white collar crime introduction essay

White Collar Crime Essay

Introduction, motivations, consequences and punishment for white-collar crime, laws pertaining to white collar crime.

Champion (2011) defines white collar crimes as “a non violent crime, usually committed in commercial situations, for financial gain.” The Federal Bureau of Investigations cites the use of concealment, deceit or trust-violation as the primary mechanisms for committing these crimes.

Individuals often carry out these offenses in order to access property, services or property. Alternatively, they may do so as a protective measure against the loss of these latter incentives. Others engage in white-collar crime in order to gain an advantage over their colleagues at work or in business.

The public categorizes white-collar crime as non violent. Many wrongfully assume that it is a victimless crime because of this label. However cheating, stealing and deceit are synonymous to the crime, and have the potential to destroy families, companies, investors or even an economy.

Parties affected by the crime and how it affects them

White collar criminals place more emphasis on their personal needs than their organization’s to the point of downplaying the real costs of their actions. For instance, a lawyer may dishonestly increase the number of billable hours that he did per file. If this same person handles about 70 cases per week, then the organization could lose about $150,000 dollars in revenue. Once the tactic becomes commonplace, then the organization could lose millions in annual returns (Naso, 2012).

Aside from the increased losses experienced by such firms, white collar crimes also shortchange clients. Professionals, sellers and business persons will make promises that they cannot deliver and this will render them uncompetitive. For instance, the above lawyer would claim that he has made a court appearance when he has not.

Clients will keep wondering why their cases are dragging on and may take their business elsewhere. This type of crime also harms coworkers because someone will get credit for work they have not done. The white-collar criminal may seem more hardworking or diligent than their peers, and this could attract incentives like promotions, salaries or other perks.

Honest coworkers may become demoralized over such a state of affairs and the institution will lose out. In the world of business, entrepreneurs who engage in white-collar crime may seem more lucrative for partnership than their honest counterparts. Customers may take their business there under the assumption that they will be better off. In the end, the white-collar criminals rarely deliver while the honest businessmen may become demoralized or even go out of business.

In developing nations, white collar crime manifests as corruption. This stems from the fact that white collar crime is so deeply entrenched in their corporate system that it has become almost a necessity to do business. In places like Russia, a business has no chance of survival if it does not pay bribes to government bureaucrats (Healy & Ramanna, 2013). Failure to do so leads to withheld contracts, lack of supplies and eventually complete shutdown.

Many state-owned corporations in these corrupt nations often create shell companies that enable them to siphon company assets or profits to third parties. They often use up dividends that would have been paid to shareholders or applied in business development. As a consequence, stakeholders in the business fail to get what is rightfully theirs. Extortion and bribes are a form of backroom tax that demoralizes entrepreneurs and investors alike. It discourages people from trading and thus stifles a nation’s ability to grow or innovate.

This has an adverse implication on the population’s quality of life because only few people will be willing to invest. When prosecutors, government officials and law enforcers treat white collar crime as a normal part of business, then victims will never get justice.

This culture tarnishes the fabric of society as civilians have no public body that they can trust. The presence of white-collar crime in the public sector makes it easier for hardened or violent criminals to get away with their wrongs. It devastates family members and casualties of violent crime.

Calabresi & Saporito (2012) explains that convicted offenders may serve jail time upon completion of their cases. Sometimes this could range from a few months to several years depending on the extent of offense. The courts could also decide to impose fines for such crimes. A case in point was the payment of a 1-million-dollar fine for fraud by a Wall Street investor.

However, this is contingent on how the prosecutor collected the evidence in the first place. Most law enforcement officials rely on wire taps to nub white collar criminals, yet the law limits use of wire taps unless one has probable cause for the commission of a crime. Additionally, the lack of standard definitions of insider trading limits successful prosecution and incarceration of suspects.

Most white-collar crimes take the form of insider trading; as a consequence, ambivalent definitions and standards on the same impede law enforcers from taking actions. A lot of dynamics come into play when a judge must decide on the threshold of insider trading that leads to criminal violations.

After the 2007-2008 global economic meltdown, many governments realized that white-collar crime could lead to dire consequences. They started looking at companies such as Worldcom and Enron, which failed to nip these problems at the bid (Kaplan, 2013). Therefore, in some countries, white collar crime can elicit sentences that mirror sentences in violent crime. They have created guidelines which judges must use when making sentencing decisions.

Whether white-collar crime should be punished more severely

White-collar criminals should indeed receive greater penalties for the wrongdoings. Marks (2012) affirms that these are individuals who do not have a moral compass. They are highly deceptive people who will twist and bend the truth in order to achieve selfish gains. Such groups will ignore the real costs of their actions and thus engage in conduct that has adverse consequences on everyone concerned.

White-collar criminals seem to have an entitlement mentality that makes them think that they can get away with misdeeds. It is easy for them to rationalize their actions and immoral conduct. They lack a standard that guides their behavior, so they are likely to commit these offenses. It is incumbent upon stakeholders in the legal system to create tougher laws that would deter such persons.

When an individual lacks direction from within, then the law should step in to restrain them. Severe penalties would act as a control to keep the deviations of such people in check. Failure to reign in on such behavior could leave the corporate scene in a state of disorder.

As mentioned in earlier sections of the paper, white-collar crime has dire consequences upon the masses. When left unchecked, whole organizations may close and thousands of people could lose their jobs. Families that depend on them would be helpless. White collar crime should elicit severe penalties in order to protect the masses of people that could be affected by the actions of just a few individuals.

The principal of just punishment states that a person who commits a wrongdoing out of negligence deserves a lenient penalty over a person who knowingly commits a crime. People who take part in white collar crime are well-aware of their actions. Furthermore, many of them have been doing the same things for years on end.

It makes a lot of sense to give severe punishment to recidivists than first-time criminals (Kaplan, 2013). Prosecutors may catch a white collar criminal for the first time but this does not imply that the suspect has not been committing the wrong repeatedly. When investigators find such individuals, they should endeavor to establish how long they have been engaging in the act and thus match the punishment with the crime.

In today’s highly competitive business environment, some companies encourage their employees to do whatever it takes to succeed. In the absence of an external deterrent, these employees will commit white collar crimes under the guise of propagating the company’s competiveness. Severe penalties would curb such a problem.

White collar crime is not a victimless crime. It demoralizes honest employees and entrepreneurs who never get rewards for their diligence. This leads to poor service outcomes for clients who must contend with substandard offerings. Additionally, it may cause serious financial losses.

Entire organizations can close because of uncurbed white collar crime. Family members of such parties would have no redress. This crime also discourages investors and stifles business growth. Eventually, a nation’s economy could be severely impeded. It is for these reasons that punishment should be harsher. Such an approach would exert external controls on persons with no internal moral compass.

Calabresi, M. & Saporito, B. (2012). The street fighter. Time, 179(6), 22-27. Web.

Champion, D. (2011). White-collar crimes and organizational offending: An integral approach. International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology, 1(3), 34-47. Web.

Healy, P. & Ramanna, K. (2013). When the crowd fights corruption. Harvard Business Review, 91(1), 122-128. Web.

Kaplan, D. (2013). The judge who rules on business. Fortune , 167(2), 106. Web.

