Abstract
This chapter begins by acknowledging some of the remarkable achievements in Box’s contribution to the study of corporate crime. Then, by way of a sympathetic critique, it goes on to consider a presence and an absence in Box’s chapter, arguing that each is problematic and, indeed, that each of these aspects of Box’s analysis is related to the other. By the ‘presence’ I refer to Box’s discussion around how to respond to corporate crime. In my view, while this is not without merit, Box betrays some analytical tensions if not theoretical naivety—not least through his assumptions about the potential role of ‘the state and its criminal justice system’ (ibid.: 66). Thus, the absence I go on to discuss is Box’s twin failure here to address theoretically the nature of the state and what, therefore, is meant by ‘regulation’—and both the essence and limits of this latter term. I claim that we cannot understand corporate crime without grasping its relationship to the state, not least through the nature of regulation and what it is designed to achieve. Further, these insights allow us subsequently to focus more sharply on the limits of reforms under a system of production that is dominated by corporate capital—a necessary task that Box more than glimpses but ultimately failed to follow through adequately.
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Notes
- 1.
Notably Frank Pearce, David Whyte and Gary Slapper.
- 2.
This point can be understood as the mirror image of the Miliband/Poulantzas debate (Hay 2006) about the degree to which we can say that the state (superstructures) possess autonomy from the economic base (structure).
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Acknowledgements
Many of the ideas expressed here have been developed over many years through a long, enjoyable collaboration with David Whyte, while the focus on Box specifically as well as other issues raised here have benefited from extended conversations with Joe Sim over more years than I care to remember. My thanks also go to the editors of this volume, David Scott and Joe Sim, for their enduring collegiality and in particular for their encouragement of and patience with my efforts here.
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Tombs, S. (2023). Corporate Crime, Regulation and the State. In: Scott, D.G., Sim, J. (eds) Demystifying Power, Crime and Social Harm. Critical Criminological Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46213-9_2
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