white collar crime argumentative essay

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White Collar Crime Argumentative Essays Samples For Students

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White Collar Crime Argumentative Essay Example

• Pages: 9 (2205 words)
• Published: September 3, 2017
• Type: Essay

A white-collar crime refers to crimes committed by business people, entrepreneurs, professionals, or public officials. It was a term first coined by Edwin Sutherland who defined the term as "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (Sutherland 1974) and was the first to bring attention to the matter. White-collar crimes are different then street crimes because they are through deception and not force or violence.There has been much debate as to what qualifies as a white-collar crime, the term today generally describes a variety of non-violent crimes usually committed in commercial situations for financial, organisational or personal gain. Many white-collar crimes are especially difficult to prosecute because the perpetrators are sophisticated criminals who have attempted to conceal their activities through a series of complex tr

ansactions. (Bologna 1984).

For most individuals, white-collar crime is not viewed as a crime at all, because of its non-violent nature.Violent crime has an immediate and obvious impact on its victims, which raises the attention of the public, whereas white-collar crime frequently goes undetected or is viewed as a bending of the rules (Geis, 1982). White-collar crime; however, can have more of an impact than violent crimes. The victim of a violent crime can recover were as the victim of fraud for example can have endless impact. Bribery, computer crime, abuse of power, false statements, fraud, obstruction of justice, racketeering and tax crimes are all white collar crimes.

There are a number of characteristics of white collar crimes.Only some of these characteristics make the defining of whether something is criminal or not difficult. White collar crime is often open to endless

discussion and debate. Three case study materials of train crashes which took place at Hatfield, Paddington and Potters Bar will be analysed and explored in order to consider how far each of them should be seen as examples of white collar crime? In order to successfully answer this question, each individual crash will be explored to see what characteristics are evident which may have direct links to white collar crimes.The Ladbroke Grove train crash occurred at 08.

11 BST on Tuesday, 5 November. The crash near Paddington stations immediate cause was due to the train going through a red signal and having a collision with an oncoming train. Factors brought out in this case were that the driver did not have sufficient training and there was an evident communication barrier which resulted in the train going through the red light. This resulted in the death of thirty-one people including both drivers. Hundreds were also injured.The Potters Bar train crashes immediate cause was the result of the train tracks not being aligned correctly due to nuts and bolts being missing from the track, other parts were also in poor condition.

In effect, this caused the points to fail catastrophically and the train to derail. This incident caused the loss of seven deaths. The Hatfield train crash was a result of a track defect. A specific type of metal fatigue is thought to be the most likely cause. This caused the train track to disintegrate beneath the train.

Four people were killed and more than thirty were injured.These are three harmful incidents which have taken place. They have resulted in quite dramatic consequences of the loss of

lives. I will now explore all the underlying reasons and actions in each of the train crashes in order to answer the question of whether the actions in each case is a result of white collar crime or not.

To do this I will look into each individual party that may or may not have had a part to play in the causes of the accidents. This will in effect help me to judge and consider whether the roles of the individuals have any specific links to the characteristics of white collar crimes.It may be considered that each of the three crimes were solely down to negligence which may be perceived as an act of involuntary manslaughter due to a loss of responsibility. If this is the case then the Crime would be corporate crime as its accidental rather than with intent. White Collar crime differs slightly from Corporate crime in the sense that White Collar crime is likely to be crime against the corporation, whereas, corporate Crime is crime committed by the corporation. From a Right Wing perspective the crashes are all unfortunate accidents which have led to horrendous circumstances.

It seems they are crimes of fate and chance rather than deliberate. The concern portrayed is that we perhaps should not always look for someone to blame for all loss of lives. This view can be argued in terms of the roles people and companies have played which, may have had something to do with the causation of the crashes. In Ladbroke Grove for instance, it is evident that the company was behind the crash. This is due to the lack of training of the

driver of the train at the time.

It is clear that the incident was mainly due to bad training. The company itself was indeed behind this.This may be a result of the increased pressures in costs that railway companies are faced with. In these companies competition is a huge factor and all companies are trying to make a profit. From a radical perspective, this may encourage companies to cut corners in order to meet target profits.

One of the corners that may have been cut or neglected for cost purposes in this case is the training of staff. This is how we may explain the consequences. This draws my attention to the complications that arise when a lot of people have an input in the cause of the accidents.It is much harder to perceive whose criminality resulted in the crashes. There are a numbers of players whose direct actions have a part in the incidents that have happened.

If the crashes are indeed White Collar crimes then whose criminality is it? In Potters Bar, the crash was due to poor maintenance as nuts and bolts were missing. This is someone's criminality but whose? The tracks have clearly not been perfected resulting in a loss of life. Railway companies contract out to private companies such as Thames and Railtracks who carry out track inspections and maintenance.There's a lot of input from different directions, this results in a huge confusion of responsibility and accountability. Systematic problems therefore arise, it can be seen that the train companies are not responsible due to companies like Railtracks who are supposedly maintaining tracks and points are over and over again not

doing very well and getting reprimanded.

There is a behaviour that keeps repeating itself which shows an element of criminality on their behalf. In Ladbroke Grove, there are also a number of people who may be perceived to have a shared responsibility in the crashes.The driver went through red light, there was poor communication with the man at signal box and there is a pre history to it all in terms of the training received by the driver. They are all contributing which adds to the confusion of whether is it a crime or an accident which questions the legality issues. White collar crime is often complicated because the crime is not often the product of one person or the reason why organisations deliberately do things, in terms of the three train crashes; it varyingly can be argued that the outcomes are from a whole range of decisions and weaknesses at different points.

The characteristics of white collar crime which is evident in these events are due to the nature and the possible criminals involved. They are all companies and employees about their business, they are where they should be, if driving the train or giving signals. This is there role and position in the company. The degree of harm is death and injury and the crimes may have been avoided.

Bosh argues that all the emphasis in criminology tends to be on the conviction of crime.There is a blind eye towards the area of capitalism and the media largely concentrates on these individual little criminal events and not on the huge harm being caused elsewhere. (Bosh) Clearly these are examples of the tremendous harm which

can be caused by these events. There are a number of incidents which draws upon issues of white collar crime. The crashes are not criminal events which are often easy to spot or judge.

In Hatfield, there was a rail fatigue which is now being appreciated throughout Europe. Scientific knowledge is needed to understand the error or the accidents of the crashes.They are all clearly intense crimes, but to what extent should there be any form of identifiably of a decision maker. The law at the moment states that if a company is to be done for corporate manslaughter a senior director manager needs to be identified as being guilty of manslaughter of his or herself. This means they have made key decisions which have led to the criminal situation.

This is usually difficult and is virtually impossible to prove. The government is currently analysing in order to make changes. It looks at failure in senior management. In Ladbroke, this is the case due to poor training and a poor mapping system.Enough is going on in this case to argue that under future law the company might be guilty of corporate manslaughter. When looking at the nature of policing and punishment, these crashes have issues such as health and safety, which is an important area which needs to be looked at.

This gives the impression that maybe the crimes are more corporate based rather than white collar. This is due to the crimes being committed by the corporation but not against the corporation in the terms of fraud. These crimes are complex organisational, technical events, which in terms in specialism, culture and expectations the police

often cannot deal with.When dealing with white collar crimes, in these major incidents a problem which needs to be looked at is why there were three crashes and not one. Is it due to the government having decided not to spend any money on trains? We as individuals have previously voted for conservative government who have wanted to cut spending reduce taxation. Under that not spending so much on our infrastructure, the consequence of all of that has been these crashes and we should not maybe blame the companies but blame something beyond.

We as a country have chosen to prioritise low taxes and public spending.That has been our values and that has had implications for other things like railway tracking. After train crashes there is a sense of moral panic. Trains almost came to a holt after these incidents.