Marks, J. (2012). A matter of ethics: understanding the mind of a white-collar criminal. Financial Executive, November, 31-34. Web.

Naso, R. (2012). When money and morality collide: White collar crime and the paradox of integrity. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 26(2), 241-254. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, December 29). White Collar Crime. https://ivypanda.com/essays/white-collar-crime/

"White Collar Crime." IvyPanda , 29 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/white-collar-crime/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'White Collar Crime'. 29 December.

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1. IvyPanda . "White Collar Crime." December 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/white-collar-crime/.

Bibliography

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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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What Is White-Collar Crime?

Understanding white-collar crime, corporate fraud, money laundering, securities and commodities fraud, the bottom line.

• Financial Crime & Fraud
• Definitions M - Z

What Is White-Collar Crime? Meaning, Types, and Examples

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Investopedia / Eliana Rodgers

White-collar crime is a nonviolent crime often characterized by deceit or concealment to obtain or avoid losing money or property, or to gain a personal or business advantage.

Examples of white-collar crimes include securities fraud, embezzlement, corporate fraud, and money laundering. Entities that investigate white-collar crime include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and state authorities.

Key Takeaways

• White-collar crime is a nonviolent crime of deceit or concealment to obtain or avoid losing money or to gain a personal or business advantage.
• Securities fraud, embezzlement, corporate fraud, and money laundering are white-collar crimes.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and state authorities investigate white-collar crime.

"White-collar crime" is a term first coined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 who defined it as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status during his occupation. White-collar workers historically held non-laboring office positions while blue-collar workers traditionally wore blue shirts and worked in plants, mills, and factories.

High-profile individuals convicted of white-collar crimes include Ivan Boesky, Bernard Ebbers, Michael Milken , and Bernie Madoff . Their crimes have included insider trading, accounting scandals, securities fraud, and Ponzi schemes .

Rampant new white-collar crimes facilitated by the Internet include so-called Nigerian scams , in which fraudulent emails request help in forwarding a substantial amount of money to a criminal ring. Other common white-collar crimes include insurance fraud and identity theft.

$3.7 Billion

The Madoff Victim Fund (MVF) distributed over $3.7 billion to nearly 40,000 victims worldwide in connection with the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) fraud scheme.

Large-scale corporate fraud that occurs in corporate or government institutions incurs a significant financial loss to investors and can damage the U.S. economy and investor confidence.

Corporate fraud gathers the widest group of partners for investigations, including the FBI, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Falsification of Financial Information

The majority of corporate fraud cases involve accounting schemes that are conceived to deceive investors, auditors, and analysts about the true financial condition of a corporation or business by manipulating financial data, share price, or other measurements to inflate the financial performance of the business.

In 2014, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to helping U.S. citizens avoid taxes by hiding income from the Internal Revenue Service and paid penalties of $2.6 billion. Bank of America sold billions in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to properties with inflated values without proper collateral and agreed to pay $16.65 billion in damages.

Self-Dealing

Self-dealing occurs when a fiduciary acts in their own best interest rather than in the best interest of their clients. Considered a conflict of interest, this illegal activity can lead to litigation, penalties, and termination of employment for those who commit it.

Self-dealing includes front-running , when a broker enters into a trade with the foreknowledge of a non-publicized transaction that will influence the price of the asset, resulting in a financial gain for the broker. It also occurs when a broker or analyst buys or sells shares for their account ahead of their firm's buy or sell recommendation to its clients.

Insider trading occurs when individuals act upon or divulge to others information that is not yet public and is likely to affect share price and company valuations once it is known. Insider trading provides an unfair advantage for individuals to profit and does not matter how the material nonpublic information was received or if the person is employed by the company.

Money laundering is accepting cash earned from illicit activities, such as drug trafficking, and making the cash appear as earnings from legal business activity. Criminals often filter money from crimes such as human and narcotics trafficking, public corruption, and terrorism in a three-step process:

• Placement is the initial entry of a criminal’s financial proceeds into the financial system.
• Layering separates the criminal’s financial proceeds from their source and creates a deliberately complex audit trail through a series of financial transactions.
• Integration occurs when the criminal’s financial proceeds are returned to the criminal after "laundering" from what appear to be legitimate sources.

A cash-based business, such as a restaurant that is owned by a criminal organization, is a common tool for laundering illegal money. Daily cash receipts may be inflated to funnel illegal cash through the restaurant and into the bank for distribution to the owners.

The  Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 assists financial institutions in their efforts to meet their obligations under laws and regulations designed to combat money laundering by targeting foreign and domestic terrorist financing, transnational criminal organizations, drug trafficking organization activity, human trafficking, and human smuggling, and proliferation financing.

The perpetrator of a securities fraud can be an individual, such as a stockbroker, or an organization, such as a brokerage firm, corporation, or investment bank, and includes crimes such as:

• High-yield investment fraud involves promises of high rates of return coupled with claims of little or no risk in investments like commodities, securities, and real estate.
• Ponzi and pyramid schemes are fraudulent investment scams that generate returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors.
• Advance fee schemes involve fraudsters convincing their targets to advance small amounts of money with a promise to deliver greater returns.
• Broker embezzlement schemes involve illicit and unauthorized actions by brokers to steal directly from their clients, usually with a myriad of false documents.
• “ Pump and dump ” schemes artificially inflate the price of lower-volume stocks on small over-the-counter markets. The "pump" involves recruiting unwitting investors through false or deceptive sales practices, public information, or corporate filings. Once the target price is achieved, the perpetrators “dump” their shares at a huge profit and leave innocent investors to foot the bill.
• Late-day trading is the illegal practice of recording trades that are executed after hours as having occurred before a mutual fund calculated its daily net asset value (NAV). Late-day trading can dilute the value of a mutual fund's shares and harm long-term investors.

What Are Well-Known Securities Fraud Cases Investigated by the FBI?

Examples of cases of securities fraud are the  Enron , Tyco, Adelphia, and  WorldCom  scandals.

What Are the Penalties for White-Collar Crime?

If convicted, an individual may be sentenced to time in county jail, state prison, or federal prison, depending on the severity of the crime. Additionally, fines may be imposed as well as required restitution to the victim.

Who Investigates Securities Fraud?

Allegations of securities fraud are investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), often in concert with the FBI.

State authorities can also investigate investment scams. In a unique attempt to protect its citizens, the state of Utah established the nation’s first online registry for white-collar criminals where photos of individuals who are convicted of a fraud-related felony rated as second-degree or higher are featured on the registry.

What Are Anti-Money Laundering Rules Used in Banking?

Many companies, especially those involved in finance and banking, have anti-money laundering (AML) rules in place to detect and prevent money laundering. For banks, compliance starts with verifying the identity of new clients, a process sometimes called  Know Your Client (KYC) and customer due diligence detects money laundering strategies like breaking up large money laundering transactions into smaller ones to evade reporting limits and avoid scrutiny.

What Is Intellectual Property Theft?

Intellectual property theft is a white-collar crime that robs people or companies of their ideas, inventions, and creative expressions, known as intellectual property, and may include trade secrets and proprietary products or movies, music, and software.

