Kitty Calavita

“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose”: Deregulation, Crime, and Crisis in the Savings and Loan Industry

This study examines fraud in the savings and loan industry as a case study of white-collar crime. Drawing from extensive government reports, Congressional hearings, and media accounts, the study categorizes three types of savings and loan crime and traces them to the competitive pressures unleashed by deregulation in the early 1980s, within the context of a federally protected, insured industry. In addition, the study delineates the limitations of the enforcement process, focusing on the ideological, political, and structural forces constraining regulators. Although savings and loan crime is in many respects similar to corporate crime in the manufacturing sector, a relatively new form of white-collar crime, referred to as “collective embezzlement,” permeates the thrift industry. The study links the proliferation of collective embezzlement and other forms of thrift crime, as well as the structural dilemmas that constrain the enforcement process, to the distinctive qualities of finance capitalism.

The Demise of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration: A Case Study in Symbolic Action

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, supposedly designed to protect U.S. workers on the job, was seen by many as no more than a symbolic gesture to labor when it was created in 1971. Yet it has become a major target of deregulation by the Reagan administration. This paper attempts to explain why. I suggest that while OSHA had little immediate, impact on working conditions, it did provide a vehicle for incremental gains by labor, both material and ideological. I trace the advances made by labor under OSHA and argue that attacks on the agency by the Reagan administration are an attempt to revoke those gains and erase the concessionary message of the 1970s.

White-Collar Crime in the Savings and Loan Scandal

This article elaborates on the nature and scale of white-collar crime in the savings and loan crisis. It provides an overview of the thrift industry and the impact of deregulation on opportunities for fraud. Violations are then discussed under the general headings of “unlawful risk taking,”“collective embezzlement,” and “covering up,” and similarities are noted between criminal activities of thrift operators and those of persons associated with traditional organized crime. Government enforcement issues are discussed, focusing on both statutory changes and the law in action. Finally, the article argues that future policymaking, when considering changes in regulatory structure, must take into account the criminogenic environment produced by earlier legislation.

Criminalizing white-collar misconduct

In this article we examine three explanations for the differential treatment of white-collar offenders by the legal system: (1) an organizational advantage argument in which offenders in “organizationally shielded” positions receive more lenient treatment, (2) an alternative sanctions argument in which civil sanctions replace criminal sanctions in the response to white-collar crime, and (3) a system capacity argument in which the legal response to white-collar crime is driven primarily by resources and caseload pressures. These three theoretical arguments are tested through an analysis of data on individuals suspected of having committed serious crimes against savings and loan institutions in the 1980s. We seek to determine the factors that influenced prosecutors to file criminal charges against some of these suspects and not others. We conclude that all three models may be limited in their ability to explain low rates of prosecution in cases involving white-collar crimes of the sort examined here, and suggest that these limitations may have to do with the circumscribed levels of analysis at which these explanations have been pitched.

Strangers or Friends: Principles for a New Alien Admission Policy

The immigration problem, which has been debated in the United States for over a century, is not likely to go away--least of all with the numbers of refugees and displaced and impoverished workers continuing to mount worldwide. The current bitterness and legislative stalemate over immigration policy are indications that new approaches to the issue need to be found. Removing himself from the specifics of the current congressional debate, Mark Gibney asks whether we are addressing the right questions and employing the correct criteria under our present admission practices. From a political-philosophical standpoint, the author looks at the fundamental social and moral questions that should be at the basis of any immigration policy: how do we distinguish between members and strangers, and do some strangers have more compelling claims than others for admission to this country?

RECENT WORKS ON IMMIGRATION POLICYMAKING: A REVIEW ESSAY AND AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE

The issue of immigration reform has taken a central place on the policy agendas of many Western industrialized countries in the last two decades. Coinciding with this emergence of immigration as a policymaking priority, the quantity of scholarly literature on immigration and immigration law has increased dramatically. The works reviewed here are representative of current research on immigration from a law and society perspective. The purpose of this essay is not only to provide synopses or critical reviews of these works, but to use them as a base from which to address current approaches to the study of immigration law and to suggest possibilities for future work in this area.

California's "Employer Sanctions" Legislation: Now You See It, Now You Don't

Section 2805 is added to the Labor Code to read: 2805a. No employer shall knowingly employ an alien who is not entitled to lawful residence in the United States if such employment would have an adverse effect on lawful resident workers. b. A person found guilty of a violation of subdivision (a) is punishable by a fine of not less than two hundred dollars (

Contradicciones estructurales en la política de inmigración: los casos de la Europa del Sur y de los Estados Unidos (Structural Contradictions in Immigration Policymaking: The Case of Southern Europe and the United States)

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Roberto Bergalli and Colin Sumner, eds., Social Control and Political Order: European Perspectives at the End of the Century.

Este articulo examina la contradiccion que esta en el fondo de las politicas de inmigracion italianas y espanolas entre las llamadas a la integracion y la marginalidad asociada con el estatus temporal y contingente de la inmigracion. Argumento aqui que esta tension es estructural y refleja una contradiccion subyacente en la economia politica de estas sociedades postfordistas. En la segunda parte de este articulo examino esta misma tension en la politica de inmigracion de los Estados Unidos, y exploro las formas en las que las propuestas actuales de reforma llevarian a la politica de inmigracion de este pais mas cerca de las de Espana e Italia. Hago notar que mientras que la tension entre marginalizacion de los inmigrantes e integracion ha caracterizado siempre la politica ABSTRACT

Inside the state : the bracero program, immigration, and the I.N.S.

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