As the public when it comes to trains we want safety but also want speed. Therefore it is hard to determine where we strike the balance. There is a sense of ambiguity; it is difficult to come to a conclusion because characteristics of white collar crimes are debatable. The judgement where I stand is that the three crashes looked at are criminal offences but not where someone needs to be punished in the sense of prosecution.All three train crashes were to a large degree accidental. The crashes were not due to intent but are all forms of accidents and it was not a crime of intent in order to enclose personal, organisational or financial gain.

There were a number of people and companies at fault in the leading up to the crashes. Work had not

been done sufficiently, tracks had not been inspected to a current standard and silly mistakes such as nuts and bolts were missing had taken place. As discussed, it is hard to determine who should be punished for the crashes as there has been input from a wide area.It is also clear that there are many underlying reasons behind the faults that led to the crashes. When taking a legal perspective the offences cannot be a direct action of corporate manslaughter as a senior manager director has not been held responsible for making a key decision which has directly led to the crashes under this current law. Therefore a prosecution cannot be made for this.

When taking a global perspective at the situation as a whole. It is clear that train company's are under increased pressure to perform. They are also in competition with other companies in terms of speed, efficiency and profits.This may be the reason for the corners that have been cut, which have been done to satisfy the businesses needs and to please members of the general public who want fast, but cheap transportation. This brings me to the conclusion that the crashes are not immediate forms of White Collar crimes again because the intent to harm these people was not there. The crashes are based on accidents.

Yes, they could have been prevented if a little more effort and guidance was put into the training of staff and the inspections carried out but I do not think that punishment in terms of prosecution is the answer to these incidents.

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Crime — White Collar Crime

Essays on White Collar Crime

White collar crime is a topic that has gained increasing attention in recent years. As a result, there is a growing demand for research and analysis on this subject. When it comes to writing an essay on white collar crime, choosing the right topic is crucial. A well-chosen topic not only makes the writing process more enjoyable, but it also ensures that your essay will be engaging and relevant. In this article, we will discuss the importance of choosing the right white collar crime essay topic and provide a detailed list of recommended topics.

White collar crime encompasses a wide range of illegal activities committed by individuals or organizations in a professional or business environment. This includes fraud, bribery, insider trading, embezzlement, and money laundering, among others. Given the complexity and prevalence of white collar crime, it is an important topic for academic study and research. Understanding the causes, impacts, and consequences of white collar crime is essential for developing effective prevention and enforcement strategies.

When choosing a white collar crime essay topic, it is important to consider your interests, the relevance of the topic, and the availability of research material. Selecting a topic that aligns with your interests will make the writing process more enjoyable and engaging. Additionally, ensure that the topic is relevant and timely, as this will make your essay more compelling and valuable. Finally, consider the availability of research material on the chosen topic to ensure that you have access to credible and up-to-date sources.

List of the Right White Collar Crime Essay Topic

Corporate fraud.

• The impact of corporate fraud on the economy
• Ethical considerations in corporate fraud investigations
• The role of corporate culture in preventing fraud

Financial Crimes

• Money laundering regulations and enforcement
• The psychology of white collar criminals
• The evolution of financial crime in the digital age

Regulatory Compliance

• The effectiveness of regulatory compliance programs
• The impact of regulatory changes on white collar crime
• Regulatory challenges in combating white collar crime

Corruption and Bribery

• The impact of corruption on developing economies
• Best practices for preventing bribery in international business
• The role of technology in detecting and preventing corruption

Insider Trading

• The legal and ethical implications of insider trading
• The impact of insider trading on market integrity
• Enforcement challenges in combating insider trading

Environmental Crimes

• The role of corporations in environmental crime prevention
• The impact of environmental crimes on public health
• Regulatory and enforcement challenges in combating environmental crimes

Healthcare Fraud

• The impact of healthcare fraud on patient care and costs
• Best practices for detecting and preventing healthcare fraud
• Regulatory and enforcement challenges in combating healthcare fraud

These are just a few of the many White Collar Crime essay topics that you can explore in your research and writing. Whether you are studying law, business, economics, or criminology, these topics provide a rich and diverse landscape for academic inquiry and analysis.

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Understanding White-Collar Crime, Essay Example

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The term “white-collar crime” covers a broad area of behaviors and actions. In recent years, as headlines have been dominated by corporate and banking scandals, the notion of white-collar crime has received a significant amount of attention. Generally speaking, white-collar crime covers crimes committed by persons employed in non-labor, “blue collar” positions, and involve actions intended to achieve financial gains through illegal means. Not all white-collar crimes fall under the purview of criminal justice, however; some actions taken by white collar employees or their related companies might be considered actionable in civil, rather than criminal courts. For the purposes of this discussion, “white-collar crimes” will be understood to be crimes committed by upper-class individuals during the course of their occupation or employment. Understanding what motivates white-collar criminals has been a concern of psychologists and criminologists since the term was originally coined in the 1930s.

White-collar criminals typically differ in many respects from so-called “street criminals”(Braithewaite, 1985). They are more likely to be college educated, older white males who have not spent a lifetime as criminals (sagepub.com). These white-collar criminals often have certain personality traits, such as being extroverted and manipulative. White-collar crimes are sometimes committed by individuals alone, while others are committed by small or large groups of conspirators who find opportunities to profit illegally within the context of their employment. Because there are a variety of different types of white-collar criminals, it is difficult to say with certainty what drives this behavior.

A number of theories have been presented to explain the behavior of white-collar criminals, including Social Control Theory and Organizational Theory (Coleman, 1987). In the end, most of these theories fall short, as there is such a broad number of types of white-collar crimes and white-collar criminals. It seems that in most cases, white-collar crimes are crimes of opportunity; in that context, white-collar criminals have not been involved in a lifetime of crime, but instead find themselves in a position to take advantage of a particular situation in the course of their employment. It is this disparity between street criminals and white-collar criminals, and the disparity among the different types of white-collar criminals, which makes it so difficult to come up with an all-encompassing theory to explain the behavior.

Braithewaite, John. White Collar Crime. Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 11. 1985.

Coleman, John William. Toward an Integrated Theory of White-Collar Crime. American Journal of Psychology. Vol. 93 No.2. September 1987.

Understanding White-Collar Crime: Definitions, Extent, and Consequences. Sagepub.com. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/43839_2.pdf

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White-Collar Crimes Causes Essay

Individual perspective, environmental perspective.

White-collar crime and its roots have been subjected to extensive research and debate; however, fewer people pay attention to it compared to violent crime, which currently captures national news and is the subject of television shows. The society’s attitude towards white-collar crime is different: there is some degree of fascination while in the broader sense it is merely uninteresting (Olejarz, 2016). In this paper, two theories of white-collar crime will be discussed. The first theory will focus on the individual perspective of white-collar crime causes explored by Watt (2012) while the second theory will focus on the environmental perspective studied by Pontell and Geis (2013).

An individual perspective that explains why white-collar crime occurs is associated with the role that personality can play (Watt, 2012). According to the research conducted by Watt (2012), white-collar crime is directly linked to self-control, which is an individual characteristic that allows individuals to resist any type of benefit or gratification that crimes can offer. Therefore, an individual perspective on causes of white-collar crime is associated with trait theories that explore a combination of either stable or unstable character attributes that could explain people’s predispositions towards offending (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1987).

Components of the trait theory include such characteristics as impulsivity, simple tasks, self-control, physical activity, self-centeredness, and tolerance (Watt, 2012). Also, the researcher explored the role of gender as an individual characteristic that could influence white-collar crime. Watt (2012) found that men were more likely to commit white-collar crime because they usually held higher managerial positions in the business world and thus possessed more power than women. In conclusion of the argument about the individual perspective with regards to white-collar crime, it is worth mentioning that the levels self-control to refrain from offending in combination with the characteristics mentioned above predicted whether an individual would commit a white-collar crime.