Securities fraud, embezzlement, corporate fraud, and money laundering are considered white-collar crimes, perpetrated traditionally by those in corporate or office settings. The SEC, NASD, the FBI, and state authorities work in concert to investigate white-collar crimes which are often prosecuted at the federal level. Penalties for committing a white-collar crime include prison, fines, and restitution.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. " White-Collar Crime ."

Federal Bureau of Investigation. " The Measurement of White-Collar Crime Using Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Data ." Page 1.

North Carolina Attorney General's Office. " Nigerian Money Transfer Scams ."

Georgia Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division. " Nigerian Fraud Scams ."

U.S. Department of Justice. " Justice Department Announces Additional Distribution of More than $568 Million to Victims of Madoff Ponzi Scheme ."

U.S. Department of Justice. " Bank of America to Pay $16.65 Billion in Historic Justice Department Settlement for Financial Fraud Leading up to and During the Financial Crisis ."

U.S. Department of Justice. " Credit Suisse Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Aid and Assist U.S. Taxpayers in Filing False Returns ."

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). " Trust Examination Manual ."

Congressional Research Service. " The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN): Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 Implementation and Beyond ."

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). " The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 ."

State of Utah Office of the Attorney General. " White Collar Crime Offender Registry ."

• What Is Fraud? Definition, Types, and Consequences 1 of 31
• What Is White-Collar Crime? Meaning, Types, and Examples 2 of 31
• What Is Corporate Fraud? Definition, Types, and Example 3 of 31
• What Is Accounting Fraud? Definition and Examples 4 of 31
• Financial Statement Manipulation 5 of 31
• Detecting Financial Statement Fraud 6 of 31
• What Is Securities Fraud? Definition, Main Elements, and Examples 7 of 31
• What Is Insider Trading and When Is It Legal? 8 of 31
• What Is a Pyramid Scheme? How Does It Work? 9 of 31
• Ponzi Schemes: Definition, Examples, and Origins 10 of 31
• Ponzi Scheme vs. Pyramid Scheme: What's the Difference? 11 of 31
• What Is Money Laundering? 12 of 31
• How Does a Pump-and-Dump Scam Work? 13 of 31
• Racketeering Definition, State vs. Federal Offenses, and Examples 14 of 31
• Mortgage Fraud: Understanding and Avoiding It 15 of 31
• Wire Fraud Laws: Overview, Definition and Examples 16 of 31
• The Most Common Types of Consumer Fraud 17 of 31
• Who Is Liable for Credit Card Fraud? 18 of 31
• How to Avoid Debit Card Fraud 19 of 31
• The Biggest Stock Scams of Recent Time 20 of 31
• Enron: Scandal and Accounting Fraud 21 of 31
• Bernie Madoff: Who He Was, How His Ponzi Scheme Worked 22 of 31
• 5 Most Publicized Ethics Violations by CEOs 23 of 31
• The Rise and Fall of WorldCom: Story of a Scandal 24 of 31
• Four Scandalous Insider Trading Incidents 25 of 31
• What Is the Securities Exchange Act of 1934? Reach and History 26 of 31
• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Defined, How It Works 27 of 31
• Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Overview 28 of 31
• Anti Money Laundering (AML) Definition: Its History and How It Works 29 of 31
• Compliance Department: Definition, Role, and Duties 30 of 31
• Compliance Officer: Definition, Job Duties, and How to Become One 31 of 31

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2 The Roots and Variant Definitions of the Concept of “White-Collar Crime”

Gilbert Geis, PhD, was Professor Emeritus, Department of Criminology, Law and Society University of California, Irvine.

• Published: 07 April 2016
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White-collar crime was traditionally a subject that was confined to the shadows. However, the economic meltdown of 2008–2009 focused increasing criminological attention on white-collar crime. This chapter examines historically the social science trajectory of the concept of white-collar crime. The chapter explains the debate regarding definitions that concentrate on the status of offenders versus those that focus on the legal standing of the behavior as the key element of white-collar crime. The early definition of white-collar crime was an offense committed by a person of high position in the course of his or her occupation. The chapter concludes by arguing that this definition has more potential for focusing attention on malevolent behaviors that in contemporary times reflect power that is inequitably distributed and poorly regulated. Because of this inequality, the dishonest in the upper echelons are able to ruthlessly exploit the remainder of the citizenry without facing serious consequences.

White-collar crime has become a prominent social and political issue since the global economic meltdown that began in the first decade of the present century. This essay discusses the history of concern with such behavior while focusing on the various definitions of what should be regarded by the criminal justice and regulatory systems as white-collar crime.

The core conclusions are as follows:

Throughout history there has been social and political concern regarding the abuse of power by elites in business, politics, and the professions, and persons who exploit the citizenry by violations of customs, rules, and laws.

Disapproval of these malevolent practices began to coalesce in the United States at the turn of the 20th century in the movement against persons labeled “robber barons” and in the work of a group of writers who were called muckrakers.

This movement was specified as a crusade against “criminaloids” and “white-collar bandits” before the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 pinned the tag of “white-collar crime” on the illegal acts of the powerful in the course of their occupational work.

Sutherland’s definition has been challenged by people who insist that it should not be the status of the perpetrator but conviction for criminal acts with specific characteristics, such as securities fraud, that should define white-collar crime.

Dissensus over the relative merits of offender-based and offense-based definitions of white-collar crime can be transcended in part by use of a hybrid approach that avoids some of the theoretical and empirical shortcomings of the latter.

Section I of this essay offers an inventory of behaviors in early times that would today come under the heading of white-collar crime. Section II reviews writings in the United States prior to the formal introduction of the term “white-collar crime.” Section III reviews the emergence of the designation “white-collar crime” and the erratic nature of the definitions offered by its originator. Section IV discusses the appearance of an emphasis on the legal nature of the offense rather than the status of the offender, and notes the significance of the two major approaches to white-collar crime for research, theory, and policy. Finally, section V offers the writer’s appraisal of the variant definitions of “white-collar crime.”

I. The Pre-Sutherland Landscape

The belief that all humans are born equal is dear to the heart of many citizens of democracies, but throughout time it has been refuted by the fact that some persons, through birth, effort, good luck, or other arrangements, are a great deal more equal than others. The power that goes with being better situated in the social and economic hierarchy may be used to engage in actions that violate tradition and, as social systems evolve, formal legal rules. Early substantive information on elite wrongdoing can be gleaned from codes promulgated almost two thousand years before the beginning of the Christian calendar. Notable is the Code of Hammurabi, issued about 1780 b.c.e . by the ruler of Babylonia ( Prince 1904 ; Bryant 2005 ). Among its 282 provisions are decrees proclaiming that “a judge who has given a verdict, rendered a decision, granted a written judgment, and afterward had altered his judgment” was to be fined twelve times the amount of the judgment and expelled from his position ( Johns 1999 ). Presumably, the rules were intended to discourage payment of bribes to judges to induce them to change their verdict.

