Scientific research aims to use reliable methods to produce generalizable new knowledge in order to understand the human condition and maximize human potential. The sanctity accorded to scientific research has been violated by numerous instances of research fraud, as well as deceptive and conflicted research that have seriously harmed people, subverted the evidence-base, wasted valuable resources, and undermined public trust. This deception by individuals has been fostered by the unrealistic expectations of society; facilitated by the complicity of institutions and (...) organisations; and sanctioned by the inaction of supposed gate-keepers. Re-defining misconduct as occurring on a continuum from irresponsible to fraudulent is the first step in confronting this inconvenient truth. Implementing and evaluating multiple strategies targeting systems and individuals that promote the responsible conduct of research, rather than merely exposing serious instances of misconduct by individuals, is urgently required to restore faith in the aspirations, integrity, and results of scientific research. (shrink)

Data fraud and selective reporting both present serious threats to the credibility of science. However, there remains considerable disagreement among scientists about how best to sanction data fraud, and about the ethicality of selective reporting. The public is arguably the largest stakeholder in the reproducibility of science; research is primarily paid for with public funds, and flawed science threatens the public’s welfare. Members of the public are able to make meaningful judgments about the morality of different behaviors using (...) moral intuitions. Legal scholars emphasize that to maintain legitimacy, social control policies must be developed with some consideration given to the public’s moral intuitions. Although there is a large literature on popular attitudes toward science, there is no existing evidence about public opinion on data fraud or selective reporting. We conducted two studies—a survey experiment with a nationwide convenience sample, and a follow-up survey with a representative sample of US adults —to explore community members’ judgments about the morality of data fraud and selective reporting in science. The findings show that community members make a moral distinction between data fraud and selective reporting, but overwhelmingly judge both behaviors to be immoral and deserving of punishment. Community members believe that scientists who commit data fraud or selective reporting should be fired and banned from receiving funding. For data fraud, most Americans support criminal penalties. Results from an ordered logistic regression analysis reveal few demographic and no significant partisan differences in punitiveness toward data fraud. (shrink)

The reasons for judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada on the appeal in Mabior (2012 SCC 47) fail to address or resolve a number of significant questions. The reasons acknowledge the fundamental role of sexual consent in protecting sexual autonomy, equality, and human dignity, but do not use the law of consent as a tool to assist the Court in crafting a fresh approach to the issue on appeal. Instead the Court adopts the same general approach to analysis of (...) the elements of aggravated sexual assault committed by fraud it used in 1998 in Cuerrier. Fifteen years later, it should be possible to re-conceptualize the problem in a more straightforward manner that reflects Charter values, fundamental common law principles, recent developments in sexual assault law, and the limitations and uncertainties of current HIV treatment and diagnosis. -/- Ironically, the two pronged legal test ultimately proposed by the Court -- non-disclosure of HIV-positive status and a “realistic possibility of transmission,” is likely to give false confidence to individuals who adhere to a regime of anti-retroviral treatment, use good quality latex condoms, and routinely conceal their HIV-positive status from their sexual partners. Research shows that HIV viral loads fluctuate widely in response to a myriad of factors. An inevitable consequence of reliance on the Mabior test will be accused who are shocked to find themselves charged under s. 273, charges that would not apply had they disclosed their HIV-positive status to their sexual partner(s). There are further practical consequences. Non-disclosure will tend to increase the risk of transmission because non-HIV-positive sexual partner(s) will not fully appreciate the actual hazards of improper condom use. As a direct result, careless sexual practices will be more common. And finally, the decision will not contribute to reducing the social stigma that haunts the lives of those who are HIV-positive -- even those who are skilled at deceit. That stigma will not be reduced or eliminated by a ruling that can be seen as tacitly validating stigmatization and fear by appearing to permit infected individuals to pretend they are not HIV-positive when they know or suspect this to be false. Deceit harms the human dignity of the deceived and deceiver alike, and does nothing to build authentic social trust and cohesion. For all these reasons, the problem on appeal in Mabior requires a different approach. This article proposes one. (shrink)

The issue of how to best minimize scientific misconduct remains a controversial topic among bioethicists, professors, policymakers, and attorneys. This paper suggests that harsher criminal sanctions against misconduct, better protections for whistleblowers, and the creation of due process standards for misconduct investigations are urgently needed. Although the causes of misconduct and estimates of problem remain varied, the literature suggests that scientific misconduct—fraud, fabrication, and plagiarism of scientific research—continues to damage public health and trust in science. Providing stricter (...) class='Hi'>criminal statutes against misconduct is necessary to motivate whistleblowers and deter wrongdoers, and the provision of basic due process protections is necessary for ensuring a fair and balanced misconduct investigation. (shrink)

Evasion of value added tax (VAT) is a pressing criminal justice problem; however, there still are no theoretical studies on the specific nature of this offense and the basis of its legal evaluation. This article is an attempt to explain the preconditions of the origin of this type of fraud and its connection with the Value Added Tax Law, to formulate the conceptual understanding of the offense, to reveal the important aspects of its legal evaluation and to discuss (...) relevant examples from the case-law. The preconditions of VAT fraud lie in the legal nature of tax administration and the particularity of VAT regulation creating opportunities to abuse the right of deducting the overpayment from the budget or reducing the tax payable. The system of tax crimes stipulated in the Criminal Code is not sufficient to properly assess the impact and danger of VAT fraud. The judicial practice considering VAT deception as property fraud is theoretically justified and welcome. (shrink)

