WHITE COLLAR CRIME criminology,, White-collar crime is financially-motivated nonviolent crime committed for illegal monetary gain. Within criminology it was first defined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation". Sutherland was a proponent of symbolic interactionism and believed that criminal behavior was learned from interpersonal interactions. White-collar crime is similar to corporate crime as white-collar employees white-collar employees are more likely to commit fraud fraud,, bribery bribery,, Ponzi schemes, insider schemes, trading,, embezzlement trading embezzlement,, cybercrime cybercrime,, copyright infringement, infringement, money laundering, laundering, identity theft, theft, and forgery forgery..
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The term white-collar crime was coined in 1939 by Edwin Sutherland, who defined it as a "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" in a speech entitled "The White Collar Criminal" delivered to the American the American Sociological Society Society.. Sutherland hypothesized that white-collar criminals had different attributions and motives than typical street criminals. His theory was the result of his attempt to study two fields, crime and high society, which had previously lacked empirical correlation. His goal was to demonstrate a correlation between money and social status and the likelihood of going to jail for a white-collar crime. Although the percentage has risen, numbers still show a large majority of those in jail are poor, blue-collar blue-collar criminals. criminals. Many attribute the social climate following the Great Depression as the factor that led to Sutherland's theory. He noted that in his time, "less than two percent of the persons committed to prisons in a year belong to the upper class" class". The United States passed antitrust laws in the 1920s and social welfare laws in the 1930s; after the Great Depression, people went to great lengths to rebuild their financial security, and it is theorized this led workers —who worked hard and long and felt underpaid—to take advantage of their positions. Much of Sutherland's work was to separate and define the differences in blue-collar street crimes, such as arson arson,, burglary burglary,, theft theft,, assault assault,, rape rape,, and vandalism vandalism,, which are often blamed on psychological, associational, and structural factors. Instead, white-collar criminals are opportunists, who learn to take advantage of their circumstances to accumulate financial gain. They are educated, intelligent, affluent, confident individuals whose jobs involve unmonitored access to large sums of money. Precisely because these criminals were held to such high esteem, Sutherland claimed that society turned a blind eye to the crimes they committed.
ISSUES Modern criminology generally rejects a limitation of the term by reference, rather classifies the type of crime and the topic:
By the type of offense, e.g., property crime, economic crime, and other corporate crimes like environmental and health and safety law violations. Some crime is only possible because of the identity of the offender, e.g., transnational money laundering requires the participation of senior officers employed in banks. But the FBI has adopted the narrow approach, defining white-collar crime as "those illegal acts which are characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust and which are not dependent upon the application or threat of physical force or violence" (1989, 3). This approach is relatively pervasive in the United States, the record-keeping does not adequately collect data on the socioeconomic status of offenders which, in turn, makes research and policy evaluation problematic. While the true extent and cost of white-collar crime are unknown, the FBI and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimate the annual cost to the United States to fall f all between $300 and $660 billion. By the type of offender, e.g., by social class or high socioeconomic status, the occupation of positions of trust or profession, or academic qualification, researching the motivations for criminal behavior, e.g., greed or fear of loss of face if economic difficulties become obvious. Shover and Wright (2000) point to the essential neutrality of a crime as enacted in a statute statute.. It almost inevitably describes conduct in the abstract, not by reference to the character of the persons performing it. Thus, the only way that one crime differs from another is in the
backgrounds and characteristics of its perpetrators. Most if not all white-collar offenders are distinguished by lives of privilege, much of it with origins in class inequality.
By organizational culture rather than the offender or offense which overlaps with organized crime. Appelbaum and Chambliss offer a twofold definition: Occupational crime which occurs when crimes are committed to promote personal interests, say, by altering records and overcharging, or by the cheating of clients by professionals. Organizational or corporate crime which occurs when corporate executives commit criminal acts to benefit their company by overcharging or price fixing, false advertising, etc
TYPES OF WHITE COLLAR CRIME 1.