The ancient records also include other examples. Edicts, parables, imprecations, and curses directed at practices that later became known as white-collar crimes appear in the history of the offense of bribery in ancient Egypt ( Taylor 2001 ) and political tyranny in early Greece ( McGlew 1993 ). Corruption in the Roman Empire was classically portrayed by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar when Brutus levels the accusation: “Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself/Are much condemned to have an itching palm/To sell and mart your offices for gold.” (An itching palm, folklore claimed, could best be cured by scratching it with a metallic coin.) In Exodus 23:8 in the King James translation of the Old Testament, we again are met with a warning against bribery: “And you shall take no bribes, for the bribe blinds the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous.” In Matthew 21:12, there is the story of Jesus overturning the tables of the unscrupulous money changers in the temple.

In the common law of England, as well as in colonial American statutes, there were provisions against what were called forestalling, engrossing, and regrating—offenses involving the creation of shortages of comestibles in order to reap greater profits for food deliberately withheld from the market ( Geis 1988 , pp. 9–13).

Harsh indictments of the kinds of behavior that would be labeled “white-collar crime” likewise appear in the more contemporary historical record. Perhaps (but perhaps not) the most influential prompt to interest in white-collar crime came from the work of Charles Richmond Henderson, Sutherland’s Ph.D. advisor at the University of Chicago. Henderson had written in a textbook:

The social classes of the highest culture furnish few convicts, yet there are educated criminals. Advanced culture modifies the form of crime, tends to make it less coarse and violent, but more cunning; restricts it to quasi-legal forms. But education also opens up the way to new and colossal kinds of crime. . . . Many of the “Napoleons” of trade . . . are cold-blooded robbers and murderers, utterly indifferent to the inevitable misery which . . . will follow their contrivances and deals. ( Henderson 1901 , p. 250)

In 1907, E. A. Ross, a preeminent sociologist, devoted a chapter in his Sin and Society to persons he labeled criminaloids . His roster included

the director who speculates in securities, the banker who lends the depositors’ money to himself . . . the railroad official who grants a secret rebate for his private graft, the builder who hires delegates to harass his rivals with ceaseless strikes, the labor leader who instigates a strike in order to be paid for calling it off, the publisher who bribes his text-books into the schools. (p. 50)

The criminaloid, Ross went on, “counterfeits the good citizen. Full well he knows that the giving of a fountain or a park, the establishing of a college chair on Neolithic drama or the elegiac poetry of the Chaldeans will more than outweigh the dodging of taxes, the grabbing of streets, and the corrupting of city councils” (p. 62).

The investigative work of the muckrakers—Ida Tarbell, Frank Norris, and Upton Sinclair, among others—documented harmful practices in the oil industry, the Chicago meatpacking plants, as well as corruption in the country’s largest cities ( Filler 1990 ). The term “robber barons” was fixed by Matthew Josephson (1933) on magnates who had engaged in self-serving financial craftiness, sucking funds from investors and the government, money that, for example, only marginally went into the building of the transcontinental railroads but largely ended up in the pockets of moguls such as Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins ( Lewis 1938 ; see generally Geis 2011 , pp. 15–82).

Other writers also noted elite wrongdoing and likened the perpetrators to “white-collar bandits” ( Schoepfer and Tibbetts 2011 ). In 1926, Hurnard J. Kenner, the manager of the Better Business Bureau, berated “the white-collar bandit, the gentleman thief who steals the savings of the uniformed or gullible by stock-swindling and fraudulent brokerage practices” ( Kenner 1926 , p. 54). Three years later, the same term was employed by George E. Q. Johnson, Jr. (1929) , a federal district attorney in Illinois. Finally, a law professor, writing about planned bankruptcies, attributed them to “white-collar bandits” ( Wolfe 1938 ).

II. Edwin H. Sutherland

The term “white-collar crime” was introduced to the public arena by Edwin H. Sutherland in his 1939 presidential address to a joint meeting of the American Sociological Society and the American Economics Association. Sutherland had graduated in 1904 from Grand Island College in Nebraska, where his father, a Baptist minister, was president. He enrolled in the sociology department at the University of Chicago, staffed by what many people consider the most eminent group of sociology scholars ever assembled in one academic setting ( Bulmer 1984 ).

There are no obvious clues that might explain Sutherland’s emergent focus on white-collar crime in the latter part of his career. Notably, however, he was raised in Nebraska and absorbed the populist ideology that saw corporate leaders, particularly those running the railroads, mercilessly sucking the lifeblood out of farm communities by levying exorbitant and discriminatory rates ( Cherry 1981 ). In the preface to his 1949 monograph on the subject he noted that he (in fact, primarily his students) had been assembling the material for the book during the previous twenty-five years. Eventually, he would publish this monograph and four papers on the subject of white-collar crime. In addition, the text of a talk on white-collar crime that Sutherland delivered at DePauw University was included in a collection of his journal writings.

A. “White-Collar Criminality” (1939)

A major theme of Sutherland’s presidential address was that, in their research and theories, both sociologists and economists had failed to take account of what he labeled “white-collar crime.” Had they attended to such crimes, inevitably they would have realized that notions that crime was caused by conditions such as poverty, broken homes, psychopathic ailments, immigrant status, and mental deficiency were inadequate. The reason, Sutherland argued, is that they failed to account for illegal acts by the powerful in their role in business, politics, and the professions.

Sutherland provided the first two of his various definitions of white-collar crime in his address. His aim, he proclaimed, was “a comparison of crime in the upper or white-collar class, composed of respectable or at least respected business and professional men, and crime in the lower class, composed of persons of low socio-economic status” ( Sutherland 1940 , p. 1). In a later footnote he elaborated on his definition:

Perhaps it should be repeated that “white-collar” (upper) and “lower” classes merely designate persons of high and low socioeconomic status. Income and amount of money involved in the crime are not the sole criteria. Many persons of “low” socioeconomic status are “white-collar” criminals in the sense that they are well-dressed, well-educated, and have high incomes, but “white-collar” as used in this paper means “respected,” “socially accepted and approved,” “looked up to.” Some people in this class may not be well-dressed or well-educated, nor have high incomes, although the “upper” usually exceed the “lower” classes in these respects as well as in social status. (p. 4)

This piece of obscurantism indicates the inconclusive wrestling bout that Sutherland had with himself trying to pin down the parameters of his subject.

Sutherland clearly was following the path of the muckrakers, as a newspaper reporter had no trouble recognizing. The story in the Philadelphia Public-Ledger (1939 , p. 17) indicated that his speech offered a “withering denunciation” of acts of white-collar crime to “an astonished audience.” In his talk, Sutherland harked back to the robber barons—Cornelius Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, and others—to make his case. He also added to that roster more current upper-crust crooks—Ivar Kreuger and Serge Alexandre Stavisky—and maintained that “in many periods more important crime news may be found on the financial pages of newspapers than on the front pages” (p. 2).

Sutherland insisted that the behaviors he was concerned with could have been handled as criminal offenses. He offered a roster of agencies that might move against white-collar offenders (e.g., the Interstate Commerce Commission) and acts that might be committed by white-collar offenders (e.g., false advertising). “White-collar crime is real crime,” he claimed. “It is not ordinarily called crime, and calling it by this name does not make it worse, just as not calling it crime does not make it better” (p. 5). He was concerned not with criminal convictions but with “convict-ability” (p. 6). Sutherland argued that whether an act is defined as a crime or a violation often is determined by the power of likely offenders. An example others would offer is lobbying, which is self-evidently a form of bribery, except that the politicians who are lobbied are the ones who determine the legal dimensions of bribery.

