper Group pension scheme (1991); Polly Peck (1993); the hostile takeover bid for the Co-op; and the Barings Bank collapse (1995) forged the impression that financial crime was rife in the kingdom.

The sinking of the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugge, Holland (1987), the fire on the Piper Alpha oil platform in the North Sea (1988), the Lyme Regis Bay tragedy (1994), and several major train crashes, notably at Potters Bar in 2002, also drew public attention to industrial health and safety regulations. The contamination of the Camelford water supply with 20 tons of aluminum sulphide in 1988 had the same effect on British public consciousness of environmental protection.

Food crime also became of increasing concern after a series of food scares about salmonella in eggs, e. coli outbreaks in Lancashire and Lanarkshire, BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in cattle and its human variant CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease), and GM (genetically modified) food. The 2001 BSE foot-and-mouth outbreak exacerbated worries about food crime after it emerged that infected meat imported illegally into the UK might have caused the outbreak, and that illegal movements of livestock facilitated the spread of disease.

The extensive media coverage of these cases shaped public perception of the incidence of white-collar and corporate crime in the UK. The focus on the most dramatic of cases obscures petty white-collar and corporate crime that occurs more frequently. Despite the best efforts of consumer affairs programs such as the BBC Television's Watchdog, securities-trading offenses receive far less attention in the media, although British subjects are far more likely to be the victims of an unscrupulous trader than a major financier. Equally, tax evasion receives very little media coverage.

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