U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Speculators: Culture, Economy and the Legitimation of Deviance

NCJ Number
152628
Journal
Crime, Law and Social Change Volume: 21 Issue: 3 Dated: (1994) Pages: 229-251
Author(s)
C Stanley
Date Published
1994
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This paper continues and develops the thesis that deviant activity in financial institutions in the City of London, England has become legitimated in the sense of the failure of external regulatory controls to enforce order against the internally generated subcultural codes of practice.
Abstract
These codes have developed as a result of economic forces (the ideology of excellence in the enterprise culture) and globalization (the technological revolution). The thesis originally focused on the period 1984-89, which was characterized as Casino Capitalism. The current development of the thesis examines its continued relevance and proposes several additional supporting elements as well as examples in its use as a critique of deviant financial activity. The discussion goes beyond the usual assumptions regarding white-collar crime toward a broader framework of analysis in explaining the nature of deviant behavior in London's financial markets. 41 reference notes (Author abstract modified)