Book Reviews : The Crimes Women Commit, The Punishments They Receive by Rita J. Simon and Jean Landis. Lexington Books, 1991

• DOI: 10.1177/088740349100500107
• Date: 01 March 1991
• Published date: 01 March 1991
• Subject Matter: Articles

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penalties than the general criminal population, to allocate penalties based
primarily on this fact would be unlikely to have an overall crime control benefit.
While Schlegel’s basic argument here follows earlier contributions such as
that made by Andrew Von Hirsch, his discussion provides a clear and concise
description of desert principles. Moreover, he moves quickly to what is a new
problem not covered by others. How can we apply concepts of retribution and
punishment (the basic tenets of desert theory) to &dquo;soulless&dquo; corporations? Can
we
expect corporations to have a conscience when, as the First Baron Thurlow
notes, they have &dquo;no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked.&dquo; Schlegel’s
answer is presented as the rest of his book, with careful citation to the major
theoretical and empirical works on white collar and corporate crime. In but one
aspect of his argument, Schlegel does locate purpose and conscience in the
corporation in &dquo;internal decision structures.&dquo; Through memos and policy
statements it is possible to identify whether and to what extent a corporation
acted with knowledge and purpose in carrying out illegal acts.
After staking out the position that such concerns as blameworthiness and
culpability can be applied to corporations, Schlegel spends the rest of his book
detailing the complexities of developing desert principles in corporate cases.
He tackles such difficult issues as assessing harm in contexts where levels of
damage are great but often diffuse across large populations or areas. His
discussion of the problem of defining appropriate punishments for corporate
crime is particularly interesting. As he notes, there is considerable variation in
the capacity of corporate entities to endure harsh treatment. This leads him to
discuss a variety of ways of imposing sanctions as well as a wide range of
potential sanctions that are available in corporate cases. While this discussion
provides much food for thought, the reader is likely to wonder at what point
principles of desert are violated by attention to the particular attributes and
resources of
organizational defendants.
Schlegel’s book is well written and will be a useful addition to the library
of both scholars concerned with sentencing and white...