Insurance claims fraud receives increasing attention in the insurance industry, in academic studies and in public policy spheres. Claims fraud is variously viewed as an economic-contractual problem, a moral-psychological problem, a moral-sociological problem or a criminal problem. This article discusses these theoretical perspectives on insurance claims fraud and reviews the empirical evidence on its nature and prevalence. Most research concludes that opportunistic soft fraud is more prevalent than planned criminal fraud, and that consumer (...) ethics, attitudes and psychology are important aspects of the insurance fraud problem. On the contrary, much of the policy focus on reducing fraud has been directed toward detecting and criminalizing fraud. In light of existing research, care must be taken in applying these approaches to address soft fraud. Greater focus on the social and psychological dimensions of insurance claims fraud may increase the success of soft fraud prevention and decrease the likelihood that the focus on fraud will impair insurance relationships. Improving such prevention efforts requires a better understanding of the various dimensions of fraud, the determinants of fraud behaviors and the relationship between fraud behavior and the institutional setting. (shrink)

In whose voice does the criminal law speak, and why does it matter? Miriam Gur-Arye argues that the answer to the first question depends on the kind of duty violated by the crime at issue. In some cases (say, election fraud or tax evasion), the criminal law speaks in the voice of the polity—but in other cases (say, murder or rape), it speaks in the voice of human beings. Or so argues Gur-Ayre. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a lot (...) depends on what one means by the voice of the criminal law. In this paper, I defend two related arguments. First, the criminal law typically claims to speak in the voice of the polity, even if, in practice, it often fails to do so. Second, where the criminal law does speak in the voice of the polity, its doing so can contribute to its own justification. (shrink)

Quite often, for one or the other purpose, the fact (or phenomenon) that does not exist is presented to the society or individuals as the real, really existing although it (the fact or phenomenon) simply does not exist in the real life. And often the term “fiction” is used to describe such phenomena. Although fiction is considered an inseparable companion of a social life, the question arises what the actual (true) fiction is and whether the use of it in (...) class='Hi'>criminal proceeding does not mean an intentional law maker’s (or the person’s applying the law) fraud, deceit directed towards the addressee of the applicable law. Fiction and its impact on criminal proceedings is analyzed in this article. Features, characterizing fiction are discussed here as well. (shrink)

Criminals targeting and exploiting older adults in online environments are of great concern. This study systematically retrieved and analyzed articles on the psychological characteristics of older adult victims of online fraud. First, we found that there was no evidence that older adults were more prevalent than other individuals of other ages among online fraud victims, and current researchers have focused more on why older adults are easy targets for fraud. Second, research on psychological factors of older adults' (...) susceptibility to online fraud has mainly focused on cognitive function, trust traits, and other personality traits, such as social loneliness, the Big Five personality traits, and self-control. Among them, most researchers claim that the cyber-cheating of older adults may be due to a decline in their cognitive function. However, there has not been a consensus on how cognitive function and physical and mental conditions affect older people who are cheated. Third, techniques and experience may be related to the susceptibility of older adults to fraud, and these studies have also not yet generated a consensus supported by reliable data. Based on the above research uncertainties, we propose that fraud prevention and control strategies for older adults should be applied with caution. (shrink)

My discussion will focus on Simester’s overall analysis of the “general part” of criminal law theory, setting aside the book’s rich and careful analyses of many specific topics. Quite rightly, in my view, Simester wishes to emphasize criminal law’s prohibitions, and their moral as well as legal importance. My criticism is that Simester runs together moral and legal categories in a way that distorts both. Simester grounds lawful punishment in a specific notion of moral culpability. In my view, (...) this moralized interpretation of the general part places the wrong sort of focus on defendants and edges victims from view. We make better sense of criminal responsibility if we focus on the state’s duty to uphold rights and to insist that no one get their way by force or fraud. This implies a more indirect concern with the moral failings that lead people to violate others’ rights. It also reminds us of an inherent danger of criminal law, one that has unfortunate echoes in the theoretical framing of the “general part”: how often it fails to do justice to victims. (shrink)

A victim of a crime may claim that the criminal must make restitution of the benefit gained at his expense. The enrichment may arise directly from the criminal act. For example, a criminal demands money with menaces or obtains Property by fraud. No legal system will allow him to retain his enrichment gained at his victim's expense. More difficult problems arise if the criminal's enrichment is an indirect enrichment, for example, if he or members of (...) his family used information relating to his criminal activities and published his story. The victim's common law claim may be defeated by such submissions as: the benefit was not gained at the plaintiff's expense or the criminal did not act wrongfully in using the information so acquired. There is also the forfeiture rule which insures, in England, that neither the legal nor beneficial title to property vests in the criminal; in contrast, in the United States, the criminal will be deemed to hold the property on constructive trust. These issues are discussed in Part I and Part II of the article respectively. Part III of the article discusses briefly the English legislation which seeks to deprive criminals of the profits of their criminal activities. An important statute, the Criminal Justice Act 1988, is not well drafted. The existence of such statutes should not exclude the possibility of a common law restitutionary claim where no confiscation order has been, or can be, made. This point is examined further in Part IV of the article, which discusses the implications of the important decision of the English Court of Appeal in Attorney-General v. Blake in 1998, where the defendants conduct amounted, not only to a breach of contract, but to a serious criminal offense. Part V of the article asks whether there should be further legislative intervention and suggests that the American statutes provide only limited guidance for the English draftsman. The nature and scope of any future English legislation must now take into account the United Kingdom Human Rights Act 1998. Its possible impact is discussed in the final Part, VI, of the article. (shrink)

This chapter is about the fate of a registration system designed for the exclusion of ‘undesirable’ Indian migrants to South Africa in the first decades of the twentieth century. It traces the bureaucracy's deployment of residence permits, but shows how these were transacted along the networks established by long-established Indian Ocean merchant houses. This illicit economy provoked important reforms in record-keeping. Yet South Africa's immigration offices remained in disarray for another 15–20 years. The gaps were filled by shrewd criminal (...) touting syndicates within the bureaucracy. More stringent record-keeping was finally in place by the mid-1920s due to help from migrant associations, although this hardly meant that insider subversion had been completely smothered. The chapter argues that South African border controls were not successfully coercive, and suggests that performative histories are important in the study of repressive registration regimes. (shrink)

