Criminal Law: Blue-Collar Crimes

White-collar crime generally refers to financially motivated nonviolent crimes committed by upper class individuals. It is a crime committed in the course of legitimate employment involving the abuse of an occupational role, such as fraud and bribery. Although most occupational crime is prohibited under the Criminal Code, much of it often goes undetected due to underreporting. Therefore, Bill C-21 was proposed to punish white-collar criminals more severely than before. Durkheim would argue that increasing the severity of sentences reinforces social solidarity. A Marxist would maintain that although white-collar crime is given much more attention than recent decades, white-collar criminals can typically escape the prosecution, thus proving that they can be above the law. Finally, a feminist would argue that Bill C-21 intends to punish women and men equally; however this legislation has a greater effect on men than women.

He disagreed and argued that respectable people from the upper social classes committed a great deal of harmful criminal acts in the course of their occupations and in the furtherance of their economic and business interests (Quinney, 1964). According to Sutherland (1949), upper-class criminality was ignored by the government and the general public because the perpetrators did not fit the common stereotype of the criminal. A white-collar offender is referred to as a person who commits a financially motivated nonviolent crime through a business and/or governmental job (Braithwaite, 1985). Within criminology, the term white-collar crime was clarified further by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (Quinney, 1964).

In this paper we will be exploring white collar crime and specifically credit card fraud

When it comes to talking about crime and the different treatment of white-collar and blue-collar crime, there are three different perspectives. The first perspective is the functionalist perspective. The view of functionalism is defined as “Functionalism interprets each part of society in terms of how it contributes to the stability of the whole society. Society is more than the sum of its parts; rather, each part of society is functional for the stability of the whole society.” (Crossman, 2014). Essentially, functionalists believe that society is like the Star Wars’ Force, and everything that happens in society works to bring balance to the Force. The second perspective is symbolic interaction. This theory is described as “Symbolic interaction theory analyzes society by addressing the subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviors.” (Crossman, 2015). Basically, these types of people believe that society is constructed on human interpretation. Finally, the third type of perspective is conflict theory. Crossman writes in her article, “Conflict theory states that tensions and conflicts arise when resources, status, and power are unevenly distributed between groups in society, and that these conflicts become the engine for social change.” (Crossman, 2016). They believe that when power is unbalanced, it will become controlled by those in higher classes, and dominate those in lower classes through different parts of society.

Edwin H. Sutherland is given credit for introducing the term white collar crime during the late 1930’s. However, in today’s times there is still confusion on the specific definition of what qualifies as a white collar crime and how it should be defined. In addition, there are key differences between conventional crimes and white collar crime in age, race, class, and other various factors. The media has added to these differences by portraying these two crimes quite differently. In regards to Sutherland, I found his study on 70 of the largest U.S. manufacturing, mining, and mercantile corporations and their wrongdoings. Sutherlands study confirmed that 97 percent of these corporations were criminal recidivists. Yet, in these corporations view

In his article, Edwin H. Sutherland examines “white-collar crimes.” Sutherland first starts the article off by defining what exactly is a “crime.” Sutherland goes on to describe and discuss the antitrust laws. Next, he describes the Sherman Antitrust Act, and that it states that any violation of the law is a misdemeanor. Then, he discusses the three methods that are used to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act. He then goes on to explain the laws regarding infringements of the law. He also discusses the law in regard to financial manipulations. He goes on to discuss the stigma on white-collar crimes and juvenile delinquency. He the discusses the laws for business regulations, and the consequences in violating this laws. Next, he explains the three

ccording to Conklin (2013), white-collar crime is an unlawful act that is occurs during a legitimate occupation or venture by a corporation or an otherwise reputable person of great social prominence that is punishable by a criminal sanction. In the example of Wayne Baker and Robert Faulkner’s (1993) analysis of three price-fixing conspiracies, white-collar criminals will at times create arrangements within or across formal organizations for purposes of effectively executing an unlawful act. For example, insider trading occurs when someone within an organization utilizes nonpublic information for gain for individual or organization gain, and is difficult to police attributable to the complexity of inter-organizational networks (Conklin, 2013).

