at the beginning of a new century, the corporate crime front is fairly quiet. In the United States, at least, political scandal and a booming economy seem to have muted criticisms of and lessened concerns about corporate malfeasance. However, the lull is bound to be short-lived. Because corporations, like people, are imperfect, there is always another Three Mile Island, Ford Pinto case, or savings-and-loan fiasco around the corner. Like these earlier cases, discovery will trigger public outrage, political opportunism, and the inevitable call for something to be done – usually ratcheting up the punishment in some way. Although this is clearly an appropriate time to launch investigations and probes into what went wrong, it is not the time to impose quick-fix solutions.

The failure of “strict” deterrence

In his critical assessment of extant regulatory policy, Peter Grabosky suggests that the road to regulatory hell is paved with good intentions. Policy failures often stem from implementation problems, bad science, and bad politics. Policies are advocated for ideological reasons and put into place absent empirical considerations or, after implementation, lacking follow-up evaluation. There is much suggestive evidence that “strict” criminalization fits this characterization. Resistance, hostility, defiance, and obfuscation have all been cited by others as evidence of counterproductive regulation. Our research shows that corporate crime control strategies based solely in a deterrence framework are unlikely to work – especially those that emphasize severe punishments instead of more certain and modest ones.