Why would individuals with respectability and high-social status engage in white-collar crime? What might we do to reduce white-collar offenses?
Individuals commit white collar crime for many reasons. One reason may be that society does not consider white collar crime as serious as regular crime. Additionally, in popular media, white collar crime is portrayed as a victimless crime that does not harm anybody. However, white collar crime is not a victimless crime and ultimately disrupts many people’s lives. Many criminals commit white collar crime because of greed, and the opportunity to get away with monetary gain.
There are many things that can be done to reduce white collar offenses. I think that we need to have more authorities that focus
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 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.
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.
White collar crimes are committed by middle of a higher status in any given occupation. These crimes often involves a validation of trust from a valued employee within a company. These crimes can include trade secrets, fraud, money laundering, identity theft, and healthcare fraud. The people committing these crimes come from a higher class and you wouldn’t thinking someone is poor would commit a crime like this in nature. The media always bring to our attention since the 1990’s about the amount of white collar crimes happening in the United States. A few large companies like Enron, Madoff, Tyco Toys and some other companies were faced with prison sentences for their greed and personal vendettas. The world as a whole started opening their eyes and seeking knowledge about corporations and private companies to understand the corruption CEO’s, lawyer, and trading companies. White collar crimes are happening more often than in previous years. The media has tried to keep the public aware of the amount of white collar crimes that are occurring and the justice systems is taking too long to address the problem. Although, white collar crimes are non-violent and doesn’t pose a direct threat like other crimes it still can cause a personal or public perception that is violent in nature. When people lose their life saving, house, cars, retirement money, and stocks it is hard to say you won’t get violent when you know this person has taken everything you own for their personal gain. Scams
"The concept of white-collar crime was certainly not invented in order to provide comfort for standard approaches to causation in criminology," (Nelken, 2007, p. 744). White-collar crime is certainly a complex issue to study from a theoretical perspective, not least because of the inherent diversity among the types of white collar crimes, among the types of white collar criminals, and among the types of victims. Certainly, the same theories that address crimes such as domestic theft and burglary can have some bearing on understanding white-collar crime. Both white-collar and other types of theft-like activities involve the deliberate breaking of laws, social codes, and norms. There may be at play similar variables such as psychopathology. Prevailing theories of crimes like burglary and domestic theft can also be applied equally as well to white-collar crime. For example, strain theory and control theory can both be relevant to the study of white-collar crime.
White-collar crimes are just as prevalent today as ordinary street crimes. Studies show that criminal acts committed by white-collar criminals continue to increase due to unforeseen opportunities presented in the corporate world, but these crimes are often overlooked or minimally publicized in reference to criminal acts on the street. Many street crimes are viewed as unnecessary, horrendous crimes because they are committed by lower class citizens, whereas white collar crimes are illegal acts committed by seemingly respectable people whose occupational roles are considered successful and often admired by many (Piquero, 2014). These views often allow white collar crimes to “slip through the cracks” and carry lesser charges or punishment.
Almost every individual has become victimized in various capacities at one point by white collar crime (Friedrichs, 2010). Due to this, victimization of white collar crime it is highly disseminated and distributed. As a result, the aspects of the victims is highly heterogeneous (Friedrichs, 2010). In addition, even though white collar crimes are serious and cause harm many types of white collar crime are not generally considered to be a crime and the individuals affected are not considered victims. Some victims of white collar crime include employees who work in unsafe and unlawful conditions, consumers who are sold unsafe and price-fixed products or consumers who are victimized by deceitful and unethical practices (Friedrichs, 2010). Victims can also be differentiated into personal victims, organizational victims and tertiary victims such as the community (Friedrichs, 2010). There is insufficient information to claim that one group of individuals is statistically more likely to become victims of white collar crime because in general an individual is less likely to know that they have
The media portrays crime as something the general public should be worried about. When the media portrays crime they focus on violent acts of crime. However, there are more harmful ways that people are breaking the law without even touching anyone. White collar crimes are crimes that are financially motivated and are committed by people who already possess money and, in most cases, power. The type of people who commit white collar crimes are not college students or gang affiliated minorities, but business professionals and people who hold significant political power. We rarely see white collar crime in the news because these professionals have access to concealment and bail money. White collar crimes are legitimate crimes and can possibly be worse than violent crimes done in the streets.
