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. Words such as hedge fund manager and financial instrument such as credit default swaps are not words not known to everyday citizens. The economic downturn forced society to ask question not normally asked. The reality that there are criminal who has assessed too many people retirement and investment is a shocking and alarming to the non-professional investor. When someone is in a legitimate occupation and committing, an illegal act is a white-collar crime. “To be more concise white - collar crime is define as any illegal act, punishable by a criminal sanction, that is committed in the courses of a legitimate occupation or pursuit by a corporation or by an otherwise respectable individual of high social standing” (Conklin, 2007, Criminology, p. 69). This is not to say that all white-collar crime is committed by upper income or affluent persons. The Sociologist Edwin Sutherland, who is responsible for the term white-collar crime around, classified some lesser affluent crimes as white-collar crime. The next section of this paper examines the different type of white-collar crime and the law that regulate them. Moreover, the social impact of the white-collar crimes will be analyzed as well. “The laws that governed many of the offenses considered white collar fall under the scope of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 which regulate trading of certain financial instrument like bonds , stocks and debentures”(www.sec.gov). Another law governing white-collar crimes is the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Sherman Act lim... ... middle of paper ... ...trate more on white collar crime because as the 2008 financial meltdown have shown white collar crime can bring down a country. 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. References Conklin, J. E. (2007). Criminology (10th ed.). Boston: Pearson, Allyn, and Bacon. Price, M. & Norris, D. (2009) White-Collar Crime: Corporate and Securities and Commodities Fraud Retrieved from www.jaapl.org
Most everyone goes home after a long day of work and watches the news. Think, what is usually reported? The weather, local activities, headline news, or daily criminal activity. Shootings, stabbings, homicides, etc. are all discussed by media anchors these days. This causes most everyone in our society to become familiar with crimes that are considered street crimes. What most people don’t hear about on the news is what is considered white-collar crime, sometimes known as corporate crime. White-collar crime not only is less reported in the media but also receives weaker punishments than street crime. This paper will first discuss the similarities between the two types of crime and then explain why their punishments are strongly different.
E.). There are various costs of white-collar crime, although an accurate measurement is not easy, they are hard to asses as well as very complex. There are enormous financial losses, sometimes physical damage as a result of negligence, as well as social costs: weakened trust in a free economy, confidence loss in political organizations, and destruction of public morality. “White collar crime could also set an example of disobedience for the general public, with citizens who rarely see white-collar offenders prosecuted and sent to prison becoming cynical about the criminal justice system” (Conklin, J. E.). White-collar crime is undeniably a crime and often encompasses elaborate
The nature and damage of white-collar crime can result in a variety of punishments for the offender. Some sanctions being time in prison, some being fines, and others being a combination of both. For example, Chalana McFarland who was a real estate attorney and was accused of fraud, money laundering and other crimes costing investors $20 million. She was charged with $12 million in restitution and thirty years in prison (Haury, 2012). Another example would be Bernie Madoff, who owned Madoff Securities, was involved in a Ponzi scheme. It is believed that investors lost $50 billion dollars. Curently Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence in a prison in Butner, N.C (Haury, 2012). As these white-collar crime cases show, the costs of these crimes can be quite serve and earn life sentences as well as very hefty fines. Moreover, white-collar crimes have huge economic effects on victims, often causing life altering losses. Under consideration white-collar crimes are quite high-cost actions that hold large possible punishments and large ethical issues. In a research experiment done by Christian Seipel and Stefanie Eifler, a theory branching from rational choice theory was tested in relation to crime. The theory they explored was referred to as high- and low- cost theory. This theory discusses the factors that influence low cost crime and high cost crime. Low cost being defined as crimes that have low
Today, worldwide, there are several thousands of crimes being committed. Some don’t necessarily require a lethal weapon but are associated with various types of sophisticated fraud, this also known as a white-collar crime. These crimes involve a few different methods that take place within a business setting. While ethical business practices add money to the bottom line, unethical practices are ultimately leading to business failure and impacting the U.S. financially.
Growing globalization and market trends has resulted in more opportunities for criminality. It is evident that the financial systems and other political systems since the year 1970 have undergone widespread change and have adapted new measures. These measures and changes have further resulted in increase in the ability of illicit actors proceeding in caring out crimes more easily. This is due to capitalism which leads to corporate greed and hence more criminal activity within businesses that extends the influence throughout the world. In addition deregulation of financial markets has entirely provided increased opportunities for crimes like insider trading. (Taylor, 1997)
White collar and corporate crimes are crimes that many people do not associate with criminal activity. Yet the cost to the country due to corporate and white collar crime far exceeds that of “street” crime and benefit fraud. White collar and corporate crimes refer to crimes that take place within a business or institution and include everything from Tax fraud to health and safety breaches.
