Instrumental and expressive governance: corporate and white-collar crime in contemporary society

This paper analyses the evolution and enforcement of corporate and white collar criminal liability in contemporary societies. It analyses the Irish transition from a conventional crime, sanctioning model of criminal justice to a much more sophisticated model, which combines both compliance and sanctioning approaches, in which criminal punishment is now often a last resort. It also traces the shared American and British regulatory experiences, noting common features of corporate and white collar criminal justice in these jurisdictions. The approach is thematic, exploring: the implications of increased commercialisation for regulatory reform; the fragmentation of the State monopolies in corporate criminal justice; the utilisation of regulatory crime mechanisms for instrumental purposes; increased/over-criminalisation but with criminal law as the sanction of law resort; and the politicisation of business wrongdoing as a generative force for “expressive” enforcement.