While it has been proven that individual characteristics played a large role in predicting whether a person would commit white-collar crime, the environment’s impact is also essential to discuss. Pontell and Geis (2013) explored the role of the economic development in contributing to white-collar crime. The researchers suggested that such events as a Great Economic Meltdown increased the likelihood of white-collar crime and thus led to the inability of the government to address the dramatic rise in criminal prosecutions (Pontell & Geis, 2013). On the other hand, the government’s negligence could have been considered deliberate due to the worries that showcase trials of different corporate executives would undermine the authority of officials as well as the already declining levels of public trust in capitalism. Since businesses that committed a white-collar crime were considered “too big to fail” and their CEOs “too big to jail,” more and more individuals began committing such crimes due to the decreased fear of being prosecuted for their actions (Pontell & Geis, 2013, p. 76). To conclude, the deteriorating state of the economy means that more individuals can commit white-collar crimes.

To conclude, there are as many explanations for white-collar crimes as there are such crimes (Siegel, Brown, & Hoffman, 2015). However, research articles explored above provided substantial evidence for either theory that characterizes causes of white-collar crime: while individual characteristics such as self-control explain why specific people may commit this type of crime, the economic conditions are environmental factors that regulate whether white-collar crime will occur in general. The individual perspective is more effective in predicting white-collar crime since it focuses on personal features that have a larger role in characterizing behaviors.

Hirschi, T., & Gottfredson, M. (1987). Causes of white-collar crime. Criminology, 25 , 949-974.

Olejarz, J. (2016). Understanding white-collar crime . Web.

Pontell, H., & Geis, G. (2013). The trajectory of white-collar crime following the Great Economic Meltdown. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 30 (1), 70-82.

Siegel, L., Brown, G., & Hoffman, R. (2012). Choice theory: Because they want to. In L. Siegel (Ed.), Criminology: The core (10th ed.) (pp. 77-98). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Watt, R. (2012). University students’ propensity towards white-collar versus street crime. Studies by Undergraduate Research at Guelph, 5 (2), 5-12.

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IvyPanda. (2020, October 11). White-Collar Crimes Causes. https://ivypanda.com/essays/white-collar-crimes-causes/

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1 Core Themes in the Study of White-Collar Crime

Michael L. Benson, PhD, is Professor of Criminology and Director of the Center for Criminal Justice Research at the University of Cincinnati.

Shanna R. Van Slyke is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Economic Crime and Justice Studies at Utica College, NY.

Francis T. Cullen is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and a Senior Research Associate in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. He is author of Environmental Corrections. His current research focuses on the organization of criminological knowledge and on rehabilitation as a correctional policy. He is a past ↵president of both the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

• Published: 07 April 2016
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This chapter introduces the eight core themes that guided the selection of essays in this Handbook. These are (1) concept, (2) offender, (3) organization, (4) choice, (5) opportunity, (6) context, (7) costs, and (8) control. These themes have guided investigations and policy debates on white-collar crime and white-collar offenders for the past half-century. Like any area of vigorous scholarship, the study of white-collar crime is replete with theoretical controversies and unanswered empirical questions, but a great deal has been learned nevertheless since Sutherland coined the term. In this chapter, key research findings in the eight thematic areas are identified, major topics of theoretical debate that currently engage the field are explicated, and policy implications regarding the control of white-collar crime are discussed.

This anthology was designed to present a wide-ranging collection of cutting-edge research and theory on white-collar crime and its control. The process of assembling and organizing the various strands of research was guided by eight interconnected themes: (1) concept, (2) offender, (3) organization, (4) choice, (5) opportunity, (6) context, (7) costs, and (8) control. Although all of the essays present important insights and findings related to their specific topics, a number of general conclusions that link to our eight themes and that apply across the articles stand out. They include the following:

The definition of white-collar crime remains controversial and substantially influences who and what is studied as well as general conclusions about the nature of white-collar crime;

Regardless of how white-collar crime is defined, white-collar offenders differ from street offenders in regard to their social backgrounds, demographic attributes, and psychological characteristics;

Especially when compared to those who commit violent crimes, those who commit white-collar crimes appear to be more strongly influenced by rational choice considerations;

Like other types of crime, white-collar crime is not gender neutral in either motivations or mechanics;

Individuals who hold executive or managerial positions in organizations have abundant opportunities to engage in white-collar crime with a low likelihood of being caught;

Certain organizational features can create a criminogenic context that facilitates the concealment of white-collar criminal activity and limits the likelihood of its punishment;

Although difficult to measure with any degree of accuracy, the economic costs of white-collar crime outweigh the costs of other forms of crime; and

Different control mechanisms are used against white-collar criminals as opposed to street criminals, with white-collar crime control oriented toward regulation and the fostering of compliance while street crime control focuses on punishment and deterrence.

Below we explicate the eight themes that guided the anthology.

Although the term “white-collar crime” was not coined until near the middle of the 20th century, scholarly interest in what can only be called “white-collar criminals” goes back much farther in the history of criminology (Geis, Chapter 2 in this volume). For example, Lombroso (1887) compared “born criminals” to “criminaloids,” some of whom were people “high in power, who society venerates as its chiefs … their high position generally prevents their criminal character from being recognized” (p. 47). And at the turn of the 20th century, Ross also drew attention to the criminaloid or as he sometimes called such persons, the quasi-criminal: “He is a buyer rather than a practitioner of sin, and his middlemen spare him unpleasant details. Secure in his quilted armor of lawyer-spun sophistries… . The wholesale fleecer of trusting, workaday people is a ‘Napoleon,’ a ‘superman’ ” (1907, p. 53). But neither Lombroso’s criminaloid nor Ross’s quasi-criminal captured the criminological imagination like Edwin H. Sutherland’s white-collar criminal.

Even though Sutherland’s catchy term—white-collar crime—is relatively new historically speaking, the behavior that it references is ancient. Fraud has a history that can be traced back millennia, long before Lombroso and Ross put pen to paper ( Geis 1988 ; Johnstone 1998 ; Holtfreter, Van Slyke, and Blomberg 2005 ; Geis, Chapter 2 in this volume). In an analysis of Cicero’s (44 b.c .) On Duties and Dante’s (1314) Inferno , Chevigny (2001) showed that fraud and deception have been viewed as the most reprehensible of all crimes throughout much of human history. Indeed, it is only recently, as life has come to be seen as precious and as fear of death has heightened, that violence has come to be seen as the more reprehensible form of crime ( Pinker, 2012 ). Still, despite the historical recognition and condemnation of fraud, Lombroso, Ross, and Sutherland highlighted a special feature of its waywardness: it is committed by powerful offenders —those who hold privileged positions and who use the trust of others to break the law in order to maximize their personal power and wealth. All three noted that the misdeeds of the powerful often go unpunished for long periods of time and that they can adversely affect the fortunes of entire nations.

Geis’s (Chapter 2 ) essay in this volume illustrates how strands of thought from diverse scholarly and professional fields—all connected by the image of a powerful and power-abusing victimizer—merged in the conceptualization of white-collar crime that Sutherland presented in his Presidential Address to the American Sociological Society in 1939. Sutherland later defined it as “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation” (1949, p. 9). From this definition and his other writings, five key features stand out in regard to Sutherland’s view of white-collar crime. First, the offenders were, by definition, individuals of high social status and respectability. Second, the offenses were committed within an occupational context. Third, the offenses were committed in a particular way—that is, through the “violation of delegated or implied trust” (1940, p. 3). Fourth, the offenses involved massive financial and other costs (e. g., to “social relations” [1949, p. 13]). Fifth and finally, civil and administrative violations could be counted as white-collar crimes because civil laws often deal with practices that are fundamentally similar to those proscribed by criminal laws and because many illegal practices can be sanctioned under either criminal or civil law and often both.

Sutherland’s approach to defining white-collar crime has been defended and followed by many distinguished white-collar crime scholars, such as, for example, Pontell (Chapter 3 in this volume) and Braithwaite (1985) . This approach to defining white-collar crime has been labeled the “offender-based approach” because of its focus on the social characteristics of the offenders ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Despite the fundamental importance of Sutherland’s insight into lawbreaking among those of high social status, the meaning of the concept of white-collar crime has mutated radically since the term was introduced.

