Examining The Definition Of White Collar Crime Criminology Essay

Examining The Definition Of White Collar Crime Criminology probeLittle is known about neat turn back umbrage among mediocre battalion. Many masses atomic number 18 unaw atomic number 18 of its toll, because it is a less unembellished aggrieve. They sessistert even detect it themselves as happens, for example, with descriptions of consumer goods, with major lampoons, corruption and pollution. They can just observe and endure its effects long after it occurred.This experiment explores what is known about sportsmanlike hold back plague and leave behind find out e actually part of it in effectuate to comprehend its gravity. This shew aims to realise the intrusion of exsanguine speck offense among citizens and to expose the harms caused by it. These issues will be discussed in this order. correspond to Croall (2001) to the highest degree of the early criminologists associated crime plainly to activities of a lower societal class of offenders who frequently pop ulated courts and prisons. In the 19th century this hypothesis was challenged by a US criminologist named Edwin Sutherland who express that crime should non only be associated with that particular class of large number and that persons of the upper socio-economic class engage in much criminal demeanor that this criminal behaviour differs from the criminal behaviour of the lower socio-economic class generally in the administrative procedures which are used in transaction with the offenders and that variations in administrative procedures are not significant from the point of view of actor of crime (Sutherland, 19499)Newburn (2007) states that criminology has a weensyish interest in white match crime, it reduceed generally on crimes much(prenominal) as theft, assault, burglary, criminal damage and others being strongly criticized for it. In the public belief criminology deals and researches only the crime of the powerless rather than the crime of the powerful. There are a fall of drives why criminology has treated this subject with small interest. Some of these reasons are that close of the activity is private and most of the time hidden making it very hard to battleground, the social and political interests in this area is little, the crime statistics do not capture this fount of crimes. Another reason is that media coverage is diametrical for this type of crime. There is normally less space devoted to professional crime, the coverage is less prominent and it is mostly written in the specialist press rather than in the common one. Even tough the focus of criminology in this area is little the fantasy of white stay crime dates back in the 19th century. The criminological clobber that is regard in this type of crime started with Edwin Sutherlands break a manner. He was the criminologists that gave birth to the term and introduce its study to criminology. He tried to direct the preoccupation of criminologists from crimes committed by ma sses of low social status to crimes committed by the ones belonging to a higher social class.Sutherland was way ahead of his time by his research. His concept of crime committed by high status undivideds and the concept of white clerical collar crime came well before labeling theories suggested that the nature of crime should not be found in the act itself but in the social ending to the act. Even though Sutherland approach was indisputable it was considerable criticized. (Newburn, 2007) match to Tappan (1947, cited in Newburn, 2007, pp. 374-375) Sutherlands attempt to label people who had not been convicted by a court of justness as criminals was appalling and stated that what Sutherland sees as deviant behaviour is actually normal business practice. As a response to Tappan, Sutherland stated that some of the normal business practices were in contradiction with the court-ordered rules. His definition of white-collar crime is highly disputed because it oversees very opposite kinds of victims, offenders and offences. It covers crimes committed by people from a high social status, crimes that are committed against or on behalf of some organizations. It is likewise a very different type of crime because it generally takes place in private, it just about always involves a form of inside knowledge, it has the tendency of having uncertain juristic and criminal status, it involves an call of trust, the offenders appear to be legitimately present at the scene and the complaints are made long after the event. As mentioned before there are different kinds of victims, offenders and offences in white collar crime and because of that according to Croall (2001) there are seven primary(prenominal) types of white collar crime such as theft at hunt, histrion, corruption, manipulation offences, consumer offences, nutriment offences, environmental crime and an eight type, state-corporate crime, identified according to Newburn (2007).Theft at work corresponds to activities that range from small outmatch employee theft to large scale embezzlement. According to Barclay and Tavares (1999) research underinterpreted by the British retail consortium open that theft by staff accounted for losses of approximately one tempt of losses from all crime. According to Newburn (2007) another research undertaken by Karstedt and Farrell (2007) essayed that, from kB people that make participated in the study, more than 61 per cent admitted to put one across committed offences such as paying in cash to stave off taxation, emptying paying a TV licence, falsely claiming refunds and many similar small crimes.Employment offences cover business practice and aspects of working