Zero in on a 45 year-old mother of 13. A man comes to her with a proposal. Invest in his company, and he can guarantee 100%, 200%, possibly even 300% returns on what she gives in mere months. For her this means taking out a second mortgage on her house; the same house she hopes to pay off entirely with the promised large return on her investment. Two years later, the windows of the house are boarded up and the woman recounts to reporters the chilling details behind the reason her family has no place to spend Thanksgiving this year. Her money is gone, along with her hopes of ever retiring from the two jobs she works. Stories like this are heard all too often from victims of white-collar crime. “Lying, cheating, and stealing. That’s white-collar crime in a nutshell. The term- reportedly coined in 1939- is now synonymous with the full range of frauds committed by business and government professionals” (FBI, n.d.). White-collar criminals are not holding a gun to anyone’s back demanding wallets and valuables. Instead, they gain the trust of those they prey on. Worse, they use their status in society to build comfort in their victims’ minds. A few of the best-known schemes in U.S. history are Enron, WorldCom, and the massive Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. These three cases alone amount to losses upwards of 70 billion dollars. The victims in each case are the same, American citizens. White-collar crime in America is insufficiently controlled due to weak laws, a broad pool of victims, and the enormous power scale of those involved. Some in the business world would argue that the recently intensified sentencing guidelines for white-collar crime provide sufficient punishment for the criminals involved. However, with the increase if the promi... ... middle of paper ... ...tter. White-collar crime must stop being seen as a nonviolent, gentle class of crime. Programs, laws, and guidelines must be put into place to protect the citizens these seemingly trustworthy, high-class criminals prey on. Works Cited Carbonara, P. (2007). Takes One To Know One. Fortune, 156(13), 108-116. Ettore, B. (1994). Crime and punishment: A hard look at white-collar crime. (cover story). Management Review, 83(5), 10. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d.) White-Collar Crime. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar Holtfreter, K., Van Slyke, S., Bratton, J., & Gertz, M. (2008). Public perceptions of white-collar crime and punishment. Journal Of Criminal Justice, 36(1), 50-60. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2007.12.006 Podgor, E. S. (2007). The Challenge of White Collar Sentencing. Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology, 97(3), 731-759.
The news article that I decided to do my assignment on is about a bank manager, Debra Anne Chapin, that embezzled 2 million dollars from a bank. The news article’s title is, “Former manager jailed for cheating bank out of $2M; Woman used cash to pay bills, gamble and feed her cocaine habit.” The crime took place in Calgary between June 1, 2006 and June, 30 2008. This embezzlement is a classic case of white collar crime and demonstrates numerous criminological theories.
Schanzenbach, Max; Yaeger, Michael L., (2006). Prison time, fines, and federal white-collar criminals: The anatomy of a racial disparity. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 96(2), p757-793. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
The white collar crime usually forms within corporations and who is head of the organization is someone who has education to run the business. This person with education who commits this crime tends to convince staff that has less education into this type the activity. One of the white-collar crimes is the most common is fraud. White collar crimes are durable because the personals who commit them know how the system works in the business market. It is for this reason that in the case of fraud. Victims often fail to recover what has been stolen by deception. As is the case for the Internet fraud where many people fall; especially when looking for work, there are companies personals deceive those applying for work give information of their personal
In conclusion, The years 2008 shined a light on a group of people who were considered high society. When the stock market crashed in September 2008, the world shines a spotlight on the financial corporation. The world now knows what words such as hedge fund manager and financial instrument such as credit default swaps mean today. The economic downturn forced society to ask questions not normally asked and now pay closer attention to white collar crimes.
With the evolution of our economy and technology we have experienced a new wave of crime and it’s not by the low level street criminals you would expect, but high end, tie wearing business men and women. Merriam-Webster defines crime as “an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law” (Merriam-Webster). There are many types of crime but the two this paper will focus on are white collar crime and its comparison to street crime. You won’t find an official definition of street crime, but it’s normally thought of as theft, robbery, car theft, arson, drug dealing, and vandalism. The phrase “white-collar crime” was first
Even if it is not revealed as it should be, White Collar Crimes are more common that people think. The fact that they do not do report it is because many political and economical interests are invested on those kinds of “businesses”. One of the differences between White Collar Crimes and regular crimes is that there are not punishments for this kind of crimes. Even though a White Collar criminal and a thief have the same goal: To steal people’s money. People are committing the same act, but because depending on who they are and how you look like they will have less and even any type if punishment because it is usual that people with “high economical standards”. All of the definition of deviant or not is influenced again on social power both social and
Crime comes in different ways, shapes, and forms. From corruption to murder, the seriousness and blameworthiness varies from crime to crime. The most common factor of all crime is that it is illegal. The problem with prosecution is that some crimes can find loopholes around the rigidity of the laws created. This is the hardest for white collar crimes. With so many types of white collar crimes, it is hard to understand where it belongs on the scale on seriousness and blameworthiness and how to prosecute. With white collar crimes, they are most commonly seen as “victimless” or “paper” crimes, since they do not involve physical harm to the people included. With so many types available to analyze, the purpose of this paper is to focus on bribery, perjury, and fraud. When it comes to white collar crimes, or any crime for that matter, we do not only need to focus on what causes it and society’s reaction to it. We need to look into prevention of it and being able to stop it before it even starts.