Although Sutherland’s approach to defining white-collar crime is the one that resonates best with popular stereotypes of white-collar offenders, a competing conceptual approach emerged only a few decades after his address. This approach focuses on the nature of the offense rather than the offender. The most influential offense-based definition was promulgated by Edelhertz (1970 , p. 3), who defined white-collar crime as “an illegal act or series of illegal acts committed by nonphysical means and by concealment or guile, to obtain money or property, to avoid the loss of money or property, or to obtain business or personal advantage.” Edelhertz’s definition differs from Sutherland’s in important ways. It makes no reference to the social status of the actor or to the occupational location of the act. Rather, it focuses entirely on the means by which the illegal act is committed. Thus, for Edelhertz, any illegal act that is committed by “non-physical means and by concealment or guile” for economic or personal advantage is a white-collar crime.

As both Geis (Chapter 2 in this volume) and Pontell (Chapter 3 in this volume) argue, offense-based definitions enlarge the conceptual boundaries of white-collar crime far beyond the high-powered corporate executives that so concerned Sutherland. In Pontell’s view, this expansion has the effect of producing the “a priori operational trivialization of white-collar crime” as researchers end up studying a heterogeneous collection of small-time fraudsters and trust violators. He blames offense-based definitions for inadequate regulatory policies and largely inadequate if not entirely absent criminal laws against the harmful behaviors of society’s elites. Whereas the objective of Sutherland was to call attention to the misdeeds of the powerful, the objective of Edelhertz was to provide a definition more consistent with legal norms—that is, offense-based definitions are designed to reflect justice system policy and practice. This conceptual bowdlerization not only perpetuates and reinforces existing disparities in the operation of the justice system between white-collar and street crimes, but it also diverts attention from those deceptive acts that cause the most harm and that are committed by economic and political elites.

The defenders of Sutherland’s approach make a valid point regarding the potential dangers of defining white-collar crime in the manner suggested by Edelhertz. If using an offense-based approach means that high-status offenders end up being ignored, then criminology is not much better off than it would have been had the concept of white-collar crime never been invented. Sutherland was correct that crimes by powerful people in his day were ignored. If contemporary criminologists end up studying only small-time fraudsters and welfare mothers, then the theoretical value of the concept of white-collar crime is seriously diminished. Yet, it cannot be denied that people who do not have exalted social status commit crimes that for all intents and purposes are the same as the white-collar crimes committed by Sutherland’s corporate executives ( Weisburd et al. 1991 ). Corporate executives engage in accounting fraud and tax evasion, and so do small business owners. Bank presidents can misappropriate millions of dollars ( Calavita and Pontell 1990 ) while bank tellers embezzle a few hundred bucks. Researchers using the offense-based approach have brought this reality sharply into focus, and they have also demonstrated that both elite and non-elite white-collar offenders differ substantially on a number of dimensions from ordinary street offenders ( Wheeler et al. 1988 ; Weisburd et al. 1991 ; Benson and Kerley 2000 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ).

At present, the term “white-collar crime” is used in both senses by researchers. For some researchers, it refers to the corrupt, exploitative, and socially harmful acts of respectable and powerful individuals and organizations; for others, it refers more broadly to economic crimes that involve deception. As this volume demonstrates, both definitional approaches have been used by researchers to produce important findings and insights on contemporary crime problems. Since both conceptual approaches are found in the literature, it is important to pay attention to how individual researchers operationalize the term in order to accurately assess the significance of their work for the field of white-collar crime. Different definitions lead to different questions and yield different results. Not surprisingly, almost every contributor to this anthology devotes at least a few words of explanation regarding the definition that guided his or her analyses.

II. Offenders

The answer to the question “Who is the white-collar offender?” depends on how one defines white-collar crime (Klenowski and Dodson, Chapter 6 in this volume; Hochstetler and Mackey, Chapter 8 in this volume). For those who follow Sutherland’s approach, however, the question is hardly worth asking. The offenders who should concern us are, by definition, elite members of the corporate and political power structures of modern society. They are the ones who make decisions that affect the financial well-being of millions of people as well as the social and economic health of nations. What matters about them is their economic and political power, not their social or demographic characteristics. Nevertheless, it is implied in writings of Sutherland and his followers that white-collar offenders are predominantly white, male, psychologically normal, and unsullied by contact with the criminal justice system.

Sutherland undoubtedly was correct that the leaders of America’s major corporations frequently engage in behavior that is prohibited by law and that warrants sanctioning in criminal courts, even though the perpetrators rarely see the inside of a courtroom. Wealthy, high-ranking, and highly respected offenders certainly do exist, and they even occasionally appear on the nightly news or nowadays on the webpages of both major and minor news outlets. But the spotlight that is shined on the perpetrators of these national scandals reveals only a small segment of the white-collar offending population.

Researchers using offense-based definitions of white-collar crime have found that those who commit white-collar crimes are much more heterogeneous in their social, demographic, and criminal-background characteristics than the stereotypical image of the white-collar offender would suggest. Consider, for example, gender, race, and social class. Although it is true that most white-collar offenders are white and male, the female share of some low-level forms of white-collar crime, such as embezzlement and identity theft, is substantial (Klenowski and Dodson, Chapter 6 in this volume; Dodge, Chapter 10 in this volume). But the involvement of women in elite frauds, especially in leadership roles, is still exceedingly rare ( Steffensmeier et al. 2013 ; Benson and Gottschalk 2014 ). Likewise, non-whites also commit low-level white-collar offenses in significant numbers, and trend data suggest that for the past three decades both women and non-whites have been commanding an ever larger share of white-collar crime, especially in regard to low-level offenses ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Perhaps the most surprising findings to emerge in the past three decades, however, concern the class standing of those who commit white-collar offenses. As several of the chapters presented here note (Klenowski and Dodson, Chapter 6 ; Hochstetler and Mackey, Chapter 8 ), most of the people who end up in the federal judicial system for white-collar offenses are not wealthy and are not high-ranking corporate executives. Rather, they occupy the middle levels of the class hierarchy (Karstedt, Chapter 9 in this volume).

The expansion of the population of white-collar offenders along gender, race, and class lines has led to a new body of theory and research on their social origins and backgrounds ( Piquero and Benson 2004 ; Piquero and Piquero, Chapter 12 in this volume; Benson, Chapter 13 in this volume). Rather than simply assuming that early childhood and family experiences have little to do with white-collar offending in adulthood, researchers have begun to investigate whether involvement in white-collar crime may arise out of the childrearing practices of the middle and upper classes. Indeed, some have gone so far as to speculate that a middle-class upbringing has features that are the functional equivalents of the poverty, abuse, conflict, and neglect that play such prominent causal roles in street offending. These features include the inculcation of a sense of entitlement, an emphasis on competitive success, and a worldview in which the application of ethical norms and standards of behavior is always considered to be negotiable ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). In short, like ordinary offending, white-collar offending is beginning to be explored as a behavioral pattern that is part of the life course and that arises out of a developmental process (Singer, Chapter 11 in this volume; Piquero and Piquero, Chapter 12 in this volume; Benson, Chapter 13 in this volume). In one sense, this theoretical development represents a departure from Sutherland’s perspective on white-collar offending, as he was opposed to class-based explanations of crime in general. On the other hand, it is consistent with his broader aim of reforming criminological theory, because white-collar offending is now being brought under the theoretical umbrella of life-course criminology, one of the dominant theoretical perspectives in criminology ( Cullen 2011 ).

III. Choice

The life-course perspective calls upon us to view criminal offending as part of a broader process of human development that involves biological, psychological, and social domains. But, despite the all-inclusive nature of life-course theorizing about crime, in the end, specific acts of white-collar law violation occur because specific choices are made by specific individuals or groups of individuals working in concert. A corporate executive decides to ignore the expensive regulations for storing hazardous chemicals that end up polluting a river. Midlevel sales managers in competing companies get together and decide to share customers to ensure market stability and organizational survival for all. An accountant accedes to a demand from the company CEO to figure out a way, illegal if necessary, to improve the bottom line before the next quarterly report is due on Wall Street.

