Business offenders in the criminal justice process

How are various types of business offenders treated by criminal justice institutions? Focusing on a range of “crimes against consumers” under Food, Trading Standards, and Weights and Measures laws, this article concludes that a variety of interrelated factors affect agencies' enforcement tactics and the disposition of cases. The nature of the offences involved, the form of law involved and its pattern of enforcement, and the identities and types of offenders all affect the course and outcome of the process. Few neat generalizations can be made about such factors, and simple allegations of agency bias are difficult to sustain. Significant “structural advantages” do, however, work to the benefit of some classes of offenders, such as large and established businesses, and these advantages are compounded as cases move from stage to stage. There are no simple remedies available for such contrasts in treatment, but the analysis does point to the need to consider basic concepts of crime and law enforcement within their ideological contexts.