Core Values Of Equality And Social Justice In American Society

Most people, when they hear the word “crime,” think about street crime or violent crime such as murder, rape, theft, or drugs. However, there is another type of crime that has cost people their life savings, investors’ billions of dollars, and has had significant impacts of multiple lives; it is called white collar crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines white collar crime as

The book "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison" by Jeffrey H. Reiman provides a very interesting account of how the rich are being treated by the criminal justice system in a more favorable than the poorer and nonviolent criminals who are generally mistreated. Reiman started his book by stating that the recently noted decline in crime rate is skewed. This is clear in the 12th page of his book when he stated that After more than 20 years of telling us that crime was growing out of control and proposing more cops and tougher laws and more prisons, crime rates are now coming down and politicians are jumping to claim credit for the reductions" (Reiman ,p. 12).The book is a well written text that effectively examines the various harmful acts that are committed by the rich in our society. These harmful acts include bribery, medical crimes, and embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as environmental crimes such as unsafe workplaces as well as pollution among many others. Reiman's book, in its thorough analysis of the various harmful acts noted that there is a particular bias against the poor people within the American criminal justice system.He demonstrated that acts like murder, assault and theft that are committed by the poor people are treated by the criminal justice system as very serious crimes while on the other hand, other harmful acts like bribery, medical crimes, embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as

Published in 2014, Matt Taibbi’s The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap explores the topic of income inequality and its relation to the criminal justice system. The Divide is in essence trying to capture the seemingly unwritten rule that different levels of wealth produces different treatment within the criminal justice system. The Divide explores this topic is several ways, first by investigating and exposing the corrupt business practices of investment banks and bankers during the 2008 financial crisis in America and subsequent time periods. The Divide explores the end result of these crimes, which ended up crippling the American economy and defrauding the American people. According to Taibbi, the end result was that a majority of these crimes were treated like administrative violations , as oppose to criminal violations, by the Justice Department and resulted in monetary fines as punishments and almost zero criminal charges filed. On the other hand, Taibbi examines how poor Americans, often Hispanic women or African Americans, are

In Reiman’s article, “The Rich Get Richer and the Poor get Prison”, Reiman explain the truth about our criminal justice system. The system we have in place are targeting small crime like drug dealer, assault, and robbery, overshadow crimes like laundered money which is a white collar crime. Prison continue to grow in crimes I listed already while the white crimes are no where to see. The increase of the police power has grow to bring small crime in prison, “ In recent years, we have quadrupled our prison population and, in cities such as New York, allowed the police new freedom to stop and search they suspect. Watching the youtube video Treasury David S. Cohen not having an opinion on HSBC 800 million dollars in drug traffickers in Mexico,cuba,

The criminal justice system is made for two groups of people: the poor and the wealthy.

7) In criminological theories, we saw how police activity is largely geared towards minor visible crimes committed by individuals from the lower stratums of society as oppose to “white collar crimes” committed by those of higher stratums (Dubé, CRM 3701, 2011). Abolitionists argue that by severely punishing some of the poor in order to deter society from committing crimes; we are only further contributing to the inequalities in today’s society.

Seymour M. Lipset2 contends that negative traits that plague the American landscape, such as “high crime and economic inequality”, are fundamental characteristics of and are inherently linked to a capitalistic and openly admirable democratic society. Not only does American history reside in the nature for “disdain of authority”, but current American norms signal that everyone must elevate their own status and rise above the ranks, both economically and socially. In analyzing the trends of high crime, acts such as theft, narcotics production and distribution, fraud, etc. are a means to

White-collar crime poses a vexing problem for the criminal justice system (CJS). It is an

The pervasive existence of upscale criminal behavior throughout U.S. society reaches from the boardroom to the courtroom. Such perversity does not stop at the steps to state capital just because a hallowed quotation hangs over the portico. In addition, regardless of an “infotainment” culture’s fixation on street crimes, the devastating impact of “white collar” corruption deteriorates the very core of the American political and economic system. While violent crimes are serious, the institutional destructives of corruptive collusions remains callously counterproductive in extraordinary ways. It threatens the demise of the republic and hastens human regression toward eventual extinction.

White-collar crime is currently an important part of the landscape of unlawful activities, where individuals and organizations commit acts to obtain money, property, or services to avoid the payment or loss of money or services or to secure personal or business advantage. In my own words white collar criminals can be found everywhere, they are like zombies taking advantage of the criminal justice system but instead of feeding on flesh, these lawless criminal “Zombies” feed of the poor, therefore “producing social disorganization on a large scale” (p.293). This would follow by social cost, mistrust, unemployment, injuries and possible death for the hard working people of America. Sutherland unique studies of white-collar crime had a lot of controversial

The term is used to describe crimes committed by individuals of high status and social reputation during the course of their occupation (Sutherland 1940, 2). Since no discrete group of offences can be readily recognised as a ‘white-collar crime’, there is a difficulty in identifying the subject matter of this crime (Freiberg 2000, 2), producing ambiguity in the understanding of the crime and its representation in the media. This form of crime has remained a complex phenomenon for social scientists seeking to understand the reasoning behind one’s deviant behaviour (Stephenson-Burton 1995, 133), as the crime is often driven by financial greed instead of desperation. Additionally, compared to common law crimes, the area of criminal law regulating white-collar offenders is a new phenomenon that requires progressive developments as legislators respond to new threats to public safety and economic security (Moohr 2015, 120-121), hence people are less likely to be familiar of this realm of crime. The examples of white-collar offences range from embezzlement, fraud, forgery, violations against securities law and money laundering (Freiberg 2000, 2). For the purpose of this essay’s analysis, the examples are narrowed down to focus on offences such as fraud and business

Most everyone goes home after a long day of work and watches the news. Think, what is usually reported? The weather, local activities, headline news, or daily criminal activity. Shootings, stabbings, homicides, etc. are all discussed by media anchors these days. This causes most everyone in our society to become familiar with crimes that are considered street crimes. What most people don’t hear about on the news is what is considered white-collar crime, sometimes known as corporate crime. White-collar crime not only is less reported in the media but also receives weaker punishments than street crime. This paper will first discuss the similarities between the two types of crime and then explain why their punishments are strongly

Majority of convictions are witnessed in the lower classes of society involving as theft, robbery, joyriding and burglary (Muncie & McLaughlin, 2001). However, white collar crime is viewed by the society as a middle and upper classes crime. The middle and upper classes have a higher access to exploitation of health and safety laws and commit fraud but with lower conviction rate. Therefore, the society victimizes the lower classes and derives an unmerited representation of

White collar crimes are offenses that are committed by those who in positions of power in the workplace (Sullivan). These offenses can include anything from creating a monopoly to tax evasion. These crimes are typically not considered violent and, therefore, are not prosecuted as harshly. This may be due to the fact that those with wealth are able to “create their own rules”, as they have enormous amounts of influence in politics. While lawmakers create legislature to define what is criminal, police officers decide whom they can arrest, and judges decide on sentencing, those in power help to sway public elections to candidates for these positions that hold their own values in mind (Reiman). The poor, on the other hand, do not have this luxury. Those of lower socioeconomic status, especially minorities, are more likely to be arrested, more likely to serve jail time, and more likely to have longer sentences

Quinney (1964), “Because the validity of white collar crime as a form of crime has been a subject of severe controversy, the question of conceptual clarity has largely been ignored. Today, as a result, the meaning of the concept is not always clear” (p208).