While implementing Directive 2009/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009 providing for minimum standards on sanctions and measures against employers of illegally staying third country nationals (hereinafter referred to as ‘Directive’), Lithuania supplemented the Lithuanian Criminal Code with an additional Article 292-1, entitled “Labour of illegally staying third country nationals in the Republic of Lithuania”, which came into force on 6 January 2012. The author of this article aims to find out whether the (...) main goals and objectives of the Directive regarding criminal liability of the employer have been fully transposed into national law, and by using various scientific methods and the objectives of the Directive, to reveal the objective and subjective attributes of Article 292-1 of the Criminal Code. The second aim is to discuss the criteria distinguishing criminal liability from administrative liability enshrined in Article 41-3 of the Lithuanian Code of Administrative Offences, in particular that that article was not changed at the time of establishing criminal liability. The detailed scientific analysis revealed that Lithuania has essentially transposed all the basic requirements and obligations of the Directive, even though it was somewhat late (the Member States were obliged to implement the Directive by 20 July 2011, and Article 292-1 has come into force on 6 January 2012, while the Law Prohibiting Illegal Work has not yet been enacted). In addition, only four of the five criminal offences enumerated in Article 9 of the Directive have been fully implemented. The Lithuanian legislators have not established criminal liability for an infringement committed by employer using work or services of an illegally staying third country national, with the knowledge that he or she is a victim of trafficking in human beings. This infringement is partially criminalised in Articles 147-1 and 147-2 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania, but in order to punish the employer one needs either to establish one of the alternative means by which the will of the third country national has been affected (e.g. coercion, force or threat, deceit or fraud, abuse of authority or abuse of a vulnerable position and etc.), which is not required by the Directive and, in the author’s opinion, makes practical application of criminal liability in this respect rather difficult. Another problem related to the implementation of the Directive is that we still do not have the respective Law and no systemic approach exists, while in the Criminal Code none of the terms used in Article 292-1 are defined and the law enforcement authorities might encounter practical difficulties in applying that Article, in particular considering that some of the definitions could be found only in the Directive itself. Possible difficulties could arise while deciding on whether criminal or administrative liability should arise in cases of continuous or persistently repeated infringements, because in the Criminal Code this feature is defined as “for business purposes”, which is rather subjective and should be established in every single case after thorough evaluation of factual data. (shrink)

This handbook consists of essays on contemporary issues in criminal law and their theoretical underpinnings. Some of the essays deal with the relationship between morality and criminalization. Others deal with criminalization in the context of specific crimes such as fraud, blackmail, and revenge pornography. The contributors also address questions of responsible agency such as the effects of addiction or insanity, and some deal with punishment, its mode and severity, and the justness of the state’s imposition of it. These (...) chapters are authored by some of the most distinguished scholars in the fields of applied ethics, criminal law, and jurisprudence. (shrink)

Are federal prosecutions of non-federal officials for corruption likely to improve non-federal government? This essay suggests that such prosecutions can undermine the distinctive style of democracy at the state and local level, an effect that can be harmful to democracy in America overall. This conclusion rests on a larger argument about the different nature of federal and non-federal democracy in the United States. To insure that each official maintains impartial loyalty to values defined by a single, popularly accountable policymaker, the (...) federal system of bureaucratic populism strictly separates the officials’ public and private interests, through various devices such as civil service protection for executive officials, Article III life tenure, and fixed salary for federal judges, specialized training for federal officers, and conflict-of-interest rules that bar federal officers from acting when their judgment could be compromised by private interests. By contrast, participatory populism rejects this separation of the public and private spheres, instead mixing professional and lay decision-making by using thousands of part-time, under-paid executive and legislative officers who are expected to have substantial private interests in the communities that they represent. The essay argues that each style of democracy has mutually exclusive advantages and disadvantages. However, enforcement of federal anticorruption law against non-federal democracies can undermine their system of mingled private and public interests, reducing the degree to which such governments can provide laypersons with opportunities for political activity. As an illustration of the overextension of federal criminal law, I examine the First Circuit’s interpretation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1346, the federal mail fraud statute in United States v. Sawyer. Sawyer comes dangerously close to declaring that any undisclosed state or local officer’s conflict of interest constitutes a violation of § 1346 when it involves the U.S. mails. I argue that this view of § 1346 is an error. Participatory populism requires that private and public tasks be closely mingled in ways that bureaucratic populism forbids. Undoubtedly, this mixture of public and private creates a risk that public office will be used for private gain. However, it also avoids some of the bureaucratic sclerosis and lack of lay participation that can be endemic to the more centralized federal tradition. In conclusion, I suggest that federal prosecutors ought to content themselves with using § 1346 to enforce already-existing state criminal conflict-of-interest rules, for the sake of preserving a place in our federal regime for participatory populism. (shrink)

In her newest book, Alex Sharpe makes a persuasive case against the bringing of sexual offence prosecutions on the basis of “gender identity fraud”. Adopting a perspective in which queer and gender non-conforming identities are acknowledged and centred rather than doubted and dissected, Sharpe aims to destabilise the conceptual foundations upon which such prosecutions depend. In this review I place Sharpe’s contribution in its legal context, and offer an overview of her argument along with some reservations.

