White Collar Crime 08 28 2013 Introduction and Overview of White Collar Crime Confusion on what constitutes WCC o Example Deaths associated with an earthquake would appear to be unrelated to WCC o But what if it is a consequence of greedy developers paying off corrupt governmental inspectors to evade proper building codes How do we define WCC White collar crimes are committed during the course of one s job The offenders occupational role plays a central feature in the perpetration of the crime The offenders occupation is viewed as legitimate by society Simply put it s an economic crime committed by either fraud deception or collusion Why Study WCC White collar crime is a serious problem in our society and costs far more in damage than property crimes White collar crime affects everyone large of victims By studying WCC offending we learn more about all types of crime Effective prevention and intervention systems and policies to be developed To provide info about potential careers related to WCC Insight into current culture and subculture The Complex Nature of WCC WCC is o Complex o Involves large organizations o Numerous individuals in different positions o Complicated transactions carried out over long periods of time Because this field of study is complex one must understand o Economics o Management o Law o Sociology o Psychology Ways to Research White Collar Crime Surveys Field research Experiments Case studies Archival research Surveys WCC and WCC offenders Types of surveys o One site administration o Face to face interviews o Telephone interviews Common research strategy for WCC Groups who are surveyed CJ officials general public victims of o Mail surveys Field Research Experiments Strategies where researchers enter a particular setting and gather data through their observations in those settings Studies where the research examine how the presence of one variable the casual or independent variable produces an outcome the effect of the dependent variable o Classic experimental design control and experimental group o Quasi experimental design used for most WCC Mimic the experimental designs but lack certain elements of the experimental design such as randomization Case Studies Allows researchers to select a particular crime criminal event or phenomena and study the features surrounding the causes and consequences of those events Archival Research Refers to studies that use some form of record or archive as a database in the study Types of Archives o Case records o Pre sentence reports o Media reports o Case descriptions of specific WCC The Scientific Perspective and WCC How to relate to the principle of science to WCC o Objectivity researchers must be value free and unbiased o Parsimonious keep explanations as simple as possible o Determinism that the behavior is caused or influenced by preceding events r factors o Skepticism social scientists must question and re question o Relativism all things are related Obtaining Statistics on Conventional Crime Official statistics Uniform Crime Reports UCR o Primary sources of data on conventional crime Compiled by the FBI from individual police agency reports o Includes data on Provides raw counts of events NO additional info Offenses known to the police Detailed homicide data SHR Crimes cleared by arrest Persons arrested Number employment of law enforcement personnel National Incident Based Reporting System NIBRS o Known as the UCR 2 0 o Collects additional data on each reported incident of crime o Provides information on 57 offenses as well as their circumstances players and location o Race gender what happened what was involved in crime o VERY time consuming and detailed many agencies don t have resources to participate One report can be up to 27 pages National Crime Victimization Survey NCVS o Nationally representative sample of households asked about the victimization experiences o Conducted annually since 1973 by the Census Bureau o Provides information on Number of offenses Victim Offender Offense o DOES NOT collect information regarding WCCs Data must be obtained from various sources such as o Governmental agency and annual financial reports o Newspapers o Journals o Independent surveys Fincen Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Mission to enhance the integrity of financial systems by facilitating the detection and deterrence of financial crime Stolen credit cards or when there are flags on the amount of money you can spend on a credit card Provides suspicious activity monthly reports Reports on o Mortgage loan fraud o Money laundering o Check CC fraud Chapter 2 Understadning White Collar Crime E A Ross Prominent sociologist the criminaloid The business man who commits illegal acts out of a desire to maximize profit while hiding behind a fa ade of respectability and piety Ross regarded these criminaloids as guilty of moral insensibility He also help them directly responsible for unnecessary deaths of consumers and workers They would hide behind the great Gatsby type of people so people would think that they cant be criminals but successful people They were more guilty because these were the educated and knew exactly what they were doing Status shield concept their status was a shield to hide the crime that they did Godfather of White Collar Crime Sutherland Sutherland 1940 in ASR One of the first systematic explorations of specific forms of WCC Focused on the 70 largest US manufacturing mining and mercantile corporations Examined o Restraint of trade violations black listing people so they have to do business when certain people o Unfair labor practices child labor slave labor human trafficking o Fraudulent advertising o Illegal rebates refunds 1 White collar criminality is real criminality 2 The financial cost of WCC is higher than street crime 3 WCC differs from other criminality because of differences in criminal law 4 Theories that assume crime is due to poverty are invalid because they do not apply to white collar criminals Differential association and social disorganization are two theories of crime which fit this requirement Defining WCC A variety of terms have been used to describe WCC o Elite deviance o Business crime o Political crime o Corporate crime o Organizational crime o Occupational crime o Cybercrime Criminologists who study WCC have generally agreed that it 1 Occurs in a legitimate occupational context 2 Is motivated by the objective of economic gain or occupational success 3 Is not characterized by direct
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