What roles do regulatory agencies play in combating occupational, organizational, and corporate crimes? What are some of the challenges faced by these agencies?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Much regulation of corporate activity takes place through federal regulatory agencies such as the FCC, ICC, and SEC. These agencies can utilize civil and criminal as well as administrative means of assuring compliance, but they seldom do. Most agencies are “outgunned” by the industries they are supposed to control, and, in fact, they are sometimes controlled by these industries. Gross characterizes this nonenforcement and kid-glove treatment of elite criminals as “the big dirty secret.”
Regulatory agencies have a number of sanctions they can use to force compliance with their orders: warnings, recalls, orders (unilateral orders, consent agreements, and decrees), injunctions, monetary penalties, and criminal penalties (Clinard & Yeager, 1980, p. 83). In addition to criminal proceedings, acts such as the Clayton Act (Section 4) permit “treble damage suits” by harmed parties. Guilty companies, with their batteries of lawyers and accountants, generally have more expertise, time, and staff to devote to defense than the Justice Department, under its Antitrust Division, has for prosecution. Indefinite delays and appeals are not uncommon.
A number of criticisms have been levied against federal regulatory agencies and their efforts against corporate crime:
1. Lacking sufficient investigative staff, the agencies often rely on the records of the very corporations they are regulating to reveal wrongdoing.
2. The criminal fines authorized by law are insignificant compared with the economic costs of corporate crime and become, in effect, a minor nuisance, a “crime tax,” a “license to steal,” but certainly not a strong deterrent.
3. Other criminal penalties such as imprisonment are rarely used and, when they are, tend to reflect a dual system of justice: Offenders are incarcerated in “country club” prisons or are treated in a far more lenient manner than traditional offenders.
4. The enforcement divisions of many regulatory agencies have been critically understaffed and cut back, as in the Reagan administration’s EPA and other agencies, to inoperable levels.
5. The top echelons of agency commissions are often filled with leaders from the very corporations or industries to be regulated, creating potential conflicts of interest.
6. Relationships between regulators and regulated are often too compatible, with some agency employees more interested in representing the interests of the corporations they are supposed to be regulating than in guaranteeing the public well-being. The factthat many retiring agency employees are hired by the formerly regulated companies lends support to this argument.