Eric T. Poehlman, Ph.D., was an internationally recognized, tenured professor at the University of Vermont (UVM) in Burlington when, in October 2000, a junior member of Poehlman’s laboratory became convinced that he had altered data from a study on aging volunteers from the Burlington area. This suspicion developed into one of the most significant cases of scientific misconduct in the history of the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Research Integrity (ORI), launching a US Department of (...) Justice (DOJ) civil and criminal fraud investigation and, eventually, to a much publicized guilty plea and felony conviction. In the end, Dr. Poehlman admitted to 54 findings of scientific misconduct made by the UVM and ORI, agreed to retract or correct ten of his publications and to exclude himself from federal procurement and nonprocurement transactions for life. The United States Government’s handling of this case was distinguished by a highly cooperative approach that integrated the resources of the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont (USAO) and both ORI and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in HHS in the common goal of prosecuting research fraud. (shrink)

Fraud is a pervasive and challenging problem that costs society large amounts of money. By no means all fraud is committed by ‘professional criminals’: much is done by ordinary people who indulge in small-scale opportunistic deception. In this paper, we set out to investigate when people behave dishonestly, for example by committing fraud, in an online context. We conducted three studies to investigate how the rejection of one’s efforts, operationalized in different ways, affected the amount of cheating (...) and information falsification. Study 1 demonstrated that people behave more dishonestly when rejected. Studies 2 and 3 were conducted in order to disentangle the confounding factors of the nature of the rejection and the financial rewards that are usually associated with dishonest behavior. It was demonstrated that rejection in general, rather than the nature of a rejection, caused people to behave more dishonestly. When a rejection was based on subjective grounds, dishonest behavior increased with approximately 10%, but this difference was not statistically significant. We subsequently measured whether dishonesty was driven by the financial loss associated with rejection, or emotional factors such as a desire for revenge. We found that rejected participants were just as dishonest when their cheating did not led to financial gain. However, they felt stronger emotions when there was no money involved. This seems to suggest that upon rejection, emotional involvement, especially a reduction in happiness, drives dishonest behavior more strongly than a rational cost-benefit analysis. These results indicate that rejection causes people to behave more dishonestly, specifically in online settings. Firms wishing to deter customers and employees from committing fraud may therefore benefit from transparency and clear policy guidelines, discouraging people to submit claims that are likely to be rejected. (shrink)

Moral behaviour, and more recently wisdom and prudence, are emerging as areas of interest in the study of business ethics and management. The purpose of this article is to illustrate that Cicero—lawyer, politician, orator and prolific writer, and one of the earliest experts in the field recognised the significance of moral behaviour in his society. Cicero wrote ‘Moral Duties’ (De Officiis) about 44 BC. He addressed the four cardinal virtues wisdom, justice, courage and temperance, illustrating how practical wisdom, theoretical/conceptual wisdom (...) and justice were viewed in Rome of the first century BC. ‘Moral Duties’ is a letter admonishing his son, Marcus. It refers to personal behaviour, business practice and analyses terms such as good faith and criminal fraud. In addition, it contains material which would be suitable for tutorials/seminars and discussions, particularly in the areas of critical thinking in business ethics and general management. A study of De Officiis in respect to present day management and business practice could give a wider perspective to business ethics and management students. If concepts such as moral virtue, moral propriety and moral goodness, many of which seem to be ignored in business situations today, are to be embedded in business leaders of the future, it is reasonable to expect that these qualities will be analysed and discussed by business students today. Further, a study of Cicero’s six-step approach, when preparing an address/speech, could be useful and productive for practitioners and students in this area. (shrink)

Prior to the year 2001, the phenomenon of Internet criminal fraud was not globally associated with Nigeria. Since then, however, the country had acquired a world-wide notoriety in criminal activities, especially financial scams, facilitated through the use of the Internet. This is not to say that computer-related crimes were alien to the country. It is, however, remarkable that the perpetration of cyber crimes involving Nigerians and traceable to Nigeria became so rampant that questions might be legitimately raised (...) as to why the problem became so pronounced from around that year. It is further remarkable that the attempt to launch Nigeria into the digital age coincided with the unprecedented rise in computer-related financial crimes in the country. In this paper, it is argued that the problem arose as a direct consequence of the lapses in the 2001 National Policy for Information Technology (NPFIT). The argument is based on an analysis of the various provisions of the Policy, with specific focus on the lack of proactive security provisions in it and in its subsequent implementation, in the wider context of global experiences of, and efforts to deal with, cyber security breaches as at the time of the formulation and implementation of the NPFIT. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Vice, Mental Disorder, and the Role of Underlying Pathological ProcessesNancy Nyquist Potter (bio) and Peter Zachar (bio)Keywordsresponsibility, virtue theory, cultural norms, psychopathologyThe issues discussed by John Sadler are among the most complicated in the philosophy of psychiatry, if for no other reason than that they highlight an area where disciplinary fault lines between clinical psychiatry/ psychology and philosophy seem most evident. We spent a year writing an article on (...) the relationship between the assessment of personality disorders and moral evaluations, and these fault lines became manifest not only between ourselves, but also when discussing our ideas with members of the various disciplines.Many practicing psychiatrists acknowledge that moral attributions (such as manipulativity) might be made about people with certain disorders (such as borderline personality disorder), but also find the argument that psychiatric diagnoses are moral rather than medical conditions to be a ludicrous bit of antipsychiatry in the Szaszian tradition. Philosophers, on the other hand, are less involved with these diagnostic categories in their day-to-day work and are more willing to be skeptical. Whether they are doing philosophy of psychiatry, moral theory, or sociopolitical philosophy, they are interested in digging a little bit deeper and are not impressed by arguments to the effect that—it’s obvious that these are really disorders. Being “obvious” is not a persuasive philosophical argument.The metaphysical task of determining what belongs in the category of criminality compared with other ways of sorting behavior has parallels in moral philosophy: Why is fraud, or theft, criminalized whereas (most) lying is not? Why is one set of moral norms enforceable, whereas a second set is aspirational? Does the difference involve property, where infractions of property are thought to be more serious wrongs than lying, which is “only” psychological rather than material? Are the “most serious” wrongs the ones we mark as crimes? Why is sodomy still criminalized in some areas but betraying one’s lifelong love is viewed as morally reprehensible but not criminal? Both actions are private, and only one seems to do harm—unfaithfulness—yet that is the one that is not criminalized. The point here is that, regardless of domain, our classification systems need to be justifiable, yet justification is most often mystifying. [End Page 27]The same is true for classifying mental disorders. The class of mental disorders appears to be a somewhat inconsistent collection of heterogeneous conditions and does not form a natural kind (Zachar 2000). At the most, the class of mental disorders names a family of loosely related conditions and the reasons for inclusion can shift from disorder to disorder.If the class of mental disorders does not specify an internally coherent kind akin to gold, deciding on the scope of psychiatric practice becomes an important problem. As Sadler asks, for what reasons do we classify pedophilia with schizophrenia—both as disorders—but omit sadism? This is an important question of disciplinary scope.This question of scope is itself ethically charged because, on the one hand, bringing a condition under the purview of psychiatry offers the possibility for treatment, and at least establishes the goal of improving the lives of people with specific kinds of problems. Making lives better is one of the humanistic justifications for science itself; clearly it is a raison d’être of psychiatry. On the other hand, medicalization sets up the conditions for a certain kind of social control. Hospitalization, educational services, day treatment, and disability payments are all contingent upon psychiatric diagnostic practices. These programs and the institutions that manage them are both socially available and socially prescribed. The diagnosed behaviors can now be considered to be entities, and explanations of them can be developed. New technologies for altering them will also be introduced. Such practices have been associated with dehumanization (Phillips 2009).Two important questions also need to be distinguished. The first is a question for moral philosophy—What degree of responsibility do people with putative mental disorders have for their behaviors? For example, should people with psychotic disorders or personality disorders be held responsible for crimes they commit? If so, under what conditions? Should responsibility for certain behavior be mitigated? If so, under what conditions? Moral philosophy... (shrink)