In regard to white-collar crime, choices are theorized to be a function of the actor’s subjective assessment of the net rewards of crime compared to the net rewards of not engaging in crime—that is, of complying with the law ( Paternoster and Simpson 1993 ; Simpson 2013 ). The net rewards of crime are defined as the benefits of crime minus its costs; the same definition applies to non-crime as well ( Wilson and Herrnstein 1985 ). When the former exceed the latter, crime is expected to result. Although white-collar crimes are almost always economically oriented in one sense or another, the decision making of white-collar offenders involves much more than a simple assessment of how much money some particular offense might garner. In other words, decision making by business managers and executives involves more than just a cold-blooded calculation of the economic utility of different courses of action. In particular, decision makers are sensitive to the potential that they or their companies may suffer reputational costs as a result of the exposure of lawbreaking ( Paternoster and Simpson 1996 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). Indeed, these informal costs appear to figure more prominently in the decision-making calculus of offenders than formal legal sanctions ( Simpson 2013 ). Research also suggests that decision making in business is guided by moral and ethical considerations ( Simpson 2002 ; Simpson, Gardner, and Gibbs 2007 ). Those who would engage in white-collar crime may refrain from doing so if they regard the act in question as immoral or socially harmful.

On the other hand, if potential offenders believe that their actions can be framed in morally acceptable terms, then the restraining effect of morality is greatly weakened. White-collar offenders are especially adept at framing their activities to themselves in such a way that the moral and reputational costs of crime are neutralized, at least in the offender’s eyes ( Benson 1985 ; Willott, Griffen, and Torrence 2001 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ; Klenowski et al. 2011 ). The ability of white-collar offenders to deny the criminality of their actions is enhanced by the complex nature of business activity and the normative ambiguity that surrounds it ( Green 2004 , 2006 ). At what point does a conversation between competitors become a price-fixing conspiracy? When does boastful advertising shade into outright consumer fraud? White-collar offenders are also insulated from the moral costs of white-collar crime by the public’s ambiguous view of government efforts to control and regulate business and economic activity ( Cullen, Chouhy, and Jonson, forthcoming ).

Like other people, white-collar offenders are not robots devoid of feelings and emotions. Indeed, emotional factors can influence choices in regard to white-collar crime ( Benson and Sams 2013 ). For example, if business owners or managers feel that they have been unfairly stigmatized or sanctioned by legal authorities, they may respond with anger and defiance rather than compliance ( Simpson 2013 ). Thus, even though the world of business is often portrayed as one in which rationality and cool calculation rule, research suggests otherwise. White-collar crime choice has an emotional component.

Finally, white-collar crime is often carried out in an organizational setting, and this setting influences criminal decision making (Tomlinson and Pozzuto, Chapter 18 in this volume). No discussion of choice in regard to white-collar crime would be complete if it did not acknowledge the organizational dimension of decision making. The idea of an isolated individual decision maker is not applicable to those who work in organizations, because people who work in organizations inevitably interact with coworkers, superiors, and subordinates as well as people who work in other organizations. In these interactions, the preferences and subjective assessments of the interacting parties are shared and become part of each individual’s decision-making gestalt.

IV. Organization

As noted above, organizations can be conceptualized as providing a setting that influences decision making. Indeed, from the perspective of choice theory, the organization is simply another source of benefits and costs that individuals take into account when deciding on various courses of action. For example, variation in the degree to which organizations monitor employee performance in regard to ethical standards will make deviant behavior potentially more costly in some organizations than in others. And there are other organizational characteristics that influence how people behave (Huisman, Chapter 21 in this volume). Tomlinson and Pozzuto (Chapter 18 in this volume) argue that three particularly important characteristics are (1) the reward system, (2) the organizational culture, and (3) the organizational structure.

Consider how an internal reward system could be designed to provoke white-collar crime. Organizations are inherently goal-seeking entities ( Gross 1978 , 1980 ). To achieve their goals, they must organize and motivate individuals to behave in ways that promote organizational goals. One way to do this is to align the achievement of organizational goals with individual benefits—that is, to reward people for doing things that lead to organizational success. For example, raises or promotions can be granted to people who meet certain sales targets or other types of productivity standards, while those who fail to meet the standards are fired, demoted, or otherwise punished. Organizations vary in how quantifiable organizational goals are and how tightly personal rewards are tied to the achievement of these goals. Enron is a classic example of an organization that had very clear financial goals and a very tightly coupled system for aligning corporate goals and individual rewards. Its infamous review and reward system required supervisors to rate a specified percentage of their subordinates as unsatisfactory and sanction them accordingly ( McLean and Elkind 2003 ). This brutal system pressured Enron’s employees to try to enhance their performance by any means available, including illegal ones.

Although it makes intuitive sense to consider organizations as settings that influence how people make decisions, act, and interact, organizations have also been conceptualized as agents in and of themselves ( Braithwaite and Fisse 1990 ; Huisman, Chapter 21 in this volume). Indeed, it has been asserted that the organizational form is inherently criminogenic ( Gross 1978 , 1980 ). A long line of research has focused on the organizational correlates of white-collar crime ( Simpson 1987 ; Zey 1993 ; Simpson 2002 ; Clinard and Yeager 2006 ; Simpson, Garner, and Gibbs 2007 ; for a general overview, see Simpson 2013 ). Many different factors have been investigated, including size, culture, profitability, hierarchical structure, strategy, type, and competitive environment. But empirical findings are inconclusive and no concise set of factors has yet been identified that predicts organizational offending with any degree of accuracy ( Simpson 2013 ).

The choice perspective assumes that criminal behavior is essentially goal-seeking behavior. The offender is viewed as an agent who wants something and chooses to use illegal means to get it. In regard to organizational offending, however, this agent-centered view is at times inappropriate, because in some cases organizations violate the law not because they choose to do so but rather because they are simply incompetent to comply with their legal obligations (Huisman, Chapter 21 in this volume). Small and medium-sized organizations in particular may not have the personnel resources or technical expertise to keep up with the voluminous regulations that govern almost all industries and economic enterprises. Their law-breaking behavior is perhaps more akin to the individual who forgets to file her taxes on time than it is to the amoral pursuit of illegal gains. Some instances of organizational deviance are best viewed as the inevitable byproduct or unintended consequences of organizational structures and routines ( Vaughan 2005 ). Organizational incompetence is not a factor that criminologists have devoted much attention to, but if organizations are to be conceptualized as actors, then we must recognize that, like people, they do not always know what they are doing and their actions are not always intentional.

V. Opportunity

Opportunities are now recognized as an important cause of all crime ( Felson and Eckert 2015 ), and in the past few decades, criminologists have focused increasingly on the situational and ecological factors that facilitate opportunities for street crime ( Cohen and Felson 1979 ; Clarke 1983 ). As causal factors, opportunities are considered to be even more important for white-collar crime. One would be hard pressed to find any study of any form of white-collar crime that does not in one way or another blame the occurrence of the crime on the offender’s having an opportunity to do it. For white-collar crime, the answer to the question “Why did they do it?” is almost always “Because they could.” The list of case studies of particular white-collar crimes that blame them on the opportunities afforded by lax regulatory oversight is, to put it mildly, large.

The nature of white-collar crime opportunities, however, differs from that of street crime ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Opportunities for street crime arise when a motivated offender encounters a suitable target that is not capably guarded ( Cohen and Felson 1979 ). For most street crimes, guardianship involves either somehow inhibiting the offender’s access to the target or somehow making the offender feel that undertaking the crime would be accompanied by a risk of detection that is unacceptably high. Typically, the risk of detection is raised by putting the target under surveillance.