Sutherland believed there was need for a theory that explained every kind of crime. For him, the etiological grail was “differential association,” a set of postulates maintaining that criminal behavior is learned and that the essence of the learning involves an acquired understanding of outlawed behavior as acceptable or unacceptable and acting in accord with that belief. Sutherland, who often was his own most astute critic, would hedge that position in the textbook that he wrote and that Donald Cressey, a former Sutherland Ph.D. student, updated after Sutherland’s death:

Just as the germ theory of disease does not explain all diseases, so it is possible that no one theory of criminal behavior will explain all criminal behavior. In that case, it will be desirable to define the areas in which any theory applies, so that the several theories can coordinate and, when taken together, can explain all criminal behavior. ( Sutherland and Cressey 1960 , p. 71; Sutherland 1948 )

B. Published Papers, Lectures, and Controversy (1941–1949)

Less than a year after his presidential address Sutherland published an article that repeated many of his earlier points but also sought to clarify the foggy impression he had left regarding the behaviors with which he was concerned. He granted that his definition of white-collar crime was “arbitrary and not very precise” ( Sutherland 1941 , p. 11) and then offered a pair of examples of what he deemed white-collar crime to be: “[A]‌ fraud committed by a realtor in the sale of a house,” Sutherland wrote, “or a murder committed by a manufacturer in strike-breaking activity” (p. 11). He subsequently offered a laundry list of misrepresentations that he believed fell under his definition of white-collar crime:

[M]‌isrepresentations occur in the financial statements of corporations, in advertising and other sales methods, in manipulation of the stock exchange, in short weights and measures and in the misgrading of commodities, in embezzlement and misapplication of funds, in commercial bribery, in the bribery of public officials, in tax frauds, and in the misapplication of funds in receiverships and bankruptcies. (p. 11)

Six years following his presidential address, Sutherland published a stalwart defense of the fact that he classified as crimes episodes that had not been dealt with by a criminal court ( Sutherland 1945 ). Importantly, he had moved his attention from delicts of individuals to organizational offenses. He had examined 547 adverse decisions for violations of one of four federal statutes: antitrust, false advertising, offenses against the National Labor Relations Act, and infringement of copyrights, patents, and trademarks. Only 9 percent of these events had been tried as crimes; the large majority had been dealt with in equity or civil courts or by quasi-judicial commissions. Sutherland argued that 473 of the cases were crimes and could have been proceeded against as such if the authorities had chosen to do so. That they had not done so, he believed, was often the result of social homogeneity between the offenders and the enforcers, the political contributions that businesses make to officeholders and office-seekers, and a relatively indifferent public opinion. He also maintained that the cases showed that “the criminality of [the corporate] behavior was not made obvious by the conventional procedures of the criminal law but was blurred and concealed by special procedures … that eliminate or at least minimize the stigma of crime” (p. 136).

Sutherland granted that those penalized by fines, injunctions, and cease-and-desist orders had not enjoyed the presumption of innocence nor had the state had to prove criminal intent. But he argued (rather unpersuasively) that these guarantees were disappearing in the criminal law as strict liability principles gained a foothold in regard to crimes such as statutory rape and defrauding an innkeeper.

Sutherland’s (1948) talk to the Toynbee Club, a group of sociology students and faculty at DePauw University, was a prelude to his monograph on white-collar crime that was published the following year. In this informal setting, he apparently felt freer to express his vitriolic distaste for law-breaking corporations, a category that his research indicated included virtually every large business in the United States. His depiction of the response of strikebreakers hired by the Ford Motor Company is tough prose for a “neutral” social scientist:

The [strike] organizers . . . went with their literature up onto an overhead pass. They were informed that they were trespassing on private property. According to many witnesses, they turned quietly and started away. As they were leaving, they were attacked. They were beaten, knocked down, and kicked. Witnesses described this as a “terrific beating” and “unbelievably brutal.” One man’s back was broken and another’s skull fractured. . . . While these assaults were being committed, city policemen were present and did not interfere. [Ford’s] Director of the Service Department was also present. (pp. 87–88)

Sutherland maintained that “if the word ‘subversive’ refers to efforts to make changes in the social system; the business leaders are the most subversive influence in the United States” (p. 92). He summed up his presentation by noting: “I have attempted to demonstrate that businessmen violate the law with great frequency, using what may be called the methods of organized crime” (p. 96).

Sutherland stated in the 1939 talk (and later in his book) that he was employing the term “white-collar criminal” “to refer to a person in the upper socioeconomic class who violates the laws designed to regulate his business.” He added that the term “white-collar” more generally referred to “the wage-earning class which wears good clothes at work, such as clerks in stores” (p. 79). He would omit this last observation in his book.

In an encyclopedia entry ( Sutherland 1949b ), Sutherland’s first sentence offered a straightforward definition of his subject: “The white collar criminal is defined as a person of high socioeconomic status who violates the laws designed to regulate his occupational activities” ( Sutherland 1949b , p. 511). He then proceeded, as usual, to muddy the semantic waters by ruminating about what was and what was not white-collar crime.

He eliminated matters such as adultery by persons of high socioeconomic standing from the white-collar crime category, but he specifically differentiated the person of lower socioeconomic status “who violates the … special trade regulations which apply to him” from the ranks of white-collar criminals (p. 511). Sutherland had no strong interest in pinning down the parameters of white-collar crime, and his neglect left the class emphasis that obviously was of special importance to him vulnerable to later attack.

C. White Collar Crime (1949)

Sutherland’s classic monograph on white-collar crime contributed very little beyond what he already had indicated in his previous articles and talk. The 272-page book is almost exclusively a compilation of violations of laws, primarily regulatory rules, by seventy of the largest corporate entities in America ( Sutherland 1949a ). Sutherland presented information on violations by businesses under six different headings: (1) restraint of trade; (2) rebates; (3) patents, trademarks, and copyrights; (4) misrepresentation in advertising; (5) unfair labor practices; (6) war crimes; and (7) miscellaneous crimes. In regard to advertising, for instance, Sutherland noted a considerable roster of blatant deceptions—that footwear advertised as alligator shoes had no trace of alligator in them and that coffins claimed to be rustproof were not.

His findings led Sutherland to the hyperbolic observation that in terms of their records businesses were no different than organized criminals, an argument that takes up an entire chapter. He quotes with approval economist Thorstein Veblen’s observation that the “ideal pecuniary man is like the ideal delinquent in his unscrupulous conversion of goods and persons to his own ends and in a callous disregard of the feelings and wishes of others and of the remoter effects of his actions” ( Veblen 1912 , p. 237). In Sutherland’s view this made the “ideal” (perhaps but not assuredly meaning the typical) businessperson little different than a professional criminal (p. 217).

At the end of White Collar Crime Sutherland inserted a section called “Personal Documents,” which was made up of submissions by students of their experiences working in enterprises such as selling typewriters, sewing machines, and shoes by employing crooked tactics (1949a, p. 234ff). Sutherland might have been including these vignettes to add a bit of further color to his monograph or perhaps merely to extend it to a more usual length, but the tactic only serves to confound further an understanding of what Sutherland truly regarded as white-collar crime.

