This research paper discusses various facets of structural and elite crime based on the readings contained in Corporate and Governmental Deviance by M. David Ermann and Richard J. Lundman.
1. Victims of Structural and Elite Crime. Victims of structural and elite crime cover a wide gamut. The most obvious victims of many crimes committed by large corporations are customers whose health or economic wellbeing are thereby adversely effected. A good example of customer victims were the purchasers of Ford Pintos in the 1970s which were killed or injured in fires arising out of rear end collisions as a result of defectively designed fuel tanks. Another was the women who suffered death or illness toxic shock syndrome after using Rely Tampons containing dangerous synthetic substances which were produced by Procter & Gamble in the 70s. Sometimes the damages to consumers take the form of higher prices such as occurred as a result of the price-fixing conspiracies in which were General Electric, Westinghouse and others were engaged before the 1960s.
Other victims of corporate crime include innocent persons such as the Indians killed or injured by the explosion in 1984 of Union Carbide's Bhopal plant which spread toxic liquid methyl isocyanate over a broad area. Employees who were unable to flee because of inadequate exits and sprinkler systems were the victims of the fire which occurred in 1991 at the Imperial Food plant in North Carolina. Employees and anyone else who came into prolonged contact with Johns-Manville's asbestos fibers ran the risk of contracting fatal and otherwise serious diseases. Corporate crimes such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in the late 1980s in Alaska's Prince William Sound affected not only humans who were subjected to its adverse environmental effects but birds, animals and marine life as well as the ecology of the region. Victims of Gulf Oil's illegal political contributions included the corrupted politicians w...