This case illustrated that there were real consequences to white collar crime. In addition to paying the fifty million dollar fine, he relinquished another fifty million dollars of his illegal trading profits. (He still had millions remaining, however, from his illegal gains.) His actual prison sentence was three years, yet he served only twenty-two months in the federal prison at Lompoc, California, which was known to have a “country-club” atmosphere.
A pale amount of criminological research, which focuses on the public attitude toward crime and the public’s opinion on white-collar crime, has been done. Cullen and colleagues were one of the first to study public attitudes about white-collar crime. In there study they surveyed 240 adults and assessed various perceptions about this behavior. The researchers found that the sample “supported criminal sanctions for white-collar offenders, viewed white-collar crimes as having greater moral and economic cost than street crimes, and did not define the offenses as violent” (sagepub.com). Similar results were found in other studies. In a more recent survey conducted by the NW3C, they decided to touch upon several perception dimensions when conducting
Shelden, R.G., Brown, W.B., Miller, K.S., & Fritzler, R.B. (2008). Crime and criminal justice in american society. Long Grove, Illinosis: Waveland Press, INC.
The foundation of our country, the keystone to our democratic system, is the integrity of social institutions that we not only assume we can trust but have come to rely on for most aspects in our daily lives. The integrity of these social institutions can only be achieved through building blocks such as internal controls and independent, verifiable information. White collar criminals build a sense of false integrity around them in order to gain the trust of their victims, ranging from the young to the very old. Friedrich’s (2010) Trusted Criminals defines the foundation to white collar crime, the level of trust we have for those in power. We trust those in charge, those with power, and those who represent the integrity of our social institutions.
“Money, the pure motivation and reasoning behinds the acts of committing white collar crimes” (Coenen). Tracy Coenen states that white-collar crimes are always financially motivated and the motivation for the person or persons committing the crime is almost always the end goal of a big payout. The Federal Bureau of Investigation official website places insurance fraud, identity theft, health care fraud, counterfeiting, bank fraud, and ponzi schemes as the most frequent and dangerous on its list of white-collar crimes. Day by day white-collar crimes become more sophisticated than imaginable and are starting to occur on a regular basis all over the world. Although white-collar crimes are nonviolent, it’s now become just as dangerous where even a
White collar crime is distinctly different from traditional frauds committed by ordinary citizen, because it involves business and government professionals that have a high social status in the community, such as those on Wall Street, even though it is financially motivated in nature. White collar crime is one of those topics that is rarely broadcasted by the media, because it is often swept under the rug to keep the general public from knowing due to the crimes being under prosecuted. Unfortunately, for the last 20 years the prosecution of white collar crimes has been significantly decreasing. To put into to perspective, the prosecution of white collar crimes has decreased by 36 percent; however, President Obama emphasized that he will hold
White-collar crimes and organizational structure are related because white collar-crimes thrive in organizations that have weak structures. According to Price and Norris (2009), the elites who commit white collar-crimes usually exploit weaknesses in organizational structure and formulate rules and regulations that favor their crimes. Makansi (2010) examines case studies to prove that white-collar crime is dependent on organizational structure. For example, the financial crisis that Merchant Energy Business faced in 2001-2002 occurred due to the liberal Financial Accounting Board, which failed to provide a standard model of valuing natural gas and fuel. Moreover, a financial crisis that rocked the securitization market in 2008 was due to fraudulence in the pricing of securitization products. These examples ...
STOP RIGHT THERE! White collar crimes are bad, maybe not as bad as other crimes. But, they are still bad! White collar crimes are a financially motivated nonviolent crime committed by business and government professionals. People seem to think, that white collar crimes are not that big of a deal. Others think that they are, people have their title to their own opinions. In my opinion, white collar crimes are bad, any crime is. Do I think it is as bad as other crimes? No, but you do the crime, you pay the time is how I see it. What do you think?