But white-collar crime opportunities are different. The most important difference between white-collar and street crime opportunities is that white-collar offenders have legitimate access to the targets of their offenses ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ; Felson and Eckert 2015 ; Madensen, Chapter 19 in this volume). This access almost always arises out of the offender’s occupational role or position within an organization. Unlike the burglar who must break into a house to steal something, an embezzler can merely take money out of the cash register. Likewise, the doctor who submits a fraudulent claim to the Medicaid program has legitimate access to both patients and the Medicaid reimbursement system. As Marcus Felson has argued for a long time, the distinguishing feature of white-collar crimes is that the offender has specialized access to the target. Because white-collar offenders have legitimate access to the targets of their offenses, the standard crime-prevention technique of reducing crime by blocking the offender’s access to the target is difficult if not impossible to use in the case of most white-collar crimes.

In addition to having specialized access to their targets, white-collar offenders have another advantage over their street-level counterparts. That advantage resides in the superficial appearance of legitimacy of white-collar offenses. In other words, the offenses are not obvious ( Braithwaite and Geis 1982 ). For example, the doctor who submits a fraudulent claim to a healthcare insurer tries to make the claim appear like an ordinary legitimate claim. The manufacturer who illegally disposes of hazardous waste may take steps to make the waste appear nonhazardous, such as by mislabeling the barrel that contains it ( Rebovich 1992 ). The fraudulent and misleading financial reports published by Enron were good enough to fool many sophisticated investors ( McLean and Elkind 2003 ). The victims of Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme were blissfully unaware that the financial statements they received from him were wildly inflated ( Henriques 2011 ). Indeed, a distinguishing feature of many white-collar crimes is that even the victim often is unaware of the offense until it is too late to respond, and in some cases victims may never learn of the offense. The superficial appearance of legitimacy means that the types of surveillance used to prevent street crime—such as reports from victims, observation by security guards, or closed-circuit cameras—are virtually useless in regard to white-collar crimes. Other forms of surveillance or oversight are needed to prevent white-collar crimes, and when they are lacking or insufficient opportunities for white-collar crime expand.

For white-collar crimes, surveillance must be specialized and usually is carried out by regulatory agencies. In theory, these agencies are supposed to provide oversight by inspecting places of business and reviewing business records and activities to make sure that they comply with the law. But, as scholars from Sutherland forward have repeatedly pointed out, regulatory oversight is almost always inadequate, and even when violations are discovered the penalties associated with them are usually bearable for offenders ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). As with ordinary street offenders, white-collar offenders feel much more comfortable executing their schemes if they are confident that no one is watching or that the costs of being caught are not too high. Under these conditions, opportunities to engage in white-collar crimes surely seem plentiful and attractive to potential offenders. Thus, the inadequacy of regulatory oversight is a major element in the opportunity structure of white-collar crime.

Regulatory oversight so often lacks credibility because both regulation and oversight are parts of a political process that is riddled with conflicting and competing interests (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume). Every industry and profession in the United States hires lobbyists to advocate for the special interests of their employers in the halls of Congress and in the offices and meeting rooms of regulatory agencies. These special interests work tirelessly to diminish regulatory restrictions, especially those that might lead to criminal accountability for anyone in the industry or profession (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume). Occasionally, a scandal is so large and outrageous that the public demands action and as a result new rules and regulations are enacted. For example, after the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, the U.S. Congress passed the law popularly known as Sarbanes-Oxley that in theory is supposed to prevent future accounting frauds by strengthening regulatory oversight of the internal accounting practices of large companies and raising penalties for transgressions. As soon as the public’s attention wanes and turns elsewhere, however, special interests begin whittling away at the strength of the enforcement process until eventually real enforcement gives way to the appearance but not reality of oversight and accountability.

Finally, opportunities for white-collar crime continually evolve as financial and technological innovations create new products and new forms of business activity. For example, the massive amount of fraud that occurred in the mortgage and investment banking industries between 2000 and 2008 was made possible in part by such financial innovations as the invention of the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) as an investment vehicle ( Barnett 2013 ). CDOs were so complicated and so little understood by investors and regulators that it was not hard for the major investment banks to market them in a fraudulent manner ( Barnett 2013 ). The evolution of the Internet and online banking coupled with the expansion of consumer credit has made identity theft both more feasible and more lucrative ( Copes and Vieraitis 2012 ). As recent scandals involving such major corporations as Target and Home Depot show, it is now possible to steal the financial identities of millions of people at a time and get access to their lines of credit. For identity thieves, opportunity started knocking in the 1990s. As the economy and technology evolve over time, opportunities for white-collar crimes follow in their wake, leading some scholars to proclaim white-collar crime as the crime of the future ( Weisburd et al. 1991 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ).

VI. Context

As the preceding section discussed, opportunities for white-collar crime are shaped in part by political processes. These processes in turn are part of a larger institutional and cultural context that influences both opportunities and motivations for white-collar crime ( Bonger and Horton 1916 ; Coleman 1987 ). Nearly a century ago, Bonger and Horton (1916) argued that capitalism itself created a moral climate of egoism that inflamed the desire for material success, thus providing a potent source of motivation for crime in all social classes (Simpson and Rorie, Chapter 16 in this volume). More recently, as Headworth and Hagan (Chapter 14 in this volume) show in their analysis of white-collar crime in the financial crisis of 2008, the cultural landscape of the United States has for some time been dominated by an “orientation toward financial markets that privileges the notions of self-regulation and self-correction over government intervention.” As a result of this orientation, individuals working in the financial markets prior to 2008 felt both entitled and empowered to develop complex and little-understood financial instruments, such as CDOs based on pools of subprime loans. Then, in the name of economic growth and with the unwitting backing of the U.S. government, these financial instruments were marketed using fraud and deceit to unsuspecting investors. And when the underlying assets—that is, subprime loans on which the instruments were based—began to fail, the economy followed suit.

Although it is tempting and to a certain degree correct to blame the economic collapse of 2008 on the financial malfeasance of greedy and self-serving investment bankers as well as the fraudulent activities of others who worked in the mortgage industry, this individualized view tells only a small part of the story. Before it can be activated, greed needs an outlet, an opportunity to manifest itself—and the opportunity to engage in the financial malfeasance with little risk of sanction throughout most of the first decade of the 21st century was created by the U.S. government. As Headworth and Hagan (Chapter 14 in this volume) and Prechel (Chapter 15 in this volume) show, the government played a key role in shaping and deregulating financial markets. It pushed the investment banking industry to develop the complex structured debt instruments that were marketed to investors ( Barnett 2013 ). Through deregulation, it “altered the boundaries of legitimacy, legality, and criminality in finance, expanding the realm of explicitly or implicitly sanctioned behaviors” (Headworth and Hagan, Chapter 14 in this volume). The cultural milieu that infused capital markets provided actors with justifications for their risky financial innovations and transactions, while the structure of banking organizations as well as the market itself ensured that responsibility would be diffused to such a degree that finding responsible parties in the aftermath of the collapse became virtually impossible. Hence, almost none of the “big players” in the investment banking world have been criminally charged, let alone convicted, despite widespread agreement among commentators that fraud was rampant leading up to the collapse of 2008 ( Benson 2012 ; Levi 2012 ; Barnett 2013 ).

The onslaught of fraud in the mortgage and investment banking industries prior to 2008 is only one example of how cultural and institutional contexts can create conditions in which white-collar and corporate crime can flourish. But it is certainly not the only example. Indeed, there is a strong theoretical and research tradition in the white-collar crime literature that focuses on interconnections between economic fluctuations, cultural contexts, and rates of white-collar and corporate crime (Simpson and Rorie, Chapter 16 in this volume). This research tends to show that the effects of economic fluctuations are crime specific—that is, some forms of white-collar crime are more sensitive to economic fluctuations than others. The research also shows that both economic booms and economic recessions can influence different forms of corporate and white-collar crime in different ways, because both booms and recessions can affect motivations and opportunities ( Benson 2012 ; Levi 2012 ). For example, economic recessions can put struggling businesses under enormous pressure and threaten them with total failure. Under these conditions, it is almost axiomatic that some owners and executives will respond by breaking the law in an attempt to keep their failing enterprises from going under. On the other hand, an expanding economy can lead to a mad scramble to get in on the action and make money by any means necessary as quickly as one can. The thrift scandal of the 1980s is an excellent example of this dynamic ( Calavita and Pontell 1990 ).

