White Collar Crimes Explained

The term "white-collar crimes" has been in use since 1939, when it was created by Edwin Sutherland while he was delivering a speech to the American Sociological Society (Cornell, 2005). The definition of white-collar crimes was originally defined by Sutherland as "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" (Cornell, 2005, Para. 1). Today, through much debate, the term is generally applied to any form of various nonviolent offenses that are committed in a business or professional setting for capital gains. One way a person might be able to distinguish between a white-collar crime and simple theft, is that a white-collar crime is not a direct form of theft. Most of the individuals who participate in such crimes feel that their actions are okay as long as there is no direct victim (Fraud, 2004). These crimes are hard to solve as the offenders are very organized and know exactly what needs to be concealed and essentially cover their tracks. There are three major factors that may be present when an individual is developing a scheme for white collar crimes:

• Motive - usually financial hardships in personal life
• Opportunity - lack of strict accounting procedures
• Ethics and Morals of the employees (Fraud, 2004).

There are many forms of white-collar crimes that have been practiced. The various forms of white-collar crimes range from bribery to embezzlement to counterfeiting (White Collar, 2006). Along with the various forms of white-collar crimes, there are different schemes that may be used in order to commit the offense. One form of white-collar crime would be investment schemes. These types of schemes are committed when a perpetrator contacts a naïve victim who makes a promise to the victim that there will be a large return on a very small investment (White Collar, 2006). An example of a real-life investment scheme would be the West African Investment Scams. The individuals involved in this scam would target businesses and upon receiving the bank account information for the businesses would withdraw all of the funds (White Collar, 2006).

Another form of white-collar crime would be bribery. Bribery is considered a crime when anything of value, such as services or money, is proposed to usually someone who is in a position to make an important decision to make an impact on that decision. A person can be charged and prosecuted for bribery regardless whether or not the money or goods where exchanged for a favorable decision (White Collar, 2006). An example of bribery would be a defendant offering a judge money or other services in order to be acquitted or to receive a lesser sentence. Another form of white-collar crime would be bank fraud. This type of offense is generally committed by businesses or organizations who participate in activities with the intent to commit fraud against a bank of funds. An example of this offense would be check kiting (White Collar, 2006). Check kiting is when an account is opened using good funds and the perpetrator builds a good relationship with the bank. After building this relationship with the bank, the perpetrator will then deposit bad checks and prior to his actions being discovered, withdraws those funds from the account (White Collar, 2006). These are just some forms of white-collar crimes but the list goes on to include: blackmail, cellular phone fraud, computer fraud, counterfeiting, credit card fraud, currency schemes, embezzlement, environmental schemes, extortion, forgery, insider trading, racketeering, kickback, and tax evasion (White Collar, 2006).

In conclusion, white-collar crimes are not victimless crimes. The crimes of these offenders affect hundreds and thousands of individuals across the United States. There are stiff penalties in place that will help deter individuals from committing such crimes. The outcomes of the Martha Stuart inside trading scam and the Enron scandal may serve as examples of the notoriety of these crimes.

References

Cornell. (2005). White-Collar Crime: An Overview. Retrieved 3 April 2006 from

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/White-collar_crime .

Fraud. (2004). White Collar Crime. Retrieved 3 April 2006 from

http://www.bc.edu/offices/audit/fraud/whitecollar/.

White Collar. (2006). Types and Schemes of White Collar Crime. Retrieved 3 April 2006

from http://www.ckfraud.org/whitecollar.html .