Comparison Writing Assignment Compare white collar crime in the United States to white collar crime in India: what are the characteristics of people in India who commit white collar crime (e.g.: age, occupation or profession, lifestyle). Find a case of w

Running head: WHITE COLLAR CRIME 1

WHITE COLLAR CRIME 5

White collar crime

Harish Mallipeddi

Wilmington University

White collar crime

White collar crimes can be described as the nonviolent crimes which are financially motivated and they are usually motivated by the businesses as well as the government professionals (Payne, 2013). This was first introduced in the field of criminology by a sociologist referred to as Edwin Sutherland in the year 1939. He described it as a crime that is usually conducted by an individual who has a high level of respect and mostly in the high social status as they carry out the carious activities that are involved in their occupations. Examples of the white collar crimes include; bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, forgery, labor racketeering, theft, copyright infringement and the cyber crime among others.

With the passage of the time, the meaning of the phrase the white collar crimes have evolved to a great extent. Initially, Edwin’s main aim of forming this phrase was to address the bias that was existing in the law enforcement in the United States. He depicted that the law enforcement has the tendency on focusing much on the acts of violence and the theft that is conducted by the people in the lower classes thereby to a great extent ignoring the shady practices that the people who are in the elite and the business class are involved in. Sutherland questioned the fact that people were assuming that it is the conditions of the poverty that continuously motivated the people to get engaged in the criminal activities.

The meaning of the phrase the white collar crimes has changed with evolution of time in that it has been discovered from the research carried out and the statistics that these kinds of crime are not only conducted by the people in the elite business class in the society. It is clear that people from all levels in the society irrespective of their social classes are known to be committing these crimes in one way or another. For instance, any individual in the society can hear a tip and make up their mind to participate in it irrespective of their class. This has thus called for the making of the changes to the name to make it ideals such that none of the people will feel that the law is discriminating them on the basis of their social class.

Before I started this class, I felt that the white collar jobs are usually conducted by only those people in the society who are in the elite business class. The main reason behind this is the fact that these types of crimes are financially motivated and I thus felt that the poor people could not be in a position to achieve this due to the lack of the power in the society since they are the subordinates. The other thing is that I felt that the law in the society does not focus to a great extent on the crimes that are committed by the rich people in the society but it usually concentrates on the crimes that are committed by the poor people.

After learning about the white collar crimes in class, I realized that both the people who are in the lower social class in the society and the ones who are in the elite business class commit the white collar job. The fact remains that an individual is involved in a crime where they are likely to benefit financially makes it clear that they are subjects of this type of a crime. From the second issue, I learned that it is true that the law enforcement usually majors on the crimes that are committed by the people in the low social class more than on the ones that are committed by the people in the higher social class level. This is not god because these people have the same chances of committing the crime and non one them should escape unpunished because they are all wrong.

One of the types of the crimes that are usually classified as the white collar crime is the fraud. This involves the misrepresentation or the omission of the facts in a material intentionally. The misrepresentation in the cases of fraud should be reliable on in a reasonable way and there must be an individual who is suffering from a loss in monetary form as a result of this. Examples of the most common type of fraud are the computer fraud, insurance fraud, bankruptcy fraud, healthcare fraud, credit card fraud and the telemarketing fraud. The second type of the crime that can be classified as a white collar crime is the theft. This includes the embezzlement of the property such as goods and money among other things by the employees and the blackmailing. Blackmail refers to the act of demanding money so that one cannot cause physical harm, cause damage to property or even the exposing of an individual’s secrets.

The media plays a very great role in influencing the coverage on the white collar crime in the society. This is because of its ability to shape the crime discourses thereby influencing the people’s perceptions of the harmfulness and the problems that are encountered in maintain the law and order in the society (Friedrichs, 2010). The media is also a factor in the white collar crimes in that it passes information to the people thus encouraging them to rethink the issue of justice as a policy. As a factor in the white collar crimes, it thus lays a very imperative role in influencing how the people understand this subject in the society.

References

Friedrichs, D. (2010). Trusted criminals : white collar crime in contemporary society. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Payne, B. (2013). White-collar crime : the essentials. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications.