Corporations and Criminal Responsibility

This timely book looks at philosophical, cultural, and psychological factors to consider whether corporations should be made subject to criminal liability. Wells raises such issues as why it is difficult to convict a corporation of manslaughter and how corporations should best be punished. Public perceptions of transport disasters such as the capsize of The Herald of Free Enterprise are discussed, and the system of regulation and control of corporate harm is analyzed. This work will be of great interest to teachers, scholars, and advanced students of criminology, criminal law, and company law.

Gathering ideas from a wide range of literature, this book argues that there is no magic answer to corporate power, to issues of personal safety, and their inter-relationship with criminal law and justice. This edition has been revised and updated, taking account of the burgeoning scholarly literature. Yet, it remains distinctive in combining legal analysis and discussion of law reform debates with a theoretical account of the relationship between legal institutions and the role of risk and blame in shaping criminal law and the practices of the criminal justice system.

Celia Wells is professor of law at Cardiff University where she has taught and researched since 1986. In 2001 she held a visiting position as PriceWaterhouseCoopers Legal Chair in Women and the Law at the University of Sydney. Her research has mainly focused on criminal law, in particular the criminal liability of corporations (Corporations and Criminal Responsibility 1993 (OUP)). Reflecting her interest in issues of risk and blame, Celia Wells has also published Negotiating Tragedy (1995) a study of the law relating to disasters. With Nicola Lacey, she is co-author of Reconstructing Criminal Law (2nd edition 1998), a student text which draws on a wide range of contextual material and adopts an explicitly feminist perspective.

Previous appointments-University of North London 1973-5
University of Newcastle upon Tyne 1977-86
Cardiff University 1986.