Finally, under pressure from his publisher, who feared that it might end up in legal difficulty if companies labeled as criminal in the book but not so designated by a criminal court sued for defamation, Sutherland cut several chapters and removed identifying corporate names from the text. It would be thirty-four years before the unabridged version found its way into print ( Sutherland 1983 ).

D. Nota Bene

My review of Sutherland’s publications and his speech on white-collar crime lead to a conclusion that white-collar crime scholars, myself included, have largely ignored. It is that Sutherland never really studied white-collar crime by individuals but almost exclusively focused on business, usually corporate, wrongdoing. He buttressed his introduction of the term “white-collar crime” in 1939 with scattered references to particular notorious offenders and offered a smattering of observations (e.g., white-collar criminals are responsible for more financial losses than the entire traditional street offenders combined). But he must have come to realize that he did not possess the resources, nor could he locate the sources, to carry out the very demanding task of providing substantive information and theoretical conclusions about the cohort of persons he regarded as white-collar criminals. What could he say that would advance our understanding of people like John D. Rockefeller and Daniel Drew that would rise very far above the anecdotal?

III. Critiques and Alternatives

Sutherland, and probably all who prefer offender-based definitions of white-collar crime over definitions grounded in crime characteristics, refused to forfeit social scientific definitional autonomy to the lawmakers and enforcers. Social scientists might make “better” decisions than legislators in delineating what should be regarded as white-collar crimes, since they presumably (hopefully?) have no personal nor financial interest in their decisions and could be held to a standard of logical consistency. Attacks on Sutherland’s definition were launched by legal scholars as well as by some prominent social scientists who participated in a Yale Law School study of white-collar crime.

A. Conviction by a Criminal Court

Sutherland’s heresy in defining white-collar crime, according to some lawyers, was in categorizing as white-collar crime acts that the authorities had not treated as crimes. Thus, Tappan claimed that Sutherland’s concept of white-collar crime had created a “widespread and seductive … fashionable dogma” (1947, p. 98). Tappan faulted the study of white-collar crime for being marked by “blustering broadsides” against the “existing system” (p. 99). He noted that “[a]‌ll of these practices are within the framework of ordinary business practices” (p. 99), as if this means that they should be acceptable. Presumably, Sutherland would have found the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) guilty judgment as validating the behavior as a white-collar crime.

In contrast to Sutherland’s definitional approach, Tappan (1947) repeatedly argued that the only reasonable subject for criminological concern was the person who had been convicted in a criminal court. “Only those are criminals who have been adjudicated as such by the courts,” he insisted (p. 100), and added: “In studying the offender there can be no presumption that arrested, arraigned, indicated, or prosecuted persons are criminals unless they also be held guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of a particular offense” (p. 100).

But this critique of Sutherland is flawed. How do we classify Kenneth Lay, the onetime president of Enron, who was convicted of multiple white-collar offenses but the record was wiped clean when he died before he could be sentenced ( Eichenwald 2008 )? Or Ivar Kreuger and other obvious white-collar criminals who killed themselves before they could be tried ( Partnoy 2009 )? While Tappan identified Sutherland’s work by name, he failed to address its core point: white-collar crimes are acts that are dealt with by government agencies and that they could have been prosecuted in a criminal court had the authorities chosen to do so. Tappan’s definition of the white-collar criminal is little more than a historical footnote today, and there are no contemporary advocates for it.

B. Crimes with Distinctive Characteristics

Unlike the earlier law-trained critics of Sutherland’s delineation of white-collar crime, Herbert Edelhertz had led fraud investigations as chief of the fraud division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Edelhertz believed that Sutherland’s definition was much too limited. White-collar crime was “democratic,” he maintained, “and can be committed by a bank clerk or the head of his institution” ( Edelhertz 1970 , pp. 3–4). This position trivialized Sutherland’s concern with the abuse of power by the powerful. Edelhertz saw white-collar crime as “an illegal act or a series of illegal acts committed by nonphysical means and by concealment or guile, to obtain money or property, to avoid the payment or loss of money or property, or to obtain business or personal advantage” (p. 4).

Edelhertz’s core point was that the definition of white-collar crime ought to be tied directly to legal provisions, which reflect the characteristics of these crimes. The definition that he offered, however, has a number of questionable criteria. It is odd to specify one act or a series of acts since a single offense will do to meet the requirements of the definition. In addition, it could be argued that a reasonable categorization of white-collar offenses should include violent acts, such as when a doctor does cataract operations on patients who do not require the procedure and inflicts eyesight loss ( Jesilow, Pontell, and Geis 1993 ). The focus on motive, which need not be proven in a criminal case, seems unnecessary. Nor is it clear if Edelhertz agreed with Sutherland or with Tappan regarding whether a criminal conviction was necessary for an act to be considered a white-collar crime.

Another legal definition of their subject based on crime characteristics marked the work of a group of scholars at Yale University. The Yale group decided to focus on eight federal statutes to provide a sample of white-collar criminals: (1) securities fraud; (2) antitrust violations; (3) bribery; (4) tax offenses; (5) bank embezzlement; (6) postal and wire fraud; (7) false claims and statements; and (8) credit- and lending-institution fraud. Their study sites were seven federal district courts. They examined a random sample of thirty persons convicted in each of the courts during the fiscal years 1976 through 1978 for offenses. Researchers were provided access to the presentence investigation reports prepared by probation officers, which typically contained detailed information about both the offender and the offense.

For white-collar crime scholars the flagship of the work at Yale was Crimes of the Middle Classes ( Weisburd et al. 1991 ). While elites and the unemployed appeared in their sample of 1094 offenders, they concluded that in the main white-collar crime, as they defined it, was essentially the conduct of middle-class persons. Kathleen Daly, a member of the research team, would later state that the women in the study were characterized by “occupational marginality.” As many as one third of the women in some of the offense categories were unemployed. Daly wondered if “white-collar criminal” was an appropriate designation for the women, given their “socioeconomic profile, coupled with the nature of their crimes” ( Daly 1989 , p. 790).

In ignoring corporate and civil offenses, the Yale investigators failed to attend to executives who were culpable but who escaped criminal prosecution because the government preferred to fine them or to act against the deeper-pocketed organizations for which they worked. Similarly and arguably the Yale Study was off-target by ignoring regulatory actions. The criminal law was only rarely invoked after the recent economic meltdown, although many prominent businessmen, such as Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide, were heavily fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission: his fine was $67.5 million ( Madrick 2011 ). The offense roster used by Yale would also overlook persons such as Martha Stewart, who had seemingly violated the law against insider trading but was convicted on a charge of perjury ( Heminway 2007 ).

In defense of defining white-collar crime on the basis of offense characteristics, Susan Shapiro, a participant in the Yale Study, maintained that there was a need to “liberate” the term from its Sutherland shackles, especially its focus on the wardrobe of the perpetrator. The designation “white-collar criminal,” she argued, should be confined to violators of trust, such as persons who manipulate norms of disclosure, disinterest, and role competence, categories, Shapiro granted, that would not embrace antitrust violations. Shapiro defended her revisionist position with rousing rhetoric, claiming that Sutherland’s approach to white-collar crime had “created an imprisoning framework for contemporary scholarship, impoverishing theory, distorting empirical inquiry, oversimplifying policy analysis, inflating our muckraking instincts, and obscuring fascinating questions about the relationship between social organization and crime” ( Shapiro 1990 , p. 346).

I have neither need nor predilection to be neutral on the matters discussed above, to cheer on with equal enthusiasm both my spouse and the bear. For my part, however ineptly Sutherland formulated his definition and however poorly he defended it, its essential focus on the abuse of power by elites in the course of their occupation stands out as an exceedingly important public policy issue that demands the keen attention of the public, policymakers, and research scholars.

A good starting point is the post-Sutherland definition of white-collar crime as “violations of the law to which penalties are attached that involve the use of the violator’s position of significant power, influence or trust in the legitimate economic or political institutional order for the purpose of illegal gain, or to commit an illegal act for personal or organizational gain” ( Reiss and Biderman 1980 , p. 4). There are two major virtues of this definition. First, it sets out in a straightforward manner the essence of Sutherland’s basic focus on the use of significant power, influence, and trust in violation of the law by persons holding legitimate positions. Recent high-profile white-collar crimes include the savings and loan bank debacles ( Calavita, Pontell, and Tillman 1997 ). Then there were Enron and Arthur Andersen, WorldCom, Adelphia Communications, and other big-time perpetrators of financial crookedness (see, e.g., Swartz and Watkins 2003 ; Cooper 2008 ). Finally, and most dramatically, the world suffered from the subprime mortgage and hedge fund manipulations that brought about the great economic meltdown. Companies involved included Bear Stearns, the American International Group, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide Financial, and the Bank of America ( Morris 2008 ; Geis 2012 ). The meltdown pinpointed behavior that is criminologically distinctive and of great public concern and should not be diluted by being associated with matters such as insufficient-funds checks that unemployed persons seek to pass.

Second, the Reiss–Biderman definition embraces serious law violations that are not necessarily dealt with in criminal courts. In the wake of the meltdown the failure of the government to seek criminal indictments was notorious. The U.S. Department of Justice allegedly brokered an agreement with state attorneys general not to file cases in criminal courts because the resultant dramatic public exposure of what had gone on would only further undermine a fragile financial world ( Morgenson and Story 2012 ).

V. Conclusions

Disagreement over the variant definitions of white-collar crime has been identified as a conflict of Populist (in terms of the elite standing of the perpetrator) and Patrician perspectives (focusing on violators of specified laws). In a pair of articles, Neal Shover and Francis Cullen contrasted the ingredients of the Sutherland definition of white-collar crime and definitions that are based on crime characteristics rather than the status of the offender ( Shover and Cullen 2008 , 2011 ).

Sutherland’s position was labeled a “Populist” approach and said to be based on a call for equal justice, while the Yale definition, labeled Patrician, was held to be “more narrow, technical and less reform-oriented” (2008, p. 156). The Patrician view was said to “lump together … frauds committed by itinerant door-to-door vinyl siding installers and the crimes of international bankers” (2011, p. 50). The result is that “unusually privileged offenders thereby blend with and become less conspicuous among their more numerous middle-class cousins” (2011, p. 50). Neither did partisans of the Patrician approach “generally include inequality as a causal factor” (2008, p. 157). Adherence to the Patrician definition, Shover and Cullen pointed out, allowed the U.S. Department of Justice to arrest thieves and telemarketing fraudsters and broadcast to the public that it was focusing its energies on capturing white-collar criminals.

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — White Collar Crime — White-Collar Crime: the Major Aspects of Corporate and Occupational Crime Laws 

White-collar Crime: The Major Aspects of Corporate and Occupational Crime Laws 

• Categories: White Collar Crime

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Words: 820 |

Published: Aug 14, 2023

Words: 820 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, corporate crime, occupational crime .

• Coleman, J. W. (2015). The Definition of White-Collar Crime. Criminology, Criminal Justice , Law & Society, 16(3), 257-274.
• Friedrichs, D. O. (2013). Trusted Criminals: White Collar Crime In Contemporary Society. Cengage Learning.
• Benson, M. L., & Simpson, S. S. (2009). White-Collar Crime: An Opportunity Perspective. Routledge.
• Vaughan, D. (2005). The Dark Side of Organizations: Mistake, Misconduct, and Disaster. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 271-305.
• Clinard, M. B., & Yeager, P. C. (1980). Corporate Crime. Free Press.
• Croall, H. (2015). Understanding White Collar Crime: A Convenience Perspective. Open University Press.
• Kramer, R. C., Michalowski, R. J., & Kauzlarich, D. (2002). The Origins and Development of the Concept and Theory of State-Corporate Crime. Crime & Delinquency, 48(2), 263-282.

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Introduction to Crime Essay: Structure and Format

Table of Contents

All writings on crime have the same objective – to find and assist. Any cause-and-effect relationships you uncover can help you understand the problem more.

It can also develop new techniques for preventing, minimizing, or dealing with crimes and criminals and expose numerous other relevant information.

This article features the best way to report your crime essay. Just follow the essay structure guidelines and start writing!

How to Write a Proper Crime Essay

Writing an essay on crime is nearly identical to writing any other essay. However, you must be specific with the content you provide in your essay.

Endeavour to verify the credibility and accuracy of any Internet sources you use. It is also prudent to rely on data and numbers.

In addition, choosing a narrow topic for your essay is preferable, as this will make it more interesting and newsworthy. If you select a topic that is too wide, you will end yourself writing about everything and nothing. Choosing a restricted topic, however, may be challenging due to the scarcity of available knowledge.

Therefore, study your issue and locate the sweet spot. Let’s get unto how to properly outline a crime esssay.

Outline: Introduction to Crime Essay

Every essay should have three sections: introduction , body, and conclusion.

They may also have paragraphs to facilitate reading comprehension. When you have finally decided on a topic, creating an outline is a good idea. This is where you will emphasize each section of your essay. Here is a free sample of an essay outline.

1. Introduction

This is where you give all the background information needed to understand your ideas. It is the foundation of your research. You could also explain what the words mean, if necessary.

2. Body section

The main body is where you put all of your ideas. Find out if more men or women commit crimes. Try to answer the question “why” or find an answer. 

Race and immigration

Look at which groups of people are more likely to commit crimes. Also, look into how being an immigrant can affect criminal behavior.

List the things that may have happened in a person’s early life that led them to commit crimes later. Trauma, family size and relationships, alcoholism and drug addiction, bullying, and poor school achievement might cause this.

A few studies have looked at how religion might affect criminal behavior. Find out if religion makes crime worse, how, and why. Maybe the effects of different religions are different.

Political ideology

Look into different political ideas and how they influence people to act. Are there any that seem to make people want to break the law? 

Psychological traits

Talk about how a person’s psychological background can affect them. Give some examples of mental illnesses that can make people violent or destructive. Find some numbers to back up your claims. 

Socioeconomic factors

Look at which groups of people are more likely to commit a crime and why. Explain how the economy in the family, the city, and the country may affect criminal behavior. You could even write an essay about poverty and crime.

