The year 2000 signaled to the world the beginning of a new age. While previously the world had begun to accept technology it was not until the early millennia that it had become a mandatory part of our lives. With this blossoming of new technology came the peak of a newer type a crime in which the rich would steal from the poor and give to themselves. White collar crimes are still only a century old, and yet have become one of the most devastating types of crimes committed. They not only affect the victims that are stolen from, but also the lives of the people who would be removed from their job when the scandal is found out. This is what happened early in the millennia with the Enron corporation and the scandals that were put forth but its operators.
White Collar crime has been a hot topic since the 20th century. Edwin Sutherland introduced the term at the fourth annual meeting of the Sociological Association. At this meeting he explained who this type of criminal is and what the criminal does for a living. Sutherland developed a theory to try and fit this type of criminal. The theory is differential association. There are four different pieces of evidence to understand the theory. White collar crime ranges from Embezzlement to Mortgage Fraud. This paper will explain several incidents which are involved with white collar crime and how it hurts many individuals from families to businesses. The sentencing guidelines help convict criminals. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act helped add on top of the
The following case is one of the most famous white-collar crime cases known to date. Enron Corporation was an American energy company based out of Houston, Texas. Kenneth Lay formed Enron in 1985 after a huge merger. Over time Enron’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and other corporate executives misled auditors and the board of directors in major financial transactions. Thus, $11 million dollars was lost by shareholders after Enron’s stocks dramatically fell in the end of 2001. Enron was then bankrupt. In this case, many Enron executives were sentenced to prison, a rare punishment for white-collar crime. As a result of this incident, the Sarbanes- Oxley Act was enacted. This act ensured that there would be
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).
Summary: White-collar crime can be represented by highly educated people in position of power, trust, respectability and responsibility within a business or organization. A great example of these type of people are; corporate executives, government employees, doctors or any individual that work or manipulate any kind of monetary business as banks or loan firms. The article relate how some big companies can get away with white-collar crime, just for the fact that big companies has the power to overdue their misconduct, by paying a large amount of money to the system, and still go back to business like nothing happens. This
While reading Democracy for the Few, I agreed with some main points Parenti was making. White-collar crime did go unnoticed for a long time. I was stunned to see how many huge companies like Ford and General Motors were never penalized for contributing vehicles and supplies to the Nazi military during World War II. Over the recent years it seems like white-collar crime is not sneaking away without punishment. People are going to jail for their fraud and embezzlement crimes, we have all seen about it on the news. The reason it is not going unnoticed now is because it has gotten so much media attention. Just because we have seen certain high profile cases, companies, and business people get caught and punished for their white-collar crimes in
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
White collar crime has been around for ages. Today more and more news stories can be found where the elite, the top executives of fortune 500 companies, are being prosecuted for participating in illegal activities. It was hoped that the passing of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2001 after the Enron debacle would reduce the amount of illegal acts being committed in corporate America. The Sarbanes Oxley act makes executives personally responsible for their activities requiring top management to sign off on financial statements stating they are true and accurate and these executives can face jail time for committing fraudulent acts. Unfortunately, immorality in business is still running rampant. One illegal practice we see happening in
In this chapters controversial issue, the author looks at if white-collar criminals are under prosecuted. Across the United States there a number of crimes that are committed which are considered white collar. One example is when Bernard Madoff defrauded investors of 50 billion dollars in the largest Ponzi Scheme that has ever happened in American History. Another example is the John Rigas and his son were convicted of fraud when they used millions of corporate dollars for personal use. The term white-collar is used when a person of higher economic status commits a crime. However, the public remains relatively indifferent to white-collar crimes. There are allegations that white-collar crimes are under prosecuted. At the local level, offices
In this article, Apuzzo and Protess outline the new strategy set out by the Justice Department to target white-collar crime. Up until now, they indicate that there has been very few executives that have been charged with crimes for their role in the housing scandal and other economic scandals that lead up to the previous recession. The new strategy, headed by the new Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Deputy Attorney General Suzy Yates, encourages corporations to turn over their executives and settle it as a civil case instead of blaming a low-level employee and possibly face criminal charges and heavy fines.
When I say white collar crime a few ideas usually will fill the average persons head. Many will immediately think of Bernie Madoff. This scumbag ran a ponzie scheme spanning multiple decades and made over 60 billion dollars in the process. He was eventually caught and thankfully is spending the rest of his natural born life in prison. Someone might also think of Martha Stewart. Martha, to the surprise of her fans, was much more than that loveable women on the home shopping network or the cooking channel. Martha was caught committing an act called insider trading. According to (The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), insider trading is when an individual has knowledge not known to the public about what is going to occur within a company
Of the $600 million that was stolen, Kozlowski and Swartz used the money for personal purchases, such as paying for an expensive apartment located on Park Avenue, houses in Boca Raton, Florida, which is a very wealthy location, and high-end jewelry (Sorkin, 2002). There was also an occurrence of Kozlowski hosting a birthday party for his wife that cost millions, and even having Tyco pay for half of the tab (Sorkin, 2002). The party was located on an island in Italy called Sardinia (Sorkin, 2002). It’s not surprising that the two men used the money they stole to buy luxurious items, but if it’s apparent to others that the cost of all the purchases don’t exactly match their salary people are going to become suspicious (Sorkin, 2002). Kozlowski
In a criminal lawsuit the Corporation can be sued, but the criminality falls to the bodies involved in the criminal activity at the company. Two significant criminal cases of criminal activities in this last century involved several executives, specifically the CEOs of Enron (2001) and MCI (2002) where criminal charges were brought against these leaders for fraudulent accounting practices. In Enron’s case $74 billion was lost in shareholder’s value, thousands of employee jobs, retirement accounts was lost and the company is no longer in existence. Two CEOS, Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay were convicted of 24 years of jail time. In the case of MCI/WorldCom, the company inflated profits by $11 billion, which resorted in $18 billion lost to investors, 30,000 jobs were lost. Bernie Ebbers MCI’s CEO was sentenced to 25 years in jail. These two criminal cases, created the greatest change in business regulations since 1930 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was put into place to protect investors from the possibility of fraudulent accounting activities by corporations. The SOX Act mandated strict reforms to improve financial disclosures from corporations and prevent accounting fraud.
In crimes that are related to business, it's not always the employees of those businesses that that stray away from their morals, and greed overcomes their judgment. On May 19th 2014, a Brooklyn, N.Y., man was sentenced to state prison for orchestrating a bank fraud system with at least two defendants. The defendants in this case were found to be impersonating people to whom are holders of legitimate business bank accounts. In their scheme, they were able to steal more than half a million dollars.