An overhaul of the crime and justice systems is now pertinent |
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By Sharon Hartles - 7th October 2018
Continuous preventable social murders, at best, are prosecuted under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 and at worst, are not even recognised as crimes at all. De-regulation of health and safely law, together with the dilution of criminal law (re-categorised as regulatory law) has led to state-corporate crimes becoming normalised, passed off as a side effect of business activity and in the main accepted.
State-Corporate crimes are more commonly circulated and repackaged by the mainstream mass-media in terms of: disasters, tragedies, accidents, work-based injuries and work-based deaths. These red herring labels divert the attention from the real issue - crimes of the powerful elite.
White-collar crimes are permitted or not prohibited by crime and justice systems (black letter law/administrative law). In the few instances where the powerful elite have been accused of alleged crimes/harms - the concept of whiter than white-collar crimes render their harms 'perfectly legal or at least not expressly illegal', thus revealing how they use the 'letter of the law to defeat its spirit'.
If all else fails, the de-regulation of accountability/responsibility in the form of section 18 (of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007) ensures that the crimes of the powerful are merely neutralised. Recompense is symbolic, since sanctions take the form of fines. A slap on the wrist for causing countless premature deaths, social harms and environmental damage, (their outings to court are nothing more than an inconvenient day out).
To sum up, an overhaul of the crime and justice systems, both locally and globally, are pertinent. It must no longer be constructed to best fit the interests and ideologies of a patriarchal, neo-liberal 'few'. Instead, the crime and justice systems should move away from its 17th century roots, radically embrace and welcome 21st century reform.
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Please cite this article as:
Hartles, S (2018) An overhaul of the crime and justice systems is now pertinent [Online] Available at https://sharonhartles.weebly.com/an-overhaul-of-the-crime-and-justice-systems-is-now-pertinent.html (Accessed)
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© Sharon Hartles 2025