The Convention on Cybercrime (the Convention) adopted in the framework of the Council of Europe is the main international legislative tool in the fight against cybercrime. It is the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. Lithuania is among its signatory states, therefore, the provisions of the Convention have become binding on its legislator, obliging it to take all (...) necessary measures to harmonize national legal acts with the framework set out therein. The Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania (the CC) in force is the legal act establishing liability for criminal offences known as computer crimes and Internet crimes. Although the legislator of Lithuania had been combating cybercrimes since as early as 1994 by means of the amendments to the Soviet era Criminal Code of 1961, a significant effort was required to transpose the requirements of the Convention into the Lithuanian law, starting from the year 2007. The end result was not always as expected, leaving several serious gaps in the field of criminalization, which are thoroughly addressed in the article. In particular, this article deals with the topic of computer-related crimes and the legal approaches related to substantive criminal law of the Republic of Lithuania. The study is based on a comparative legal analysis of the Lithuanian CC and the Convention. (shrink)

What is our nature? : What does government do for us, and to us? -- Cooperation : lepers & pirates -- Punishment : Drop City & the utopian communes -- Justice : 1850's San Francisco & the California gold rush -- Injustice : the Attica uprising & the Batavia shipwreck -- Survival : the Inuits of King William Land & the mutineers on Pitcairn Island -- Subversion : hellships & prison camps -- Credibility : America's prohibition -- Excess : committing (...) felony murder while asleep in bed & life in prison for an air-conditioning fraud -- Failure : getting away with murder beyond a reasonable doubt -- Collapse : Escobar's Colombia -- Taking justice seriously five proposals -- Epilogue : what are they doing now? (shrink)

Following its determination of a finding of scientific misconduct the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) will seek redress for any injury sustained. Several remedies both administrative and statutory may be available depending on the strength of the evidentiary findings of the misconduct investigation. Pursuant to federal regulations administrative remedies are primarily remedial in nature and designed to protect the integrity of the affected research program, whereas statutory remedies including civil fines and criminal penalties are designed to deter and punish (...) wrongdoers. This commentary discusses the available administrative and statutory remedies in the context of a specific case, that of former University of Vermont nutrition researcher Eric Poehlman, and supplies a possible rationale for the legal result. (shrink)

We began writing the first edition of this textbook in 2006, soon after a wave of major corporate scandals had shaken the financial world. Headlines made the companies involved in these ethical scandals household names: Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, KPMG, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Salomon Smith Barney. At that time, we suggested that, in light of such significant cases of financial fraud, mismanagement, criminality, and deceit, the relevance of business ethics could no longer be questioned.

This article suggests that criminality in leaders might best be understood by ethicists as a matter of degree. Leaders may take without legitimate claim a variety of tangible or intangible goods including ideas and personal health. The extent to which any such act should be disfavoured is subject to debate. Moreover, both theft and control may be understood as continuous phenomena. Kleptocratic regimes within workplace or family may foster in people a habit of accepting similar treatment from economic and political (...) leaders at all levels. Forms of governance may be arranged on a continuum from those that serve to those that exploit their subjects. Responses to kleptocratic regimes range from acceptance through unconscious and conscious resistance to violent revolt. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence research and regulation seek to balance the benefits of innovation against any potential harms and disruption. However, one unintended consequence of the recent surge in AI research is the potential re-orientation of AI technologies to facilitate criminal acts, term in this article AI-Crime. AIC is theoretically feasible thanks to published experiments in automating fraud targeted at social media users, as well as demonstrations of AI-driven manipulation of simulated markets. However, because AIC is still a relatively young (...) and inherently interdisciplinary area—spanning socio-legal studies to formal science—there is little certainty of what an AIC future might look like. This article offers the first systematic, interdisciplinary literature analysis of the foreseeable threats of AIC, providing ethicists, policy-makers, and law enforcement organisations with a synthesis of the current problems, and a possible solution space. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper we explore how a public national media outlet, the British BBC, represents an international legal case which has a highly political nature. The case is US versus Huawei/meng Wanzhou, which took place between 2018 and 2021. Accusations were that the Chinese technology company committed fraud, leading the global HSBC bank to breach US sanctions against Iran. The charges were made by the US using what is called an ‘extraterritorial law’, which, while rejected as law by (...) governments around the world, is policed by US economic powers and control over international finance. Using Critical Discourse Analysis we show that, while the BBC presents much detail of legal process, the actual nature of the law the US uses to bring criminal charges against international companies and banks, is neither considered nor questioned. Our interest is how such a law, which has a huge influence over global trade and politics, is presented to the public in this particular case. We contribute to the position that the nature of laws, how they are used and known, must always be understood within the prevailing discourses of the moment. (shrink)

