White-Collar Crime Vs White Collar Crimes

Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.

Studies on relationship between race and delinquency primarily focus on two groups, African Americans and Whites. Applicable arrest data reports that African Americans are disproportionately involved in delinquency, with larger differences for serious crimes. Recent analysis has indicated that these race differences have declined in recent years. Criticism of these studies note that crimes committed by African Americans may be more likely to come to attention of the police and that African Americans offenders are more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts. Early self-report data found little or no relationship between race and delinquency. Later self-report studies found that African Americans and whites commit similar levels of minor delinquency, while African Americans are more likely to engage in serious delinquency, but not to extent reported in arrest data. The studies attributed the discrepancy to a larger percentage of high-rate African Americans offenders than high-rate white offenders. Victimization data suggests that African Americans are more likely than whites to be both offenders and victims of violence. Race and social class explain some but not all of the factors contributing to serious delinquency (Wright and Younts, 2009).

Two professors from the University of British Columbia and the University of Michigan Law School, M. Marit Rehavi and Sonja B. Starr recently conducted a study that confirms that Black Americans receive a stricter punishment than White Americans. According to the study “Black Americans receive almost sixty percent longer prison sentences than white Americans who committed the same crime (NewsOne 1).” Dr. Rehavi and Dr. Starr gathered their data from fifty-eight thousand federal criminal cases and determined that the sentences that Black people received varied significantly from those given White people (NewsOne 2). Assistant Professor of Economics Dr.

Another cause in the spike of black inmates is the push for prisons to remain functioning and full of inmates. The U.S. has the largest incarceration rate compared to any other country in the world, and according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the majority of those imprisoned in 2006 were black citizens at approximately 4.8%, whereas Hispanic inmates make up 1.9%, and white inmates make up 0.7% ( BJS.gov). Many will argue that the reason the rate is so high is because of the lack of education/lower class status of black communities, but evidence points toward how some law enforcers racially profile or are informed to do so when suspecting criminal activity, especially so with black people.

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.

In order to understand the nature of the statistical disparity, the first aspect that must be examined is necessarily the statistics themselves. Recent data (1998) shows that more than two out of every three arrested persons are white (67.6%) and that African Americans account for only 30% of all arrests. More striking is the data adjusted per capita: African Americans are two and a half times as likely to be arrested as whites, and are even more over-represented in violent crimes, for which they are over three times as likely to be arrested. African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested in cases of robbery or murder (Walker et al., 39).

At the prosecution stage, African Americans are subject to racially biased charges and plea agreements (TLC, 2011). African Americans are less likely to have their charges dismissed or reduced or to receive any kind of alternate sentencing than their white counterparts (TLC, 2011). In the last stage, the finding of guilt and sentencing, the decisions of jurors may be affected by race (Toth et al, 2008) African Americans receive racially discriminatory sentences from judges (TLC, 2011). A New York study from 1990 to 1992 revealed one-third of minorities would have receive a lesser sentence if they were treated the same as white and there would have been a 5 percent decrease in African Americans sent to prison during that time period if they had received the same probation privileges (TLC, 2011). African Americans receive death sentences more than whites who have committed similar crimes (Toth et al, 2008). Because of the unfair treatment from the beginning to the end of the justice system there is an over represented amount of African Americans in prison (Toth et al, 2008). Some of the problems faced by African Americans in prison are gangs, racial preferences given to whites, and unfair treatment by prison guards (Toth et al, 2008).

U.S. There are more people of color, whether black, hispanic, Indian, or any other color other than white in our overcrowded prisons today. They are in there because of their street crimes and because they are minorities who get significantly higher rates of penalization. Because of their financial situation, they do not have the ability to get able attorneys to represent them. Since they don’t have able representation, they plead the way they are told and end up in prison and remain there until their sentence ends. Their plight is one that does not have much assurance because they live in high crime areas, have low income or no jobs at all, and little or no education. Living in these areas and having no form of income with little education has labeled them. This predicament unfortunately leads to crime. The punishment for the crimes of the minority races are most of the time more harsh than for the white person. If a black person harmed a white person, the penalty would be harsher than if the black person harmed another

Thomas Riggs reported inside of the Gale Encyclopedia, “Racial profiling by U.S. law enforcement agencies has resulted in higher arrest rates among African Americans.” African Americans racially are founded to be the majority in prisons. The problem becomes why are minorities left to serve time behind bars more often. An answer to this question would be non violent drug crimes are the major influence of this epidemic. From decades ago during the 80s, a new drug evolved into a popular wave that caused thousands in poverty stricken neighborhoods affected but its repercussions. The drug dealers in these neighborhoods sold the drug, crack, but soon after were arrested and sentenced to jails for unimaginable years for one incident of a crime. There are reports of African Americans being more likely to be sent to jail on the account of drugs than Caucasians. You find out that white people produce and sell the same drugs as the minority but results from facing the judicial system one race of people will have leanen consequences than the other. Systems from centuries ago are continually being implemented whether from being written or simply just because of history repeating itself with its social

While looking at the massive number of people incarcerated in the United States, it is easy to see that a major disparity presents itself when looking at the races of those incarcerated. The numbers are astonishing: “Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015” (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet”, n.d.). These questions arise: Is our criminal justice system discriminatory? Or, do minorities actually engage in more crime than whites? The statistics are clear:

There are so many more African-Americans than whites in our prisons that the difference cannot be explained by higher crime among African- Americans - racial discrimination is also at work, and it penalizes African- Americans at almost every juncture in the criminal justice system.1

It may seem that incarceration rates are high for minorities at the federal level, but the rates are even higher at the state levels. African Americans are 5.6 times, and Hispanics are 1.8 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. Young African American and Hispanic males are leading incarceration rates for robbery, drug offenses, followed by murder and nonnegligent manslaughter. Whites show a significant lower number than of the Hispanics and blacks for the violent crimes, but lead incarceration rates for rape and sexual abuse. Whites also exceeded minorities in property crime (108,560), compared to blacks (78,197) and Hispanics (38,264) (E. Ann Carson and Daniela Golinelli, 2013). The demographics show that young minority males are being incarcerated at higher rates for majority of the main crimes

It is believed that African Americans are the criminals, Caucasians are the victims, and women are too weak to even be in the system. Is this information accurate? I believe that crime should not be totally focused on minorities, although the media seems to portray it that way. There have been a lot of crime where a Caucasian was the mastermind and its workers who are African American get punished for those crimes. Society notices minorities

The 26th President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, once said “Criminality is in the ultimate analysis a greater danger to your race than any other thing can be” (Youtube). By this he means that the greatest danger to one’s race is crime. Crime will take down a race and even put a negative label on a race for all people to see. Marvin E. Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti stated that “Statistics on homicide and other assaultive crimes in the United States consistently show that Negroes have rates between four and ten times higher than Whites” (). This statement is definitely true because blacks do indeed have the highest rates of crimes committed even though Whites commit more crime. They shower higher involvement in crime than whites do. In 2013, about 660,000 crimes of interracial violence that involved blacks and whites occurred. Blacks were the perpetrators 85 percent of the time. This meant a black person was 27 times more likely to attack a white person than white person attacking a black. A Hispanic was eight times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa (The Color of Crime). With this said those being of a certain race does not determine their fate as it relates to committing a crime. Factors

There are many theories and sub-theories on why white-collar crime occurs, just as there are many theories and sub-theories on why street crime occurs. However, as with any theory dealing with sociology, there are faults as human nature is hard to define generally.