Currently, white collar crime is one of forms of crime that legal authorities are constantly combating. According to Hasnas (2004), a white collar crime is a non-violent crime committed by someone, especially to achieve financial realisation through deceit. The term “white collar crime” was coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 defining it as “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation” (p. 579). This crime is usually brought to the attention of the police and other relevant authorities from information acquired from whistle blowers, auditors or forensic accountants. Perpetrators of this crime are mostly managers, executives or even office workers.

Throughout history, many academics have proposed various theories to help comprehend and explain criminal behaviours. These theories investigate many different aspects of the causations of crime and those at risk of criminal behaviour. White collar crime is a term founded less than a century ago within 1939 by Edwin Sutherland. He identified white collar crime as "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (Hirschi, 1987, pg 953). Sutherland strived to explain all types of crimes. He proposed that crime occurred beyond the streets, within the business and politic realm. White collar crimes differ heavily from street crime, as they are nonviolent acts committed by those in a state

In 1939, American sociologist Edwin Sutherland introduced the phrase “white-collar crime”. White-collar crime is a nonviolent crime committed by a business or large corporations. They are usually scams or frauds to gain wealth in society. The people who are guilty of this crime lie, cheat and steal from investors of their company or business. Even though these crimes are non-violent, they have major impacts on the society. Their companies become non existent and families get destroyed. All of their life savings and savings for their children get taken away, and they become bankrupt. Not only does it affect their families, the investors who believed in their business lose millions or even billions of dollars.

White-collar crimes can occur at any occupational level and affects all parts of society, from big businesses to individuals. Some associate the definition of white-collar crime mainly to economic crime, but others include corporate crimes like environmental law violations and health and safety law violations (Barnett, 1999). It is interesting to note that corporate crimes such as environmental pollution typically involve corporate personnel on various levels for purposes of implementation, from CEOs to low level workers (Payne, 2013). Overall this project will deal with environmental and white-collar crime outlining the similarities and differences between those.

10). White-collar and corporate crimes are viewed differently because street crimes are committed by confronting or entering the victims’ property while white collar and corporate crimes are committed through the use of deceit, exploitation, and illicit advantages of legitimate organizations (Cambridge University, n.d., p.5). In addition, white-collar crimes do not cause the scale of financial loss like corporate crimes because corporate crimes can affect a larger number of people on an economic level (Cambridge University, n.d., p.

White-Collar Crime consists of occupational crime and corporate crime. Occupational crime refers to offences committed against legitimate institutions businesses or government by those with "respectable" social status. It includes the embezzlement of corporate funds, tax evasion, computer crime and expense-account fraud. It is not every day that we hear about white-collar crimes but these non-violent crimes are on the rise to the top. Federal Bureau of Investigation states that USA, for example recorded white collar crimes amounting $300 billion every year (Cornell University, 2010). White-collar crime is relatively a new idea. It has many aspects that are practical for study and further interpretation to clear some of its dark areas. White-Collar Crime was once introduced by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 during his speech in American Sociological Society. The following crimes actually performed are Bribery, Extortion, Insurance, Fraud, Embezzlement, Cybercrime etc. People who participate in these criminal activities are highly powerful and respectful among the society. The following activities include description about White-collar Crime, Investigation of White Collar Crime and The Consequences of committing a White-collar Crime.

This paper will discuss the many various aspects of White Collar Crime. It will show how whether White Collar crime differs from other types of crime. It will show how to justify white collar crimes compared to all types of other crimes committed. It will show how and why White collar criminals receive more lenient penalties then criminals who commit crimes such as murder, robbery, vandalism. It will show why White collar criminals receive more media coverage then other criminals. Many areas will be covered in this report. It will be discussed in multiple areas. There are many examples which will show the differences form white collar to all other crimes. What are some of the statistics of White collar compared to other crimes being committed?

Friedrichs’ used Gary Green’s theory to explain white-collar crime. Green described occupational crime into four types; Organizational Occupational Crime, State Authority Occupational Crime, Professional Occupational Crime, and Individual Occupational Crime. Organizational Occupational Crime is comparable to corporate crimes. Using legitimate employment in an organization as an opportunity for crime. The crime is usually environmental pollution because it involved with the corporate personnel with different levels of implementation to have