Is white collar crime a crime?

Is white collar crime a crime?

Regardless of the prevalence of white-collar crime, early criminologists largely ignored it. They saw crime as a form of deviant behaviour; which itself was seen as a bi-product of poverty (which prevailed in the 18th and 19th centuries). Marxist scholars (19th and 20th century) were of the opinion that crime was produced by an outgrowth of class conflict. White-collar crime didn't exist at this time, but the type of crimes it encompassed were theorised under the same thought as the typical crimes of those times. It was Edwin Sutherland who first put white-collar crime on the criminological agenda and ever since considerable controversy has always surrounded its definition, responses and cause (Croall, 1992). Attempts to define what is meant by white-collar crime in literature is put across in an ambiguous manner that it is unclear to what range of crimes is being referred to (Maguire, Morgan & Reiner, 2002).

The crime of choice for the businessperson seems to be white-collar corruption. Corporate corruption has been around since business was started but lately there has been a swell in business fraud and corruption prosecutions and investigations. Experts to demographic shifts and economic forces have accredited the changing character of crime. One problem with today's crimes is the advances in technology. The Internet is a major contributing factor to the proportion of financial crime cases. Since the birth of the Internet, the rate of financial crime has risen considerably, from identity theft to software privacy and e-mail schemes. In response, federal and state officials have allocated teams of investigators and prosecutors to combat this exploitation.

In Canada, The criminal justice system, in general, lacks sufficient resources to detect and prosecute white-collar crimes. Moreover, the defendants in white-collar cases tend to put up a much stronger legal defense, since they usually have far more financial resources to hire experienced attorneys. An alternative means of regulating white-collar crime in Canada is for the state to impose certain duties of care on people, and to allow the plaintiff to seek damages from the defendant for the wrongdoing. In general, white-collar and corporate crimes seem to be easily condoned by the criminal justice system and the general public, compared to street crimes. Corporate crimes are usually dealt with outside the criminal law and regulated by separate federal, provincial and municipal laws. Enforcement is handled by special government departments and bodies through a regulatory system focused on mediation and compensation rather than on prosecution and punishment. For example, the Canadian provinces have introduced workers' compensation acts and regulations governing occupational health and safety that create systems of workplace safety standards and inspection.

Demographic changes in populations' increasing prosperity and level of education have played a role in blue-collar crime. Crime is, for the most part, a factor dependant upon age. Fraud is the preferred crime of the older perpetrators, so as the general public ages, the number of fraud cases should swell. Another basis of white-collar corruption is correlated to the ...