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White-Collar Crime: A Key Issue In Crime Today

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White-Collar Crime: A Key Issue in Crime Today
One of the key critical issues that should be researched in 21st century criminology is corporate and white collar crime. "White-collar crime is a very broad concept that speaks generally to illegal behaviour that takes advantage of positions of professional authority and power - or simply the opportunity structures available within business - for personal or corporate gain."(Kempa, 2010:252). White-collar crime can be any form of fraud, embezzlement, trading for personal gain, trying to increase stock prices by exaggerating profits or misleading products conducted by business professionals. Unlike the more common crimes such as drug related offences, assault and possession theft white-collar crime …show more content…

White-collar crime usually takes place before law enforcement officials have time to prevent it because it is conductive secretively and during extended periods of time resulting in law enforcement official being unable to investigate without breaching privacy. "The time required to investigate a financial crime is at least as long as it took for the fraud to be prepared and executed. This situation typically dissatisfied the population, most who do not understand the basic requirement of having to prove, without any reasonable doubt, the culpability of financial criminals."(Michel, 2008: 394). This is a key issue pertaining to white-collar crime due to if the crime has already occurred the hardship to the victims has also occurred. Preventing white-collar crimes from happening can be improved by proving awareness and encouraging strong leadership among corporate business …show more content…

This can be done by raising awareness in regards to white-collar crime and establishing strong leadership among business professionals. Individuals in society have the perspective that business professionals would have no need to try and illegally obtain more money and risk their occupation and high end lifestyle because often they already have more other they need. If more public awareness is occurring then the business professional will think twice about committing corporate crimes since the public has a greater understanding. "we could prevent corporate crimes through the implementation and reinforcement of ethical leadership among the top management. It also implies to consider the ethical climate of the organization and the way an ethical organizational behaviour is defined and understood by all employees."(Dion, 2008:313). Since white-collar crime takes place in top management, implementing a system of leadership and trust among them will ensure corporate crime does not take place. This can be achieved by ensuring top business professionals are working together and not letting someone conduct such acts. If they are working as a group it will be more difficult for an individual to commit corporate

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