In order to coherently understand the meaning of white collar crime, Friedrichs (2010) states that it must be approached in stages. The first stage is polemical, and is related to the definition. The second and third stages are typological and operational. As previously mentioned, white collar crime has been quite heavily debated, and currently there is no definition that is generally accepted by criminologists. Some argue that the term white collar crime should be abandoned altogether, and another issue is where it is appropriate to draw the line between legal practices and illegal practices (Hayes & Prenzler, 2012; Dobovšek & Slak, 2015). Throughout time, the scope of white collar crime has broadened to include many other typologies of white collar crime, due to the fact that technology has and continues to advance. The most common types of white collar crime include occupational crime, corporate crime, state crime, financial
White collar crime is a term created by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 that refers to crimes committed by people of higher social status, companies, and the government according to the book “White-Collar Crime in a Nutshell” by Ellen Podgor and Jerold Israel. White collar crimes are usually non-violent crimes committed in order to have a financial-gain (Podgor and Israel 3). A very well known white collar crime that has even been taught in many history classes is the Watergate scandal. This is a white collar crime that was committed by government authorities. Watergate was a crime that shocked the nation.
White collar crime has been discussed more frequently in the last few years. The news has made society aware that white collar crime occurs almost as often as other criminal activity. In fact, white collar crime is one of the most costly crimes. It is a billion dollar criminal industry. White collar criminals seem to continue to engage in the criminal practices because there is no set standard in the penalties given to those that are caught. A look into the public’s perception on whether the penalties given is harsh enough for white collar criminals since most types of crimes have a set of standard penalties for those convicted. A standard set of penalties needs to be looked at for white collar crimes to help in eliminating the criminal behavior and saving society billions of dollars a year.
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.
...o be intense for arrests for white collar crime than for predatory violence or drug dealing. Indeed, political pressure is more likely to be exerted in blocking or derailing white collar crime investigations than in conventional crime cases, and the police can operate effectively against white collar crime only to the extent that they are relatively free of political influence” (2010:278). Until political influence and the powers of corporations are subdued little can be done to battle this type of crime. People who commit this type of crime have the power to avoid prosecution primarily due the powerful corporations they work for or the institution they are a part of.
In the twentieth century, White Collar and Organized Crimes have attracted the attention of the U.S. Criminal Justice System due to the greater cost to society than most normal street crime. Even with the new attention by the Criminal Justice System, both are still pretty unknown to the general public. Although we know it occurs, due to the lack of coverage and information, society does not realize the extent of these crimes or the impact. White Collar and Organized is generally crime committed by someone that is considered respectable and has a high social status. The crimes committed usually consist of fraud, insider trading, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft or forgery. One person would not normally commit all of these but likely one or the other.
Since social problems related to negative affect to certain people, therefore white collar crimes also type of social problem. The term white collar crimes widely known today. As mention by Friedrichs (2010), the term white collar crime was introduced by Edwin H. Sutherland in 1993 although the crimes has been detected well back in history (pp. 2-3). Some prefer to define white-collar crime as violations of criminal law. In Adam’s (2011) view, this type of crime refer to non-violent crime usually done by a respectable and higher status individuals and institutions such as embezzlement, fraud and corruption which are motivated by financial gain (p. 1). According to cases took place in Malaysia, it had recorded losses of RM 6 billion once regarding to this crime (Adam, 2011).
Businesses are vulnerable to a variety of internal and external crimes that affects an organization’s performance. White-collar crime is a problem that cost American companies millions of dollars every day and negatively impacts the global economy in billions annually. This paper will identify the types of employee crimes, focusing on theft and the perpetrators; examine the impact to businesses and explore how business can deal with these offenses.
Fraud and white-collar crime are common forms of crimes that people commit in various aspects and positions in the corporate world. Fraud and white-collar crimes have similar meaning as they refer to the non-violent crimes that people commit with the basic objective of gaining money using illegal means. The cases of white-collar crimes have been increasing exponentially in the 21st century due to the advent of technology because fraudsters apply technological tools in cheating, swindling, embezzling, and defrauding people or organizations. White-collar crime is a complex issue in society because its occurrence is dependent on many factors such as organizational structure, organization culture, and personality traits. Thus, the literature review examines how organizational structure, organizational culture, and personality traits contribute to the occurrence of white-collar crimes.