This study sets out to examine the ways Nigerian cyber-fraudsters (Yahoo-Boys) are represented in hip-hop music. The empirical basis of this article is lyrics from 18 hip-hop artists, which were subjected to a directed approach to qualitative content analysis and coded based on the moral disengagement mechanisms proposed by Bandura (1999). While results revealed that the ethics of Yahoo-Boys, as expressed by musicians, embody a range of moral disengagement mechanisms, they also shed light on the motives for the Nigerian cybercriminals' (...) actions. Further analysis revealed additional findings: “glamorization/de-glamorization of cyber-fraud” and “sex-roles-and-cultures”. Having operated within the constraint of what is currently available (a small sample size), this article has drawn attention to the notion that Yahoo-Boys and some musicians may be “birds of a feather.” Secondly, it has exposed a “hunter-and-antelope-relationship” between Yahoo-Boys and their victims. Thirdly, it has also highlighted that some ethos of law-abiding citizens is central to Yahoo-Boys’ moral enterprise. Yahoo-Boys, therefore, represent reflections of society. Arguably, given that Yahoo-Boys and singers are connected, and the oratory messages of singers may attract more followers than questioners, this study illuminates the cultural dimensions of cyber-fraud that emanate from Nigeria. In particular, insights from this study suggest that cyber-fraud researchers might look beyond traditional data sources (e.g., cyber-fraud statistics) for the empirical traces of “culture in action” that render fraudulently practices acceptable career paths for some Nigerian youths. (shrink)

First published in 1984, this book examines corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry. Based on extensive research, including interviews with 131 senior executives of pharmaceutical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico and Guatemala, the book is a major study of white-collar crime. Written in the 1980s, it covers topics such as international bribery and corruption, fraud in the testing of drugs and criminal negligence in the unsafe manufacturing of drugs. The author considers the implications (...) of his findings for a range of strategies to control corporate crime, nationally and internationally. (shrink)

The use of deception and dishonesty is widely accepted as a fact of life in policing. This paper thus defends a counterintuitive claim: Good faith is a normative foundation for the police as a political institution. Good faith is a core value of contracts, and policing is contractual in nature both broadly (as a matter of social contract theory) and narrowly (in regard to concrete encounters between law enforcement officers and the public). Given the centrality of good faith to policing, (...) dishonesty and deception on par with fraud are justified only as a narrowly circumscribed investigative tool that is constrained by institutional commitments to the fair distribution of security and the rule of law. The practical upshot is the preclusion of most dishonest and deceptive police tactics on par with fraud, leading to an institution that is less proactive and more reactive. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence research and regulation seek to balance the benefits of innovation against any potential harms and disruption. However, one unintended consequence of the recent surge in AI research is the potential re-orientation of AI technologies to facilitate criminal acts, term in this chapter AI-Crime. AIC is theoretically feasible thanks to published experiments in automating fraud targeted at social media users, as well as demonstrations of AI-driven manipulation of simulated markets. However, because AIC is still a relatively young (...) and inherently interdisciplinary area—spanning socio-legal studies to formal science—there is little certainty of what an AIC future might look like. This chapter offers the first systematic, interdisciplinary literature analysis of the foreseeable threats of AIC, providing ethicists, policy-makers, and law enforcement organisations with a synthesis of the current problems, and a possible solution space. (shrink)

This is the first book to take a comprehensive look at white collar criminal offenses from the perspective of moral and legal theory. Focussing on the way in which key white collar crimes such as fraud, perjury, false statements, obstruction of justice, bribery, extortion, blackmail, insider trading, tax evasion, and regulatory and intellectual property offenses are shaped and informed by a range of familiar, but nevertheless powerful, moral norms.

The author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, overextended government farm subsidies and zealous transit police, to show what happens when the moral systems of commerce collide with those of politics.

Corruption continues to represent a tenacious challenge to internationally active companies. According to prevailing international anti-corruption standards, a company can be held criminally liable if it does not put all necessary and reasonable organizational measures in place to prevent corruption. The regular training of employees is considered one of the most effective ways to prevent corruption. Employee training is considered helpful in efforts to minimize the risk of employees becoming involved in corrupt behavior. With this idea in mind and building (...) on the fraud triangle model and neutralization theory, this paper examines whether business professionals who have undergone anti-corruption training are more likely to reject prevailing justifications of corrupt practices than are those who have not undergone such training. The empirical analysis in this paper is based on regression models using data obtained from a unique dataset that includes 200 business professionals. The findings provide evidence that training is positively linked to the likelihood of rejecting justifications of corruption. However, the research also suggests that methods of training must become more specific in order to tackle challenging questions regarding the gray areas of ethics and compliance. (shrink)

