ATS3866 Crimes of the powerful

 Students examine crimes and social harms committed by powerful groups including states and corporations. The unit observes conceptual models for making sense of corporate, state and different forms of fraud and white-collar crimes. Key questions explored include: what is the extent and impacts associated with crimes of the powerful in our community? How do we determine intent and culpability where the actions of powerful agents create social harm? How are these crimes policed or regulated and prosecuted? The unit examines the relationships between government, business and criminal justice, and aims to locate the nexus of power that make these crimes possible. In order to build understandings about victimisation and prosecution outcomes, case studies are drawn upon and include financial fraud, workplace and industrial harms, environmental disasters, professional misconduct, tax avoidance and organisational and corporate crimes. Case studies assist to build understandings about the difficulties involved in defining and classifying these activities as crimes while also highlighting limitations involved in prosecuting and researching crimes of the powerful. Students will explore a range of sociological and criminological theories to explain the impacts of these crimes and document techniques involved in regulating them.