Future responses/prevention of this crime. White collar crimes have a significant impact on our lives and often times they do not receive as much attention as street crime. However, it is of great impetus that we address and recognize that white collar crimes need to be curbed, especially when corporations like VW intentionally hurt our environment and ultimately the human and animal populations. There are a variety of different responses which can be implemented to prevent crimes like the VW emission fraud case in the future.
Some white-collar crime victims never know that they have been victimized because the offenders are so believable and gain the trust of the victims (Wouters, 2010). The victims truly think that the offender actually cares about their well being, which tricks victims into giving money to fraudulent businesses, organizations, foundations, etc. (Wouters, 2010). White-collar crime occurs behind the scenes, therefore it’s not as obvious as someone committing street crime, so it may be more difficult for people to detect he or she has been a victim on white-collar crime (Wouters, 2010). People may give money to charities that seem legitimate, but in reality their money is going right into the bank account of a criminal and they may never know it
White Collar Crime is usually committed by a person of high social status and usually a business type job. Due to the person social standing their punishment usually is usually not as intense as what they should be. A white collar crime could destroy companies, families and investor. The one thing that all white collar crimes have in common is that the motivation is financial. These people are out to bring is a lot of money without
Crimes are one of the many things that all humans have in common. Whether it be a serious crime or not, everyone can commit a crime and go to jail for it. There are two types of crime that can be considered complete opposites of each other. They are white collar crimes and street crimes. White collar crimes are considered nonviolent crimes committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his/her occupation such as fraud, embezzlement, or bribery. On the other hand, street crimes are any criminal offense in a public place which can be robbery or burglary. There are many barriers proving the acceptability of one over the other. Lack of awareness, lack of education, and social class make white-collar crimes more
White collar crimes have very distinguishing features that convey a different standard than any other set of crimes that are committed within the judicial system. Consequently, these features are what make white collar crimes not only hard to identify that a crime has occurred, but also the cost and extent of the crimes. First white-collar crimes are not oblivious to those around them, unlike street crimes where you realize that a crime has been committed. Unlike a murder or burglary, the signs that a crime has been committed are seen quickly. White collar crimes like embezzlement, health care fraud, mortgage fraud may not be uncovered for an extended period if not ever. Thus, knowing the crime has been committed leads to the understanding of the perpetrators of the crime being discovered. Moreover, the alleged perpetrator of the white-collar crime has legitimate access to items involved in the crimes. Within common antisocial behavior those crimes have a perpetrator that can be identified due to the fact a crime was discovered and they don’t have a legitimate reason to be somewhere or have access to things. Even with white-collar crimes being discovered those who are perpetrating them are harder to identify due to the lapse in discovery and the understand of the complexity of the crimes. With all crimes, there is a victim to be found. However, with white-collar crimes this becomes a very complicated issue, unlike ordinary street crimes where are victim is readily
White Collar Crime has been a problem in society for several years. White collar crime is defined by the Department of Justice as "nonviolent crime for financial gain committed by means of deception" and includes fraud, forgery, and embezzlement. “White Collar Crime consists mainly of crimes committed in the workplace although they are committed outside of workplaces also. Examples include Bank Fraud, Blackmail, Bribery and Computer Fraud to name just a few.” National Check Fraud (1995/2011)
White-collar offenses that are committed within corporations and government agencies are similar to organized criminal activities by being special cases that are largely for monetary gain. They both involve a network of offenders working in concert or, on occasion, an offender acting alone. The motivations, rationalizations, and techniques for engaging in white-collar and organized crime are learned by interacting with other persons who advocate committing either form of offending. They both have offenders that typically rationally choose to engage in criminal activity, that reap the benefits of committing a crime are weighed against the rewards that are anticipated(Humphrey & Schmalleger, 2012). They tend to commit these crimes for financial