Whistleblowers remain essential as complainants in allegations of research misconduct. Frequently internal to the research team, they are poorly protected from acts of retribution, which may deter the reporting of misconduct. In order to perform their important role, whistleblowers must be treated fairly. Draft regulations for whistleblower protection were published for public comment almost a decade ago but never issued. In the face of the growing challenge of research fraud, we suggest vigorous steps, to include: organizational responsibility to certify (...) the accuracy of research including audit, required whistleblower action in the face of imminent or grave harm to subjects, strengthened legal protections against retaliation including prompt enactment of Federal whistleblower protections and consideration of criminalizing the most egregious cases of research misconduct. (shrink)

As we write this research paper, we notice an explosion in popularity of machine learning in numerous fields (ranging from governance, education, and management to criminal justice, fraud detection, and internet of things). In this contribution, rather than focusing on any of those fields, which have been well-reviewed already, we decided to concentrate on a series of more recent applications of deep learning models and technologies that have only recently gained significant track in the relevant literature. These applications (...) are concerned with artistic production (Sect. 2.1), the writing process (Sect. 2.2), music production (Sect. 2.3), text recognition and attribution (Sect. 2.4). After reviewing and analyzing the positive contributions as well as some of the major limitations of these technologies in each of those fields, we critically reflect (Sect. 3) on how their widespread implementation may affect humans and their creativity. In Sect. 4, we notice that deep learning models are here to stay; so, rather than embracing a negative or pessimistic stance with respect to their future applications in creative domains, we suggest a balanced approach for their assessment and beneficial usage. Finally (Sect. 5), we conclude by summarising what we have achieved and by pointing out possible future research directions. (shrink)

A large number of prominent philosophers have in recent years advocated the thesis that the modern nation-state should adopt a stance of neutrality toward questions about the nature of the human good. The government, according to this way of thinking, has two proper goals, neither of which require it to make assumptions about what the constituents of a flourishing life are. First, the state must protect people against the invasion of their rights and uphold those principles of justice without which (...) there can be no stable and lasting social order. This goal is accomplished through a guarantee of basic civil liberties and the enforcement of a criminal code that prohibits murder, theft, fraud, and other widely recognized harms. Second, the state should promote the general welfare of the citizens by providing them with or helping them acquire the resources they need in order to lead lives of their own choosing. There are certain all-purpose means that people need in order to accomplish their goals—money, health, opportunities for employment—and it is legitimate for the state to pursue policies that enable citizens to acquire these goods. It may build roads, raise an army, regulate the economy, insure standards of safety, and supervise any other projects that give people the basic wherewithal they need to pursue their own ends. (shrink)

Cybercrime has increased significantly, recently, as a result of both individual and group criminal practice, and is now a threat to individuals, organisations, and democratic systems worldwide. However, cybercrime raises two main challenges for legal systems: firstly, because cybercriminals operate online, cybercrime spans beyond the boundaries of specific jurisdictions, which constrains the operation of the police and, subsequently, the conviction of the perpetrators; secondly, since cybercriminals can operate from anywhere in the world, law enforcement agencies struggle to identify the (...) origin of the communications, especially when obfuscation strategies are used, e.g. dark web fora. Nevertheless, cybercriminals inherently use language to communicate, so the linguistic analysis of suspect communications is particularly helpful in deterring cybercriminal practice. This article reports the potential of forensic translation in the fight against cybercrime. Although the term ‘forensic translation’ is typically understood as a synonym of ‘legal translation’, it is argued that the implications of forensic translation span beyond those of legal translation, to include analyses of language rights, of the right to interpretation and translation in legal procedures (in the EU), or even investigative and intelligence practices. Translation is a pervasive activity that is conducted, not only by professional translators, but also by lay speakers of language, often using machine translation systems. The ease of use of the latter makes it particularly suitable for cross-border criminal (e.g. extortion or fraud) and cybercriminal communications (e.g. cybertrespass, cyberfraud, cyberpiracy, cyberporn or child online porn, cyberviolence or cyberstalking). This article presents the results of the analysis of cybercriminal communications from a forensic translation perspective. It demonstrates that translation is frequently used to spread cybercriminal communications, and that reverse-engineering the translational procedure will assist law enforcement agencies in narrowing down their pool of suspects and, consequently, deter cybercriminal threats. (shrink)

This article introduces a series of measures of the geographical manifestation of a subset of unsolicited commercial email, i.e. spam, used to perpetrate 'advanced fee fraud'. Known as '419 spam', this activity has strong historic ties to Nigeria, where similar frauds were operated via physical letters and faxes during the 1970s and 1980s. This article's analysis reveals that 419 spam operates via a globally dispersed network that nevertheless contains a clear agglomeration of activity in West Africa. Building upon theories (...) of the intersection of cyberspace, states, and individuals, this article argues that 419 spam exemplifies the challenge offered by the Internet to the dominance of states by allowing individuals and movements to create social space that transcends borders. This process is an intriguing and ironic parallel to the description of the rise of the European nation-state as an 'imagined community' that challenged medieval systems of authority and existing social epistemologies. The emerging 'networks of imagination' developed by transnational social movements and criminal networks to define their sphere of operations present a similar challenge to the primacy of existing authority embedded in the state, particularly for states in crisis such as Nigeria. The article concludes with an examination of the off-line and online implications of 419 spam and its network of imagination for the Nigerian state and its inhabitants. Ranging from strengthening public conceptions of West Africa as a sea of corruption to a decreased ability to interact with the outside world, 419 spammers are playing an important, if illicit, role in the construction and use of Nigeria's and the world's Internet. (shrink)

