White Collar Crimes

White Collar Crimes

White Collar Crimes

Introduction:

The term 'white collar crime' refers to the corporate crime that are non violent in nature and motivated by financial and economic gains. The crimes mainly intent to seek monetary benefits and the members of the corporate world commit such crimes, the white collar personnel. White collar crime is a subject of criminology. Edwin Sutherland was the first one to present definition of white collar crimes in 1939. He said that the crime that is committed by a person who is respectable and a high social status, during the time of his job of during the period of his occupation is known as white collar crime.

Such crimes are inevitable linked with the corporate crimes, in fact, these are a part of corporate crimes because of the direct link that they have with the corporate sector. Sutherland is a distinguished name in criminology and has also been quoted by Tim Newburn at several places in his book Criminology. He states that people learn such despicable behavior from interpersonal interaction between different individuals within or outside an organization. The different opportunities of white collar crimes, including money laundering, computer crime, bribery and insider trading are all more available to the corporate sector individuals than to other people, and thus the corporate individuals have more chances of committing such crimes.

Discussion:

History of White Collar Crimes:

The history of such crimes dates back to 1939, when Professor Edwin Hardin Sutherland first coined the term, and he was the one to suggest that the white collar criminals have conflicting motives, and varying characteristics as compared to the street criminals, who were abundant at that time, and street crimes were more of a commonplace than a rare happening. In such an environment, where people considered crimes to be specified to roads, and streets where they were committed by lower class and uneducated citizens, Sutherland observed that a separate crime also exists and white collar individuals customarily practice them throughout the world. The white collar criminals are also difficult to track and capture by virtue of being different from the criminals operating on roads and having more exposure and information. They work on modern lines and operate in a modern and sophisticated manner, and their aims and objectives are also from the ordinary criminals.

Sutherland presented his latest ideas in front of American Sociological Society, and attempted to describe the link between high society and crimes. As mentioned earlier, there was no concept of the elite or the educated and professional individuals committing the crimes—the crimes were present there but never hit the screen. Some argue that the statement presented by Sutherland had a link with the explosion observed in the US business, in the years that followed the Great Depression.

The major aim of Sutherland behind the presentation of the theory was to prove the fact that white collar and upper class personnel also commit crimes, and they too should be sent to jail for the ill deeds performed by ...