White Collar Crime By Edwin Sutherland Essay

In a looking glass of a sociologist, we can see white collar crime in our everyday world. When it presents itself; the victims are left hurt and the rest in awe of their awful actions. White Collar Crime is defined as “White collar crime overlaps with corporate crime because the opportunity for fraud, bribery, insider trading, embezzlement, computer crime, and forgery is more available to white-collar employees.” stated by James Henslin. White Collar Crime can be seen in the Libor Scandal, as a prime example.

White collar crime, as a rule, is less visible than conventional crime. A white collar crime, by definition, is a non-violent act involving deception, typically committed by a business person or public official. lawyershop.com

White Collar crime is not a crime unto it self, but instead a criteria that has to be met in order for a crime to be considered as White- Collar Crime; (Blount, 2002) hence the reason why Corporate Crime is also considered as White- Collar Crime. At the same time, White Collar Crime and Corporate Crime can be seen as distinct criminological categories, however, in order to reveal this, this essay will firstly be exploring Sutherland's definition of white collar crime and the perplexity with this definition of white-collar crime. It will then be looking at the modification which had to take place with Sutherland's definition of white-collar crime in order to established a distinction between white-collar and corporate crime.

White collar crime is often associated with crimes committed within businesses. These include different forms of fraud such as tax fraud, welfare fraud, money laundering, and property crime (Simpson & Benson, 2009: 42). These forms of white collar crime often have a huge impact on the welfare of the society in profound ways. For instance, according to an article authored by McGrath, a company that suffers losses from fraud must make up for this loss by for example raising the prices of its products. Hikes in prices would mean that consumers would be required to dig dipper into their pockets thus affecting their finances. The loss from fraud could also make the affected company to take drastic measures such as layoffs or implementing salary cuts for the employees (McGrath, n.d).

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

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

White-collar crime is defined as the financial motivations of non-violent crimes that are committed by professionals of business and those of the government. In the field of criminology, Edwin Suthelan (1939), a socialist who was the first person to define white-collar crime as a crime that respectable and those people of higher social status commit. The crimes include those associated with fraud, bribery, embezzlement, cybercrime, money laundering, theft of the identity and many more crimes that are nonviolent. For the white collar crimes, the offenses committed should produce some gains financially. The crimes are thereby committed by those persons holding various positions in businesses or organizations, and it is because of this position they can gain access to amounts of huge money that they get from the people like customers with whom they serve. The criminals involved are not caught in activities that are violent, involved in drug issues or illegal activities.

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.

This is opposed to strain theory which argues that social and personal strain “force the hand” of individuals and cause them to commit crimes. However, the weakness of this theory in regards to white-collar crime is the question of why those who've already gained financial success wish to seek more of it through illegitimate ways, particularly if they earned their initial success in a legal manner.

In this day and age, a corporation, family, or individual always has a potential risk of encountering fraud within their money supply. On average, fraud and abuse costs U.S. organizations more than $400 billion annually (Federal Bureau Investigation, 2010). Many may think that white collared crime is only money laundering or stealing, but that is only two out of the sum that countless culprits get away with. The term “white-collar crime,” originally coined in 1939 is synonymous with the full range of frauds committed by business and government professionals (Federal Bureau Investigation, 2010). These frauds include anything from bankruptcy fraud, money laundering, identity theft, corporate fraud to a wide number of threats all circling

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.

In this paper the exciting criminal phenomenon known as white-collar crime will be discussed. Corporate Crime and Computer Crime will be discussed in detail. Crime preventative agencies such as the NCPC (National Crime Prevention Council) will also be researched. White Collar Crime The late Professor Edwin Sutherland coined the term white-collar crime about 1941. Sutherland defined white-collar crime as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (Siegel 337) White-collar crime includes, by way of example, such acts as promulgating false or misleading advertising, illegal exploitation of employees, mislabeling of goods, violation of weights and measures statutes, conspiring to

In this paper the exciting criminal phenomenon known as white-collar crime will be discussed. Corporate Crime and Computer Crime will be discussed in detail. Crime preventative agencies such as the NCPC (National Crime Prevention Council) will also be researched. White Collar Crime The late Professor Edwin Sutherland coined the term white-collar crime about 1941. Sutherland defined white-collar crime as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (Siegel 337) White-collar crime includes, by way of example, such acts as promulgating false or misleading advertising, illegal exploitation of employees, mislabeling of goods, violation of weights and measures statutes, conspiring to

White Collar Crime by Edwin Sutherland, published in 1949, is a study in the theory of criminal behaviour. Sutherland states that this book is an attempt to reform the theory of criminal behaviour only, not to reform anything else. And although it may include implications for social reforms, this is not the objective of the book. Sutherland define white collar crime as ‘a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation’ (pp. 9). He adds that it excludes many crimes of the upper class, such as murder, intoxication, and adultery, because these are not usually part of their occupational procedures. He goes on to describe white collar crime as being similar to juvenile delinquency in the sense of the stigma generated from each crime. In both of these crimes the procedures of criminal law are altered so as not to attach stigma to the offenders. Finally, Sutherland writes that crimes are committed across all social classes, not just people in lower classes or living in poverty, contrary to popular belief at the time of publication.

In the twentieth century, White Collar and Organized Crimes have attracted the attention of the U.S. Criminal Justice System due to the greater cost to society than most normal street crime. Even with the new attention by the Criminal Justice System, both are still pretty unknown to the general public. Although we know it occurs, due to the lack of coverage and information, society does not realize the extent of these crimes or the impact. White Collar and Organized is generally crime committed by someone that is considered respectable and has a high social status. The crimes committed usually consist of fraud, insider trading, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft or forgery. One