Thus, if anything has been learned since Sutherland introduced the world to white-collar crime, it is that (1) white-collar crime feeds off of and is inextricably linked to legitimate economic activity and (2) opportunities for white-collar crime expand or contract depending on the evolution of political-legal arrangements and the pendulum-like swings in cultural orientations that oscillate between belief in the efficacy of government regulation versus faith in the invisible hand of the free market (Prechel, Chapter 15 in this volume).

Measuring social phenomena is often difficult, and this is especially true in regard to phenomena such as criminal activity, which is by its very nature meant to be clandestine. Nevertheless, those who study ordinary street crime have made some strides in measuring its extent, trends, and costs. The extent can be estimated by mathematically combining information about the number of offenses known to the authorities with information about reporting rates for those offenses to get a rough number for the overall annual crime rate. The number can then be tracked over time to determine whether crime is increasing or decreasing. And by employing a little more mathematical wizardry, researchers have even been able to get better-than-ballpark estimates of how many offenses active offenders commit in a given time period. Once the number of offenses is known, trends in the overall costs of street crime can be estimated by multiplying the average cost per offense by the number of estimated offenses.

It seems reasonable to expect that the costs of white-collar crime also vary over time, and that they also trend up or down depending on how active white-collar offenders are. If we could count the number of white-collar crimes, we would be on our way toward estimating its costs. Counting, however, turns out to be a problem, and very little is known about the dark figure of white-collar crime. As numerous scholars have noted, for various reasons estimating the amount of white-collar crime to any reasonable degree of accuracy seems to be a very difficult task, if not one that is outright unachievable ( Sparrow 1996 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). Thus, estimating the costs of white-collar and corporate crime is a project accompanied by large margins of error.

Estimating the amount of white-collar crime is complicated for both conceptual and substantive reasons. Conceptually, estimation of the amount of white-collar crime depends crucially on how the term is defined (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume). Offense-based definitions, which typically include any property offense involving deceit or deception, result in dramatically higher white-collar offense counts than do offender-based definitions, which include only occupationally related offenses committed by high-status individuals. Dramatically higher counts are also achieved if regulatory violations are included along with criminal violations. Substantively, white-collar crime is difficult to count because the offenses are not obvious and do not leave easily observed traces of their occurrence ( Braithwaite and Geis 1982 ; Benson, Kennedy, and Logan, forthcoming ). Instead, the crime itself is typically hidden behind or integrated into legitimate occupational or financial activities ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Often, even the victim may not realize that an offense has occurred. For example, healthcare professionals who submit fraudulent claims to the health insurers or government programs try to make them look like legitimate claims and hope, often correctly, that they will go unnoticed ( Jesilow, Geis, and Pontell 1991 ; Sparrow 1996 ). Even when a white-collar offense has been discovered, it can still be difficult to put a dollar value on it (Cohen, Chapter 5 in this volume).

Nevertheless, despite these conceptual and substantive difficulties, there are a number of points of agreement about the amount and costs of white-collar crime. First, white-collar crime is widespread and its costs outweigh those of ordinary street crime by several orders of magnitude (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume; Cohen, Chapter 5 in this volume). Second, either directly or indirectly white-collar crime affects almost everyone (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume; Cohen, Chapter 5 in this volume). For example, fraud in the mortgage and investment banking industries recently has been implicated in the economic collapse of 2008 ( Barnett 2013 ; Simpson and Rorie, Chapter 16 in this volume), and in the 1980s fraud in the savings and loan industry cost taxpayers literally billions of dollars ( Calavita and Pontell 1990 ). And there are more subtle costs that cannot be so easily calculated in dollars and cents. Consider how the presence of harmful chemicals in the environment, food, or consumer products may lead to illness and reduced quality of life (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume). In addition to the physical and financial costs of white-collar crime, it may also have severe psychological effects. For example, many of the victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme described themselves as emotionally devastated by the loss of their life savings ( Henriques 2011 ), as were the employees of Enron who lost their retirement accounts when it went bankrupt ( McLean and Elkind 2003 ).

Finally, as Cohen (Chapter 5 in this volume) perceptively notes, the costs of white-collar crime also include what he calls “avoidance behaviors.” Avoidance behavior refers to actions taken by individuals and businesses to avoid becoming a victim of a white-collar crime, or in the case of businesses to avoid being mistakenly charged with a crime. For example, purchasing a credit monitoring service to protect oneself against identity theft is a form of avoidance behavior and also can be considered a cost of white-collar crime. Avoidance behaviors also include actions taken by governments to help prevent crime. Consumer education campaigns and consumer protection agencies help prevent white-collar crimes, but they also cost tax dollars and add to the money lost to white-collar crime.

VIII. Control

For a variety of reasons, white-collar crime poses special problems for criminal justice agencies. First, the crimes themselves are difficult to detect because they are often camouflaged as legitimate business activities ( Braithwaite and Geis 1982 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Second, even when a white-collar crime does come to light, if it is committed in an organizational setting, it can be difficult for investigators and prosecutors to pinpoint a responsible party—that is, an individual or group of individuals who can be convicted and sent to jail ( Benson and Cullen 1998 ). Indeed, prosecutors often face a difficult decision over whether to charge the corporation itself or some individual involved in the offense (Dervan and Podgor, Chapter 27 in this volume). Third, the investigation of crimes committed in organizational settings can be extremely complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive (Dervan and Podgor, Chapter 27 in this volume). Furthermore, the defendants in white-collar cases have abundant legal and financial resources with which to fight criminal charges by taking full advantage of the procedural safeguards that are built into modern legal systems to protect against the coercive use of authority by criminal justice officials ( Mann 1985 ). For all of these considerations, prosecutors have reason to be chary of trying to use criminal sanctions to control white-collar crime.

That white-collar crime and corporate crime pose a grave threat to individuals and society should, by now, be obvious. “Crime in relation to business,” as Sutherland (1940) called it, has given us financial scoundrels who steal billions, environmental disasters that destroy habitats and require billions to clean up, and workplace tragedies whose emotional and physical costs are so appalling that it is tasteless to put a price on them. In light of the size and severity of the problem, one might think that white-collar crime control would be a top priority at all levels of government, but that would be a mistake. With as close to a universal consensus as one can get among scholars, those who study white-collar crime agree that the governmental responses to white-collar crime control are inadequate at best and laughable at worst. Nevertheless, even though official responses to white-collar crime can be fairly described as “limp” ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ), they are not entirely absent, nor are they entirely ineffective. In the final section of this chapter, we describe the different approaches that are used to control white-collar crime, focusing primarily on regulatory oversight and criminal sanctions.

On the rare occasions when prosecutors do move forward and secure convictions against “respectable offenders,” it is not exactly clear how they should be sentenced or what the most appropriate sanction is (Levi, Chapter 28 in this volume). On the one hand, it seems important to send a message that the law applies to rich and poor alike, and therefore it is appropriate to send white-collar offenders to prison. On the other hand, however, one can ask if it makes sense to spend money incarcerating individuals who pose little risk of future dangerousness purely for the sake of punishment. Thus, in sentencing white-collar offenders, judges face a paradox of how to blend the severity that public opinion demands with the leniency that correctional theory would suggest is appropriate ( Wheeler, Mann, and Sarat 1988 ; Levi, Chapter 28 in this volume). The evidence is mixed as to how they resolve this paradox, with some studies finding that upper-world offenders are sentenced more harshly than comparable lower-status counterparts ( Tillman and Pontell 1992 ; Van Slyke and Bales 2012 ), while other studies find little in the way of class-based differences in sentence severity ( Hagan and Nagel 1982 ; Wheeler, Weisburd, and Bode 1982 ; Hagan and Palloni 1986 ; Benson and Walker 1988 ). Even though there is some evidence that incarceration rates and sentence lengths for white-collar offenders have increased in the past two decades ( Stadler, Benson, and Cullen 2013 ), the likelihood that we will ever witness a mass incarceration movement directed at business executives is vanishingly small.