Bank Fraud: To engage in an act or pattern of activity where the purpose is to defraud a bank of funds.
2.
Blackmail: A demand for money or other consideration under threat to do bodily harm, to injure property, to accuse of a crime, or to expose secrets.
3.
Bribery: When money, goods, services, information or anything else of value is offered with intent to influence the actions, opinions, or decisions of the taker. You may be charged with bribery whether you offer the bribe or accept it.
4.
Cellular Phone Fraud: The unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular phone or service. This can be accomplished by either use of a stolen phone,or where an actor signs up for service under false identification or where the actor clones a valid electronic serial number (ESN) by using an ESN reader and reprograms another cellular phone with a valid ESN number.
5.
Computer fraud: Where computer hackers steal information sources contained on computers such as: bank information, credit cards, and proprietary information.
6.
Counterfeiting: Occurs when someone copies or imitates an item without having been authorized to do so and passes the copy off for the genuine or original item. Counterfeiting is most often associated with money however can also be associated with designer clothing, handbags and watches.
7.
Credit Card Fraud: The unauthorized use of a credit card to obtain goods of value.
8.
Currency Schemes: The practice of speculating on the future value of currencies.
9.
Embezz1ement: When a person who has been entrusted with money or property appropriates it for his or her own use and benefit.
10. Environmental Schemes: The overbilling and fraudulent practices exercised by corporations which purport to clean up the environment. 11. Extortion: Occurs when one person illegally obtains property from another by actual or threatened force, fear, or violence, or under cover of official right. 12. Forgery: When a person passes a false or worthless instrument such as a check or counterfeit security with the intent to defraud or injure the recipient.
13. Health Care Fraud: Where an unlicensed health care provider provides services under the guise of being licensed and obtains monetary benefit for the service. 14. Insider Trading: When a person uses inside, confidential, or advance information to trade in shares of publicly held corporations. 15. Insurance Fraud: To engage in an act or pattern of activity wherein one obtains proceeds from an insurance company through deception. 16. Investment Schemes: Where an unsuspecting victim is contacted by the actor who promises to provide a large return on a small investment. 17. Kickback: Occurs when a person who sells an item pays back a portion of the purchase price to the buyer. 18. Larceny/Theft: When a person wrongfully takes another person's money or property with the intent to appropriate, convert or steal it. 19. Money Laundering: The investment or transfer of money from racketeering, drug transactions or other embezzlement schemes so that it appears that its original source either cannot be traced or is legitimate. 20. Racketeering: The operation of an illegal business for personal profit. 21. Securities Fraud: The act of artificially inflating the price of stocks by brokers so that buyers can purchase a stock on the rise. 22. Tax Evasion: When a person commits fraud in filing or paying taxes. 23. Telemarketing Fraud: Actors operate out of boiler rooms and place t elephone calls to residences and corporations where the actor requests a donation to an alleged charitable organization or where the actor requests money up front or a credit card number up front, and does not use the donation for the stated purpose. 24. Welfare Fraud: To engage in an act or acts where the purpose is to obtain benefits (i.e. Public Assistance, Food Stamps, or Medicaid) from the State or Federal Government. 25. Weights and Measures: The act of placing an item for sale at one price yet charging a higher price at the time of sale or short weighing an item when the label reflects a higher weight.
RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER TYPES OF CRIME 1. Blue-collar crime The types of crime committed are a function of what is available to the potential offender. Thus, those employed in relatively unskilled environments and living in inner-city areas have fewer "situations" to exploit than those who work in "situations" where large financial transactions occur and live in areas where there is relative prosperity. Blue-collar crime tends to be more obvious and thus attracts more active police attention such as vandalism or shoplifting. In contrast, white-collar employees can incorporate legitimate and criminal behavior, thus making themselves less obvious when committing the crime. Therefore, blue-collar crime will more often use physical force, whereas in the corporate world, the identification of a victim is less obvious and the issue of reporting is complicated by a culture of
commercial confidentiality to protect shareholder value. It is estimated that a great deal of white-collar crime is undetected or, if detected, it is not reported. 2. Corporate crime Corporate crime deals with the company as a whole. The crime benefitting the investors or the individuals who are in high positions in the company or corporation. The relationship white-collar crime has with corporate crime is that they are similar because they both are involved within the business world. Their difference is that white-collar crime benefits the individual involved, and corporate crime benefits the company or the corporation. One well-known insider trading case in the United States is the ImClone stock trading case. In December 2001, toplevel executives sold their shares in ImClone Systems, a pharmaceutical company that manufactured an anti-cancer drug. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigated numerous top-level executives, as well as Martha Stewart, a friend of ImClone's former chief executive who had also sold her shares at the same time. The SEC reached a settlement in 2005. 3. State-corporate crime The negotiation of agreements between a state and a corporation will be at a relatively senior level on both sides, this is almost exclusively a white-collar "situation" which offers the opportunity for crime. Although law enforcement claims to have prioritized white-collar crime,evidence shows that it continues to be a low priority. When senior levels of a corporation engage in criminal activity using the company this is sometimes called control fraud. 4. Organized Transnational Crime Organized Transnational Crime is organized criminal activity that takes place across national jurisdictions, and with advances in transportation and information technology, law enforcement officials and policymakers have needed to respond to this form of crime on a global scale. Some examples include human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling, illegal arms dealing, terrorism, and cybercrime. Although it is impossible to precisely gauge transnational crime, the Millennium Project, an international think tank, assembled statistics on several aspects of transnational crime in 2009:
World illicit trade of almost $780 billion
Counterfeiting and piracy of $300 billion to $1 trillion
Global drug trade of $321 billion
5. Occupational crime Individuals may commit crime during employment or unemployment. The two most common forms are theft and fraud. Theft can be of varying degrees, from a pencil to furnishings to a car. Most employees do steal and the expense is high. Insider trading, the trading of stock by someone with access to publicly unavailable information, is a type of fraud. 6. Occupational
Death
A death that occurs while a person is at work or performing work related tasks. Occupational death is the third. leading cause of death in Canada An example of occupational death is the death of three workers at the Langley Mushroom farm. The three workers died after inhaling fatal doses of toxic fumes in September 2008. Two other workers were left with brain damage. Three operators were fined $350,000 after pleading guilty to charges linked to the death of the three workers.
PUNISHMENT: In the United States, sentences for of imprisonment, fines, restitution, community [10][11]
white-collar crimes may service, disgorgement, probation,
include a or other
combination alternative
punishment. These punishments grew harsher after the Jeffery Skilling and Enron Scandal, when the Sarbanes –Oxley Act of 2002 was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by
President George W. Bush, defining new crimes and increasing the penalties for crimes such as mail and wire fraud. In other countries, such as China, white-collar criminals can be given the death penalty. Questions about sentencing disparity in white-collar crime continue to be debated.
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS: One common misconception about corporate crime is that its effects are mainly financial. For example, pharmaceutical companies may make false claims regarding their drugs and factories may illegally dump toxic waste. Indeed, the Hooker Chemical Company (later acquired by Occidental Petroleum Corporation) dumped toxic waste into the abandoned Love Canal in Niagara Falls and sold the land without disclosing the dumping. It was sold in the 1950s to a private housing developer, whose residents began experiencing major health problems such as miscarriages and birth defects in the 1970s. Additionally, employees of a company can become victims of white-collar crime. Regardless of whether they know about their company's criminal activities or not, employees risk losing their jobs if their employer is charged with a white-collar crime such as fraud or embezzlement, incurs losses, and declares bankruptcy. Another way employees can be victimized occurs when employers are aware of physical harm to their employees. For example, miners in Newfoundland had been exposed to Radon gas, and although the company (and the Canadian government) were aware of the health risks, it did not take any action.
