Ford Pinto and Corporate Crime

Experts on corporate crime such as David O. Friedrichs (1996) used to lament the lack of attention given to white collar crime. This was due to the mistaken assumption that unlike violent street crimes, white collar crimes were victimless and therefore, less harmful.

However, recent events such as the recent Firestone tire blowouts, the rollover of Ford's rollover vehicles and Enron Company's padding of profits and Arthur Anderson's creative accounting practices have generated new interest in white collar crime. The growing litigiousness of the American public and media coverage generated by product failures have likewise put more attention on what Rosoff, Pontell and Tillman (2002) label as "the other crime problem."

Friedrichs (1997) identifies three major types of white collar crime - government crime, occupational crime and finally, corporate crime.

This paper focuses on the issue of corporate crime through a close examination of the...
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