These are suggested questions to talk about. Do feel free, however, to discuss any aspect of the subject you like.

1. How would you visualise a typical criminal?
2. Why do you think middle-class criminals are treated more leniently?
3. What criteria should we use when choosing the punishment given for a crime?
4. Should judges take into account the loss of professional positions when they pass sentence? In other words, should criminal doctors get lighter sentences than criminal bus drivers, simply because they 'have further to fall'?
5. Do you think fraud harms the public? What about theft?
6. Why aren't the harms caused by corporate crime (e.g. environmental harms, occupational health, pharmaceutical misbranding, and so on) seen as more damaging to society than the harms caused by individuals?

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Discuss on Open2

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Questions for programme 1

We considered the culture of crime:

1. Do you consider fraud as serious as theft?
2. What circumstances might lead someone to commit a crime at work?
3. Has an employer ever asked you to do something that you knew was wrong or you felt was dangerous or unsafe? (please avoid naming individuals or organisations)

Questions for programme 2

1. Are we right to keep the police at arms length from the regulation of corporate life, or is it time that businesses had to abide by the same laws as individuals?
2. Why do you think police are unwilling to prosecute white-collar crime?
3. Should the police be the first port of call for accidents in the workplace, or the HSE?
4. Do upper class people get away with more crime than working class people?
5. What are the barriers that might prevent workers from whistleblowing on their employers when employment or environmental regulations are not being properly followed?

Content last updated: 30/10/2009

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