life that ranges from employment, wellness and safety to low pay. Every year a large assembly of people are injured or even killed at work and evidence shows that the people that are more apt(predicate) to fall in this category are from the lowest socio-economic groups. Tombs (200 4, cited in Newburn, 2007, pp. 380) states that there have been enter over 1600 deaths that have been linked to asbestosis in 2000 and in 2001 the Health and natural rubber Executive recorded 633 fatal occupational injuries and about 130.000 other injuries that had the result in a minimum three days off work estimating the cost of workplace injuries at 18 billion pounds a year.environmental crime includes a variety of offences ranging from fly-tipping to major industrial disasters such as Bhopal. Bhopal is the city where a carbide plant leaked close to 30 tones of methyl isocyanate, exposing almost half a million people and it has been estimated that almost 20.000 of those people died to date because of it. Another form of environmental crime is represented by bollix dumping. A well known case dates according to Newburn (2007) from 1998 in Cambodia where a shipment of waste was deposited 15 miles outside a village wrapped in plastic sheets. These plastic sheets were considered very useful in such a poor country and were taken by local villagers that in short started to feel sick having symptoms that varied from headaches to chest pains. It has been estimated that almost 600 of the 1200 residents fell sick. (Newburn, 2007) deceit covers many activities that involve a form or another of misapprehension in order to achieve monetary or material advantages. According to Levi et al. (2007) there are 14 common types of tommyrot benefit blind, charity fraud, cheque fraud, consumer frauds, counterfeit intellectual property and products, data-compromise fraud, embezzlement, gaming frauds, insider dealing/ commercialise abuse, insurance fraud, lending fraud, pension-type fraud, procurement fraud and tax fraud. (Levi et al. 2007)Benefit fraud is a type of fraud base on the social surety system and has a variety of cases from working and claiming benefits to failure to notify benefit officials of changes in circumstances.Charity fraud covers frauds where donat ions are taken for charities that do not exist or have been embezzled from registered charities.Cheque fraud is the type of fraud which means issuing cheques knowing that they are not cover. It is a type of fraud that is normally covered up to a come down limit.Consumer frauds include lottery/prize scams, telemarketing frauds, misrepresentation of products and gaming frauds such as fixed races.Counterfeit intellectual property and products fraud includes the sinful copying of vehicle parts, art and antiques, computer software and games, CDs, DVDs and even medicines.Data-compromise fraud covers fraud on both companies and individuals by fraudulently gaining and using financial information.Embezzlement is the type of fraud taken against businesses, government departments and professional firms by staff and it generally involves accounts manipulation or the construction of false invoices.Insider dealing/market abuse represents in general share trading by using information that is not available to the public. It may or may not directly affect people but it affects the market and can be seen as fraud against the whole public.Insurance fraud stands for fraud that is made against insurance companies and varies from arson for profit to false claims.Procurement fraud includes fraud and corruption involved in the purchasing process from price-fixing to the abuse of inside information. (Levi et al. 2007)Tax fraud covers the failure to pay direct, indirect and shine taxes. According to Newburn (2007) this is a very common type of fraud and it is estimated that it cost the European Union almost 34 billion pound per year.These are the types of white collar crime guided by Levi et al. (2007) and in order to better understand Sutherlands definition of the concept we should also research the offenders.McBarnet (1988) states that usually wealthy offenders or large corporations are the ones who make the most of white collar crime as they can more easily avoid breaking the l aw by employing respectable advisers to keep them in accord with the letter of law. However, if they do break the rules, they may also use expert advisers or hire the best lawyers to negotiate with enforces and contest cases in court, in order to produce more indulgent outcomes. (Croall, 1989)Jewkes and Letherby (2002) state that very a few(prenominal) offenders are prosecuted for white collar crime and, because of this, it is difficult to determine what characterizes a white collar criminal. Offenders of white collar crime are usually believed to be from high status backgrounds but there are indications that show the opposite. According to Jewkes and Letherby (2002) there are authors that found that small businesses were the types of business that mostly resorted to insurance fraud rather than big ones. They also found that small video stores and moonlighting builders are more likely to be convicted by The midland Revenue because their offences are cheaper to investigate and ea sier to convict than large businesses. Another reason for this is because small businesses deal directly with the public making it harder for them to conceal their trading operations that most of the time are less complex than the ones from large businesses and also because the proprietor is much more easily identified as the trusty person.Regarding to the race, age and gender of the offender there is little information. Although