User:Charieceb/White-collar crime

White-collar crime (or corporate crime, more accurately) refers to financially motivated, non-violent crime committed by businesses, government professionals, or people in power. It was first defined by the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation". Typical white-collar crimes could include wage theft, fraud, bribery, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, labor racketeering, embezzlement, cybercrime, copyright infringement, money laundering, identity theft, and forgery.

Definitional issues

By the type of offense, e.g., property crime, economic crime, and other corporate crimes like environmental and health and safety law violations. Some crime is only possible because of the identity of the offender, e.g., transnational money laundering requires the participation of senior officers employed in banks. But the FBI has adopted the narrow approach, defining white-collar crime as "those illegal acts which are characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust and which are not dependent upon the application or threat of physical force or violence" (1989).

• 3). While the true extent and cost of white-collar crime are unknown, the FBI and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimate the annual cost to the United States to fall between $300 and $660 billion.
  • By the type of offender, e.g., by social class or high socioeconomic status, the occupation of positions of trust or profession, or academic qualification, researching the motivations for criminal MAFIA behavior, e.g., greed or fear of loss of face if economic difficulties become obvious. Shover and Wright point to the essential neutrality of a crime as enacted in a statute. It almost inevitably describes conduct in the abstract, not by reference to the character of the persons performing it. Thus, the only way that one crime differs from another is in the backgrounds and characteristics of its perpetrators.
  • By organizational culture rather than the offender or offense which overlaps with organized crime. Appelb aum and Chambliss offer a two-fold definition:
    • Occupational crime which occurs when crimes are committed to promote personal interests, say, by altering records and overcharging, or by the cheating of clients by professionals.
    • Organizational or corporate crime which occurs when corporate executives commit criminal acts to benefit their company by overcharging or price fixing, false advertising, etc.

History

White-collar crime had been going on prior to Sutherland's definition and his research done in 1939. Sutherland wanted to find a general theory of the typical criminal and by reading other researchers work, getting the idea that all criminals were stereotyped as impoverished or of low social standing he found that hard to believe considering people of high social standing committed crime as well. In his book Sutherland said "White collar crime may be defined as approximately as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation." There were many factors going into the establishment of White-collar crime but the main issue was industrialization. There is a White collar crime registry identifying those who've committed white-collar crime to the public trying to deter possible victims from being victimized. The first White Collar Crime Offender Registry was established in Utah in 2016.

Relationship to other types of crime

Blue-collar crime

The types of crime committed are a function of what is available to the potential offender. Thus, those employed in relatively unskilled environments have fewer opportunities to exploit than those who work in situations where large financial transactions occur. Blue-collar crime tends to be more obvious and thus attracts more active police attention such as vandalism or shoplifting. In contrast, white-collar employees can incorporate legitimate and criminal behavior, thus making themselves less obvious when committing the crime. Therefore, blue-collar crime will more often use physical force, whereas in the corporate world, the identification of a victim is less obvious and the issue of reporting is complicated by a culture of commercial confidentiality to protect shareholder value. It is estimated that a great deal of white-collar crime is undetected or, if detected, it is not reported.

Corporate Crime

Corporate crime deals with the company as a whole. The crime benefits the investors or the individuals who are in high positions in the company or corporation. White-collar crime and corporate crime are similar because they take place within the business world. The difference is that white-collar crime benefits the individual(s) involved, and corporate crime benefits the company or the corporation, usually high-ranking individuals within the corporation.

One well-known insider trading case in the United States is the ImClone stock trading case. In December 2001, top-level executives sold their shares in ImClone Systems, a pharmaceutical company that manufactured an anti-cancer drug. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigated numerous top-level executives, as well as Martha Stewart, a friend of ImClone's former chief executive who had also sold her shares at the same time. The SEC reached a settlement in 2005.

Punishment

In the United States, sentences for white-collar crimes may include a combination of imprisonment, fines, restitution, community service, disgorgement, probation, or other alternative punishment. These punishments grew harsher after the Jeffrey Skilling and Enron scandal, when the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush, defining new crimes and increasing the penalties for crimes such as mail and wire fraud. Sometimes punishment for these crimes could be hard to determine due to the fact that convincing the courts that what the offender has done is challenging within itself. In other countries, such as China, white-collar criminals can be given the death penalty, yet some countries have a maximum of 10–25 years imprisonment. Certain countries like Canada consider the relationship between the parties to be a significant feature on sentence when there is a breach of trust component involved. Questions about sentencing disparity in white-collar crime continue to be debated. The FBI, concerned with identifying this type of offense, collects annual statistical information on only three categories: fraud, counterfeiting/forgery, and embezzlement. All other types of white-collar crime are listed in an, "miscellaneous" category.

In the United States, the longest sentences for white-collar crimes have been for the following: Sholam Weiss (845 years for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering in connection with the collapse of National Heritage Life Insurance Company); Norman Schmidt and Charles Lewis (330 years and 30 years, respectively, for "high-yield investment" scheme); Bernard Madoff (150 years for $65 billion fraud scheme); Frederick Brandau (55 years for $117 million Ponzi scheme); Eduardo Masferrer (30 years for accounting fraud); Chalana McFarland (30 years for mortgage fraudscheme); Lance Poulsen (30 years for $2.9 billion fraud).