Although the criminal justice system has an important role to play in controlling crime in relation to business, especially in egregious cases, responsibility for the day-to-day oversight and control of harmful activities in business falls mainly on regulatory agencies. And it is within the framework of regulation that the major policy initiatives regarding the control of business activities are put forth. Both the day-to-day administration and enforcement of regulatory rules and the overall form and structure of regulatory policy are perennially controversial topics.

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a more controversial and longstanding subject than the proper role of government in the marketplace. When is government intervention necessary and when should matters should be left to the invisible hand of the market (Gunningham, Chapter 24 in this volume)? Should regulatory inspectors act like law-enforcement agents seeking to find and punish all rule violations, or should they take a more conciliatory, responsive approach to their work with regulated entities and try to help them comply with the law ( Fisse and Braithwaite 1993 ; Gunningham, Chapter 24 in this volume)? Do regulations work, or is their effectiveness inevitably eviscerated by special interests working behind closed doors (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume)? What should be done with transnational organizations that seem to operate outside the jurisdiction of any single governmental authority ( Braithwaite 1993 )? These are but a few of the many ongoing debates over the need for and effectiveness of regulation.

Regarding the effectiveness of regulation, the idea that lax regulation or lack of credible oversight is a fundamental cause of white-collar crime has the status of something approaching a biblical truth among white-collar and corporate crime scholars. A particularly compelling analysis of the role of inadequate regulatory oversight in corporate crime can be found in Ramirez’s study (Chapter 23 in this volume) of the financial scandals of the preceding decade. Ramirez recounts a familiar story in which the response to public outrage over some corporate scandal leads to the passage of new “tough” regulations. But after the public’s attention turns elsewhere, special interests work to “diminish regulatory restrictions and to subvert criminal accountability” (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume). Throughout the history of regulation, scandal and outrage have often led to new regulations that are passed with great fanfare only to be quietly eroded later by the lobbying and backroom deals of special interests.

But even regulations that have been eroded can still have some level of effectiveness, and there are differing opinions on how best to judge effectiveness (Mascini, Chapter 25 in this volume). If effectiveness is judged by the application of tough regulatory sanctions to rule violations, then there is little evidence of that. However, as Mascini (Chapter 25 in this volume) notes, the movements toward responsive regulation and regulatory governance take a more polycentric as opposed to state-centric view of regulation. Under a responsive regulation system, the effectiveness of regulation is judged not so much by how many rule violations are sanctioned but instead by the degree to which harm is reduced and the interests of civil society are protected. According to proponents of responsive regulation, this is most likely to be achieved when regulators work cooperatively with regulated entities ( Ayres and Braithwaite 1992 ). Likewise, the regulatory governance model views the state, the market (i.e., corporations and other business entities), and civil society as part of a comprehensive and interlocking system through which socially responsible behavior by businesses is promoted.

Whether the happy and cooperative state of affairs envisioned by the regulatory governance and responsive regulation models is ever actually achieved in the market place is debated and depends on where you look (Mascini, Chapter 25 in this volume). There have been some success stories. For example, the airline industry has made important contributions to the safety of air travel. But there are also many industrial sectors where market participants have done little to improve the safety of workers or consumers and have vigorously resisted efforts by governments to do so ( Cullen et al. 2006 ). The effectiveness of different regulatory models is, therefore, difficult to evaluate as counterexamples can always be found. In the end, the “holy grail” of regulation may never be found, because “policy ideas on regulatory inspection are founded on conflicting conceptions of the good society” (Mascini, Chapter 25 in this volume).

IX. Conclusion

This Handbook was designed to bring together contemporary cutting-edge thinking on the problem of white-collar crime and its control. In regard to that goal, we believe we have succeeded, but we are also aware that a field as broad and deep as white-collar crime can never be captured in a single handbook, at least not in one that could be lifted by a normal person. Thus, in selecting what areas to cover and how many chapters to devote to them, we have necessarily had to be selective. This book could easily have had twice as many chapters and been twice as long. Nevertheless, we believe readers will find something of value here on each of the eight themes that guided our work—concept, offender, organization, choice, opportunity, context, costs, and control.

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Introduction

White-collar crimes are crimes committed by people in their line of duty either in businesses or in government professionals. White-collar crimes are mostly committed to personal financial advantages and are frequently handled by people ranked with high social standards. The main purpose of the white-collar crime is securing a personal or business advantage, get property gain/ privileged services and acquire money. Collars misrepresent finances to mislead the regulator in an organization by committing fraudulent investment where returns are overstated and risks less stated or not stated. Some examples of white-collar crimes are embezzlement, money laundering, security fraud, and corporate fraud.

Money laundering

Money laundering is the practice of acquiring money earned from illegal activities like drug trafficking, corruption, terrorism, human trafficking, and healthcare fraud. Criminals tend to make the money look like it&#39;s earned from the legal business where this laundering process returns the money to the launderer in an indirect way. Effort and time are considered by enforcing strategies that won&#39;t raise any considered suspicions. Money laundering involves three steps; placement, layering, and integration. Placement involves the process of moving dirty money into a legitimate economy keeping it away from its source. The money then moves through financial institutions and businesses. Placement can occur in different ways like; sending small amounts to banks, purchasing foreign money with illegal revenues and placing money away from source organizations. Placement is a very risky stage especially when crossing money on borders with high security. The second money Laundering stage is layering; this stage involves making illegal money hard to detect and moving it as further from the source. The

WHITE-COLLAR CRIMES collar makes layering very complicated by moving international funds from their source and creates a deliberately complicated audit through a series of financial transactions. The integration process then takes place where the money is taken back to the economy by the criminal; the criminal may purchase a property through this legal money. The money then is received through a source like a salary or a wage and it&#39;s not easy to detect the money once it gets back to the economy for most criminals even allow it to be taxed. The government enhances ways of detecting and deterring dirty money through regularly coordinating money laundering with local enforcement agencies, federal and the state.

Embezzlement

In the embezzlement process, persons withhold assets entrusted to them by an organization and converse the assets on themselves. For example, an advocate can embezzle funds from the trust accounts or a partner can embezzle funds from a joint bank account. Embezzlement is performed with precautions that occur without the knowledge of the affected person(s). It mostly involves a small portion of the entrusted funds or resources to avoid the detection of fraud. The victims realize afterward that some funds or resources are missing. Embezzlement is a criminal offense which, may be charged on fraudulence and criminal conversion.

WHITE-COLLAR CRIMES

Corporate fraud

Corporate fraud is intentionally misrepresenting company funds and resources perpetrated by corporate and government institutions. Like in embezzlement, corporate fraud is not detected at its early stage. The government tries to prevent fraud with policies and laws that help law enforcement detect scheme. Fraud mostly incurs losses in an organization that can cause job loss or imprisonment for the criminals charged guilty. Audit and Legal regulations detect and prevent corporate fraud.

Security fraud

In the security fraud, criminals misrepresent information used by investors to make decisions; it can also be termed as investment fraud which is a serious crime involving the investment world. Security fraud may take many forms; High-yield investment fraud involves guarantees of high rates of return claiming there are no involved risks. Ponzi and pyramid security frauds use the funds of investors to pay investors caught upon the arrangement process.

White-collar crimes are crimes committed by educated people and professional elites. It can have a large economic impact on society when losses are incurred on businesses, organizations and the government white-collar crimes also increase cost. It is therefore of great importance to put remedy for white-collar crimes through detection and elimination.

Clinard, M., Quinney, R., &amp; Wildeman, J. (2014). Criminal behavior systems: A typology. Routledge.

Friedrichs, D. O. (2009). Trusted criminals: White collar crime in contemporary society. Cengage Learning.

Benson, M. L., Madensen, T. D., &amp; Eck, J. E. (2009). White-collar crime from an opportunity perspective. In The criminology of white-collar crime (pp. 175-193). Springer, New

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Effects Of Street Crime Versus White Collar Crime

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White Collar Crime

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