White Collar Offender

White Collar

White Collar offender

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White Collar Offender

The white collar offender refers to a criminal that commits a crime while fulfilling a professional position in society. The white collar criminal hides behind a mask of legitimacy and uses their position to commit their crimes. White collars crimes have been around for as long as street crime but they have become far more prevalent in recent years due to advances in technology. These fraudulent employees will take advantage of weaknesses in the operations or they manipulate the system in order to commit crimes. These types of offenders are able to get away with their crimes because they will take steps to disguise their illegal behavior.

White collar offenders have particular characteristics that differentiate them from the common street criminals. First these criminals appear to be intelligent and even hard working employees that in fact are manipulating the people in their environment in order to get away with their crimes. They may manipulate the books or collect revenue that should go back into the organization but there crimes will be masked making it harder for them to be detected by the organization (FBI, 2012). These criminals do not see themselves as criminals. Instead these criminals believe that they are merely using the system to their advantage and do not create victims like the street criminal.

White-collar criminals do not commit the crime because of their social status, or because they are impoverished, but because they have the opportunity (Minnaar, 2014). These criminals are extremely calculated and do not wish o be caught. These criminals can come from all types of backgrounds and need only have the lack of morals needed to commit a crime. If there are plenty of checks and balances in place to prevent the crime it will make it are more difficult for the white collar offender to commit the crimes. These offenders take advantage of any opportunity to commit a fraud for financial gain.

Another characteristic of the white collar criminal is they are all greedy. The fact they want access to money or something valuable is what driving them to commit the crime. Some of these criminals will just skim small amounts of money they believe will never be detected by the company while others will establish large and complex crimes, such as the Bernie Madoff scandal, where millions of dollars was stolen from clients. The white collar criminal has one goal in mind and that is to line their pocket with money even if this means destroying the company or creating hundreds of victims.

Another characteristic is the status of the criminal. The street criminal is generally poor or from down trodden circumstances while the while collar offender is usually someone with higher social standing. This does not means they are someone powerful in society even though some are, it means these individuals have taken advantage of a position they hold in society, from a secretary to the CEO of the company. These criminals get away with their crimes more than they street criminal even when caught. The white collar criminal uses their job or other position in society to commit a crime (Price, 2009). Many of these crimes are ignored by the organization instead of having the employee arrested and creating a sandal or the business

Another characteristic of the white collar criminal involves economic factors. The pressure on individuals to obtain greater economic wealth is very strong and people will cross the barrier between the legal and the illegal to perform according to social norms (Minnaar, 2014). When someone is experiencing financial strain and there is an opportunity to commit crime this temptation can be too great. Lastly relative deprivation has been cited as a cause for white collar crime. This means the offender commits the crime in order to reach the standing in society they believe they deserve and are being denied. In other words if the white collar offender believes they should have gotten a promotion that comes with a raise, they may justify any frauds by saying they deserve the money.

White collar offenders are just as harmful to society as street offenders creating victims who suffer economic loss. These offenders do not appear to be criminals because they hide their criminal actions behind a legitimate position in society. In order to prevent white collar crimes the organization must put into place the appropriate protections to ensure these offenders cannot commit these types of crimes and when they do they are charged for their crimes.

References

FBI. (2012). White Collar Crimes. Retrieved July 14, 2014 from http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wcc

Minnaar, J. (2014). Profile of a White Criminal offender. Retrieved July 14, 2014 from

http://www.ethicsa.org.za/index.php?page=preventingwhitecollarcrimeprofile

Price, M. (2009). White Collar Crime: Corporate and Securities and Commonalities Fruad.

Journal American Academy Psychiatry Law 37(4):538-544