3. Conclusion

In your conclusion, wrap up everything you’ve said. Remember that you don’t need to say or think anything new here.

4. References

Add a list of the sources you used in your essay (if required).

Argumentative Essay on the Root Causes of Criminal Behavior

Of course, the government and law enforcement agencies work to reduce crime (which is a great goal, by the way).

But it continues to happen.

Most people don’t have a clue as to its origins, and that’s a big concern. Because “just mad” is rarely the answer, we need to raise our understanding of the reasons behind criminal behavior.

Here are a few things to think about if you decide to write such an essay:

1. Certain physical traits

People still think that people with certain physical traits are more likely to commit crimes. It is said that these people have smaller heads, more prominent jaws and ears, and a certain height and weight. 

2. Illnesses of the mind and psychological disorders

Some illnesses make people more likely to be violent. For instance, some people with schizophrenia be psychotic or possess psychotic symptoms.

3. Social status

Those considered outcasts or someone with a hard life are more likely to have a more challenging time succeeding. This is why you have the lower social groups committing crimes against those considered higher in the social strata.

4. Poor Economies

The same is true for the economy. When a country is poor, there is more crime. It was found that people with less education are more likely to commit a crime than people with more education.

5. Unemployment

Also, unemployment is considered one of the most common reasons people break the law. If people cannot find employment, they may commit crimes as an alternative to getting a job.

6. White-collar crime

White-collar crime is common among deputies and high-ranking government officials. They include taking bribes, abusing power, being too busy, and other things.

The criminal justice system is an exciting topic for research papers and analytical essays.

Crime is, unfortunately, ever-present, and there is a wealth of data and statistics from which you may draw answers to your specific issues.

While crime rates are rising in every community, I believe both governments and individuals can improve. On the one hand, governments can take several significant steps to minimize or even eliminate various forms of crime.

To begin, governments can increase the number of police officers in every community to keep an eye on citizens and deter criminal behavior. Secondly, the state can use cutting-edge technologies like surveillance cameras in all public areas to prevent illegal activity.

Strong sanctions like incarceration, physical punishments, or financial fines may reduce crime since they dissuade people of all ages.

Members of the society can also play a significant role in reducing crime rates. The vast majority of people are willing to help the government maintain a secure society, from my experience.

Ordinary people may play a crucial role in crime-prevention efforts simply by reporting issues to the police. When citizens are invested in reducing violent crime in their cities, it provides the government with an opportunity to take preventative measures.

In a nut shell, all members of society, including governments and people, must prevent crime for a community to be safe.

Abir Ghenaiet

Abir is a data analyst and researcher. Among her interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a humanitarian and educator, she actively supports women in tech and promotes diversity.

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Home Essay Examples Criminology White Collar Crime

White Collar Crimes In India

• Category Criminology
• Subcategory Crime
• Topic White Collar Crime

“White-collar crime is not new to India. The scale is. ”

Introduction, historical background.

Before Sutherland, scholars like W.A Bonger (1916) and Steffens has also emphasized on the misdeeds by businessmen and elites. Karl Marx and Friedrichs Engels have also contended that influential people commit crimes too.

Legal Framework

The legal framework in India is not so radical to deal with the issue of white-collar crime. There are no strict laws that can punish the offender as most of the offender getaway because of the lack of evidence. The other difficulty is that the members of the legislature who have been given the responsibility to make and implement rules are themselves cosset in these heinous crimes.

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The main reasons for which these white-collar criminals or occupational criminals go unpunished are because:

• The lawmakers of the country are from the same social group;
• The endeavor made by the police against these criminals in highly low;
• Of easy bail and mild sentences; and
• The effect of white-collar crimes is not on a particular individual thus it creates a causal attitude of the society towards white-collar crimes.

After the independence, the first case of white collar crime was Mundra’s case. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru set up a commission headed by Justice M.C. Chagia to investigate the matter. Justice Chagia concluded that Mundhra had sold imaginary shares to Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) by defrauding the insurance company to the tune of INR 1.26 Crore. Mundhra was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Another incident that took place at the beginning the 21th century was The Satyam scam. The scam involved the fraud of INR 7000/- billion. Few years back, CBI arrested many Trinamool Congress leaders for the alleged involvement in INR 24.60 billion chit fund scam.

After the rise of the Indian economy, many companies from the private sector and the public enterprise have been comprises in the corporate swindling and outrageous wrongdoing. It is because of all these swindle the ordinary man is frightened to imbue in the equity vend.

Corruption is one of the vanquish appearances of crimes in India. It has been into extant for many centuries. Even Chanakya has alludes to the diverse forms of corruption during his time. Many political parties have promised to eradicate corruption. However, the offenders in these types of crimes are usually government officials or the politicians themselves between 2010 to 2012 Central Bureau of Investigation has registered over 1450 cases.

Causes Of White Collar Crimes

• Greed – Upper-class people are pecuniary secure but they still perform crime because of their avarice to be paid more. And for this impetus, they even pick illegal method to have an economic procure;
• Competition – Darwin in his hypothesis of evolution has stated that “survival of the fittest” is obligatory and thus there will always be rivalry for survival but some people for their own avarice and to get ahead of their squint enact crimes;
• No fixed laws or punishment – After determining the crimes, most of the offenders gets away without getting any penalizing because there are not adequate laws to pact with such kind of offences. In numerous cases, because of the extraordinary political relation most of the wrongdoer gets away without any penalizing. Besides, many cases there are no witnesses for the said offenses as such offenses are committed to private.

White-collar crime has not been defined anywhere in any act or codes; however, there are various legislations that touch the scope of white-collar crime. These legislations include The Foreign Exchange Management Act, Companies Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and Import and Export Control Act.

In the present scenario, our top law enforcement agencies such as Central Bureau of Investigation, the Enforcement Directorate, the Income-tax Department, require to be build up. Top grade officials should be consistently by bodies inspect such as Central Vigilance Commission. If these agencies are build up then only the issue of white-collar criminality can be controlled.

It is the responsibility of the government to provide enough powers to the law enforcement agencies because without the help of these agencies the corruption and other economic offenses cannot be eradicated from our country. Law enforcement officials should be provided with training. This training will not only help in tracking such crimes but will also make them differentiate white-collar crimes from other crimes.

Strict laws should be made to curb these types of crimes. It is seen that if found guilty the white-collar criminal gets away with trivial fines or lenient sentences. The approach used by the judiciary while punishing these criminals has failed to rein the threat of white-collar criminality. Thus, Fast track courts/tribunals should be schedule by assign more judges. The tribunals should be given potential to inflict fine and award sentence of anyone if found guilty for the said offence.

White- collar crimes are a huge global concern, and it is enlarging at frighten rate. Several studies have proved that the financial loss to society from white-collar crime is much more than the other crimes. India is a growing country, and white-collar crimes are not only detrimental to the economic growth of the land but also spoil the depiction of our country. It can be easily acknowledge that to get rid of white-collar crime is not easy at all because it has been into existing for many centuries. Legal entities should try to reduce such crimes.

As discussed earlier, strict laws and special tribunals should be made and implemented so that the offender should be afraid of the punishment and before committing any crime he should think twice. Moreover, government agencies should make a combined effort to eliminate such crimes from our country.

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