White collar crime is a manifestation that crimes are not necessarily a result of poverty or uttermost material need. Crimes also are not committed not by persons from the lower society class alone. Criminal activity can be executed by persons who seem to have everything: politicians, multi-millionaires, and even wealthy industries.
It was in 1939 when the term “white-collar crime” was coined by Edwin Sutherland in a speech to the (ASA) American Sociological Society. The idea of the crime was then formalized as an activity not from people without money or power but from “a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” This illegal activity is so organized and structured that law offenders appear clean before the public. White-collar criminals usually use their powers and resources to acquire even more power and resource.
This type of crime utilizes government, organizations, professionally trained individuals, and financial strategies. Cornell Law School enumerates the examples as: “antitrust violations, computer and internet fraud, credit card fraud, phone and telemarketing fraud, bankruptcy fraud, healthcare fraud, environmental law violations, insurance fraud, mail fraud, government fraud, tax evasion, financial fraud, securities fraud, insider trading, bribery, kickbacks, counterfeiting, public corruption, money laundering,embezzlement, economic espionage and trade secret theft.”
Offenders range from high profile persons, with high government positions, high educational attainment, or with greedy aims.
Shover and Wright (2000) argue that the crimes are interdependent to the offender’s statutes. They point out that the poor who are often involved in street crimes and flood the police stations are seldom to likely to be part of this organized crime. They stated that “most if not all white-collar offenders by contrast are distinguished by lives of privilege, much of it with origins in class inequality.” It clearly reflects that high profile individuals most likely have the chance to commit the crime since they have the power to do so.
Sutherland agrees with this kind of idea. This kind of problem is not from the poor and disadvantaged people only but majority of the offenders have two things that enable them to carry out the crime: authority and privilege. He also added that events such as illegal trusts and stock frauds have greater impact to the society than the petty offenses of the street criminals.
Proof to that is the fact that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that United States loses approximately $300 billion every year due to this type of activities.
Lea (2001) on the other hand, comments that this crime, due to the socialization process, is now associated with less guilt. There is this notion that high status individuals commit white-collar crimes because everybody else is doing it. The change in socialisation profess and the effects of postmodernism results to doing the crime because all of the high status individuals are doing it anyway.
One notable instance of white-collar criminal activity is the case against Senator Harry Williams during 1980’s (United States v. Williams, 705 F.2d 603) where Williams is being accused of accepting bribe from an imaginary sheik named Abdul (which was created by the FBI through “Operation Abscam”) in return of giving the sheik political favors including the purchase of asylum in the U.S., involvement in the investment scheme, and laundering of the sheiks money out of the US country. This is one classic example of using power, in this case political power, and privelege, in this case money from the shiek, to implement a white collar crime. Sen. Williams defended that he was induced by the government to accept the money but to no avail. It is clearly stated in the US Constitution §201 that he committed bribery:
“directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity in return for being influenced in testimony under oath or affirmation as a witness upon any such trial, hearing, or other proceeding, or in return for absenting himself therefrom”
Another kind of white collar crime is fraud wherein the criminal implements any kind of trickery or scheme to obtain money from individuals or corporations. The victim thinks that he or she has gained the best bargain only to find out that he or she was tricked. Channels of fraud may involve radio, television, telephone, mail, health care benefits, and insurance.
Money laundering is another type of white-collar crime. The criminal, usually a government official or someone who is in higher postion designs schemes to take money from an organization or government he is in and then he stuffs the money in a bank for a long time under a different name. He withdraws the money from the financial institution and comes out clean without the notice of the masses.
It is good to reflect that privelege and power lays a good play on this kind of activity.
Sutherland explains that it is good to know this kind of criminal activity to have greater understanding of the federal law. The term may be new but the idea goes back to the times of Pontius Pilate and Hitler.
Organization of the crime is one factor of a white-collar offense. Scheming and carefully laid out plans for giving illusions to the victim and holding it with personal interest is one facto one must consider.
As of now, punishments of commiting such crime are “fines, home detention, community confinement, costs of prosecution, forfeitures, restitution, supervised release, and imprisonment.” However, penalty can be minimized if the offender takes full responsibility of the crime.
The US constitution assigned several agencies to look into these crimes like the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Secret Service, and the Internal Revenue Service. These agencies see to it that the state and federal crime legislation is severely enforced. Some states implement their own agencies for state-level enforcement.
