SEMINAR: WALL STREET: CRIME NEVER SLEEPS

This presentation addresses the central role of investment banks in bringing about the financial crisis of 2008. It specifically addresses some of the principal reasons why to date the investment banks and their executives have not been criminally prosecuted for grossly fraudulent activity in the lead-up to the financial crisis. Some reference is made to the quite different Icelandic response to its financial crisis, and the different outcome. Specific dimensions of wrong-doing by the investment banks are identified, as are some of the key criminogenic factors which contributed to their fraudulent activity. The case is advanced that a specifically criminological analysis is needed to make sense of the financial crisis, and the crimes of banks are considered in relation to conventional crimes against banks. The prominent Goldman Sachs investment bank receives special attention here, in relation to a long history of deceptive and harmful practices, and the on-going impunity with which it has engaged in these activities. Some broader policy implications of the crimes of Wall Street are addressed in a concluding section of this presentation.