Health care may be the most regulated industry in the United States, at least in terms of the volume of State and Federal laws and regulations that affect business practices. Lawyers who counsel health care clients often face a dilemma: is the client seeing legitimate advice about the legal limitations on his or her conduct, or is the client seeking to use the lawyer's skills to evade the law? The history of health care fraud prosecutions involving lawyers and other (...) professional advisors in recent years makes this an issue of more than academic interest. The well publicized case of U.S. v. Anderson, in which health care counsel faced charges as co-defendants for purported kickback violations, the recent prosecution of Ernst & Young for allegedly aiding Medicare fraud on behalf of client hospitals, and the recent indictment and conviction of an in-house lawyer in a national durable medical equipment fraud case, make clear that the wrongful use of legal advice by health care clients can lead to significant criminal and civil charges against attorneys. (shrink)

Health care may be the most regulated industry in the United States, at least in terms of the volume of State and Federal laws and regulations that affect business practices. Lawyers who counsel health care clients often face a dilemma: is the client seeing legitimate advice about the legal limitations on his or her conduct, or is the client seeking to use the lawyer's skills to evade the law? The history of health care fraud prosecutions involving lawyers and other (...) professional advisors in recent years makes this an issue of more than academic interest. The well publicized case of U.S. v. Anderson, in which health care counsel faced charges as co-defendants for purported kickback violations, the recent prosecution of Ernst & Young for allegedly aiding Medicare fraud on behalf of client hospitals, and the recent indictment and conviction of an in-house lawyer in a national durable medical equipment fraud case, make clear that the wrongful use of legal advice by health care clients can lead to significant criminal and civil charges against attorneys. (shrink)

On June 16, 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that forced administration of antipsychotic drugs to a defendant facing serious criminal charges is appropriate in order to render that defendant competent to stand trial, but only in limited circumstances. The treatment must be medically appropriate, substantially unlikely to have side effects that may undermine the fairness of the trial, and necessary to significantly further important government interests, after taking account of less-intrusive alternatives.Charles Sell, a former dentist, had a long history (...) of mental illness. He had been hospitalized twice, in 1982 and 1984, after expressing paranoid ideas to law enforcement officials. In May 1997, Sell was charged with fifty-six counts of mail fraud, six counts of Medicaid fraud, and one count of money laundering. He was released on bail after a magistrate determined that he was currently competent to stand trial. (shrink)

On June 16, 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that forced administration of antipsychotic drugs to a defendant facing serious criminal charges is appropriate in order to render that defendant competent to stand trial, but only in limited circumstances. The treatment must be medically appropriate, substantially unlikely to have side effects that may undermine the fairness of the trial, and necessary to significantly further important government interests, after taking account of less-intrusive alternatives.Charles Sell, a former dentist, had a long history (...) of mental illness. He had been hospitalized twice, in 1982 and 1984, after expressing paranoid ideas to law enforcement officials. In May 1997, Sell was charged with fifty-six counts of mail fraud, six counts of Medicaid fraud, and one count of money laundering. He was released on bail after a magistrate determined that he was currently competent to stand trial. (shrink)

Finance programs around the world have been revising their curricula following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). While much of the debate has centred on the dominance of scientific and quantitative pedagogical approaches to finance education in business schools, one of the most egregious aspects uncovered during the deleveraging of the financial system was the scale and scope of finance crime and financial fraud (including the Madoff scandal, described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history). This paper argues that those (...) “on the inside”, the professionals within the finance industry, have a central role to play in safeguarding the ethics and integrity of financial markets. It is our conjecture that prevention and earlier detection of finance crime and financial fraud may be addressed, in part, by better educating finance professionals about these issues. We posit that the enormity of illegal activity uncovered in the wake of the GFC demands, as a matter of priority, the integration of criminological and criminal justice theory into the finance curriculum. (shrink)

How do tweets reflect the long-standing disparities between the northern and southern regions of Nigeria? This study presents a qualitative analysis of Twitter users' responses (n = 101,518) to the tweets of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) regarding the production and prosecution of cybercrime. The article uses postcolonial perspectives to shed light on the legacies of British colonial efforts in Nigeria, such as the amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates in 1914. The results revealed significant discrepancies between (...) Nigeria's northern and southern regions regarding cybercriminal arrest, conviction, and sentencing. Specifically, the results showed that the EFCC's criminalization of Southerners differs substantially from that of Northerners. The contemporary manifestation of inequalities concerning the production and prosecution of cybercrime on Twitter reflects long-standing contestations (e.g., economic, political, cultural, geological) between the northern and southern parts of Nigerian society. Therefore, since the North-South divide in present-day Nigeria originated from British colonization, colonialism is the base that shaped the superstructure comprising political, religious, historical, geological (e.g., crude oil), and economic factors. In turn, the article spotlights that regional differences in educational attainment, originating from differing experiences of Christianization and colonization, interact with regional disparities in the production of cybercrime. More research is required to better understand how these contextual disparities in society interact with the production and prosecution of cybercrime, given that Nigerian cybercriminals defraud victims all over the world. (shrink)

Finance programs around the world have been revising their curricula following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). While much of the debate has centred on the dominance of scientific and quantitative pedagogical approaches to finance education in business schools, one of the most egregious aspects uncovered during the deleveraging of the financial system was the scale and scope of finance crime and financial fraud (including the Madoff scandal, described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history). This paper argues that those (...) “on the inside”, the professionals within the finance industry, have a central role to play in safeguarding the ethics and integrity of financial markets. It is our conjecture that prevention and earlier detection of finance crime and financial fraud may be addressed, in part, by better educating finance professionals about these issues. We posit that the enormity of illegal activity uncovered in the wake of the GFC demands, as a matter of priority, the integration of criminological and criminal justice theory into the finance curriculum. (shrink)

A large U.S. government investigation into arms procurement procedures with corporate contractors has recently led to guilty pleas to fraud and illegal use of classified documents. Operation Ill Wind has brought public attention to the criminal and unethical conduct of large defense contractors in their dealings with the government. This article will review how the defense contract bidding process operates and why illegal activity has been able to compromise the process. We will offer proposals to improve the process (...) in light of the present inquiry. (shrink)