The Pros And Cons Of White-Collar Crimes

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

What is a White Collar crime? It’s a crime that is committed in high business positions, but it can be

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

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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

Unfortunately for the 99%, the lower class is at greater risk for incarceration than the financially elite - regardless of the virtually non-existent gap between the socio-economic crime rates. It all comes down to money; the upper-class have more of it and, subsequently, more access to education and legal aid, giving them the tools to evade persecution. Although a life of extreme poverty can place greater emphasis on survival rather than morals, leading to increased crime and incarceration rates, the affluent are just as likely to commit crime, just less likely to be vilified and jailed for it.

A white-collar crime by definition is a crime that is committed by individuals of higher status. It is not necessarily a violent crime, but could be depending on the situation. An individual who works in a professional environment, such as the government or corporation tend to take advantage of employees and manipulate them into thinking their practices are legitimate. Some examples, of white-collar crimes include fraud, embezzlement, insider trading, and other various crimes. However, individuals who involve them selves in drugs or stealing someone’s personal possessions commit street crime. For example, it tends to be violent depending on the situation and it usually happens in a public place or

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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.

Lifestyle of peasants in medieval Europe was tremendously challenging. Seeing that, they were at the bottom of the European feudal system that foresaw peasants as the main working force. During the Middle Ages the concrete structure of the society classified individuals from the moment they were born. Which resulted in, no significant changes attributed to the work one was able to endure. Meanwhile; homes, clothing, food and marriage were the prominent contributors that determined your status/class. For means of survival peasants worked extremely long hours each day to obtain the basic necessities of; food, shelter and clothing. Most peasants were farmers however, a select few were Tradesmen who work as Miller's or in the tavern establishment. Peasants obeyed their local Lord swearing an “oath of obedience” on the Bible. This ensured to peasants loyalty and commitment to a Lord, in aspirations of producing goods and other fineries.

He disagreed and argued that respectable people from the upper social classes committed a great deal of harmful criminal acts in the course of their occupations and in the furtherance of their economic and business interests (Quinney, 1964). According to Sutherland (1949), upper-class criminality was ignored by the government and the general public because the perpetrators did not fit the common stereotype of the criminal. A white-collar offender is referred to as a person who commits a financially motivated nonviolent crime through a business and/or governmental job (Braithwaite, 1985). Within criminology, the term white-collar crime was clarified further by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (Quinney, 1964).

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.

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 has been recognized as something that is an issue since 1939 when it was brought up in a political meeting by Edwin Sutherland. Sutherland was interested in the fact that people of the working class were not being noticed for the crimes that some of them are involved in. The concern was that the criminal activity that was being addressed during this time were predominantly trivial crimes. While they were getting all the attention while corporate criminals were going virtually undetected. The definition Sutherland attached to these criminals was centered on the varieties of crimes that they committed. White Collar crime is defined as a criminal act perpetrated

Quinney (1964), “Because the validity of white collar crime as a form of crime has been a subject of severe controversy, the question of conceptual clarity has largely been ignored. Today, as a result, the meaning of the concept is not always clear” (p208).