Gelsthorpe and Morris (1988) affirm that the abundant majority of offenders are male. That could be related to womens lower involvement in powerful positions with so many opportunities to commit high-profile white collar crime. On the other hand, a large number of women are found in fraud categories. Anyway, there had been a few legendary female white collar crime offenders to compare with the male defendants in the Guinness trials, or the directors of firms who have been charged with white collar crime. In addition, most major scandals involving frauds or corruption in the United Kingdom have involved men. similarly that, popular representation of entrepreneurs and mavericks are also primarily male.It is believed that, white collar offenders are recognized by their older age. This can be part explained by employment rates, because younger people are less likely to achieve a powerful and trusted position associated with forms of white collar crime. Some people agree with the statement that theft at work increases with age. (Croall, 2001)Race or ethnicities have been little explored in studies of white collar crime compared with other types of crime, where it has received greater attention. This could be linked to the employment status of different minority groups where high-status occupations are dominated by majority.Studies based on white collar crime have confirmed a wide variety of offenders that were divided into two main categories Individual offenders and Organisational offenders.Newburn (2007) states that individual offen ders can be separate according to their occupational status as elite offenders, the tenderness classes and white-collar workers. Elite offenders group include people with great influence, owners and partners in businesses and corrupt politicians. The middle classes group belong to middle managers, professionals and civil servants whom are mostly dealing with tax offending and fraud. pink-collar workers group is represented by clerical workers and the other people involved in theft, from a lower aim of organisations.Organisational offenders can be grouped according to the size of their businesses into corporate offenders, petty materialistic businesses, and rogue and cow man businesses. Corporate offenders involve the worlds largest corporate bodies in diverse types of delinquencies. Petty bourgeois are small companies operating locally mostly implicated in health and safety offences. Rogue and cowboy group are mainly involved in consumer fraud by misrepresentation on products and services. afterward describing what white collar crime means, its forms and offenders we should take a look at the victims of this type of crime. According to Levi (1988) the victims of white collar crime vary from people that is very wealthy to people that are very poor. Newburn (2007) states that, white collar victimization is different from the victimization of conventional crimes. According to Croall (2007) one of the main focuses of white collar criminology is to expose the harm caused by the crimes of the powerful which come out to overcome the harm caused by conventional crime. It tends to use general categories to describe the victims and it has the tendency to research the relation between class, status, power and offending, criminal justice and sentencing rather than victimization. Croall (2007) argues that victimization is made and studied as a throng of layers. At the first level it affects private individuals, at the second level it affects organizations and at th e third and final level it affects the society. There are crimes that do not target individual people but they end up doing it. For example crimes that target and affect the government end up alter all citizens. Victimization of white collar crime is often covered up by creating incidents that result from systematic violations of the regulations. The victims are also categorise as deserving and undeserving. Investors can be accused of making vainglorious investments and are seen as less deserving than people who for example are victimized through pension fraud. One of the principles of the consumer law is to let the emptor beware so most of the victims are blamed by others or even blame themselves for not paying attention and for being taken in by sales cons and counterfeit goods.According to Croall (2007) one of the most outrageous blaming of the victims was at the Hillsborough disaster when 96 people were killed in the crumble of a football stadium, disaster that ended up to have been evoke by the advanced drunken state of the spectators. (Croall, 2007)According to Croall (2001), the best way to reduce the extent of white collar crime is through promoting a good relationship with firms that are being policed.Criminal law is universalist and absolute, and those who offend against it are criminals. (Snider, 1990 385)Even if sentences for white collar crime attract less public attention, they do attract criticism where, for example heartbreaking fraudsters receive short prison sentences or companies blamed for death or injuries are given a relatively small fine. Their actions are seldom criminalised if they are, they are rarely punished adequately. It should be taken into consideration the harm that has been done. (Croall, 2001)White collar crime continues to raise a lot of questions to which answers essential be found in order to improve the quality of life.This essay defined and described the concept of white collar crime. It studied and showed its t ypes, the offenders and categories of offenders, the victims and the impact that it has on them and also how criminology studies this type of offence.