CC100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: White-Collar Crime, Corporate Crime, Embezzlement
White collar crime
March 27, 2018
Types of crime (from week 7)
1). Street Crime (Conventional)
- Offenders (Common)
- Responsibility
- Two main categories (violence and property)
- Criminal justice system
2). White-collar crime
- Offenders – committed by individuals
- Occupation
- Two main categories (white-collar and corporate)
- Criminal justice system- low enforcement
White-collar crime
Sutherland (1939)
- Defined: illegalities committed by respectable persons within their occupational roles
- White collar criminals. Respectable person uses it for their personal gain
o Civil law/ administrative law- hidden by criminologist because it is not recorded
o High financial cost- billions of dollars
o Damage
Two basic types
1). White collar/professional (occupational) crime
- Individual and victim
- Employee theft, embezzlement
2). Corporate (organizational/ government) crime
- Corporation and consumer are the victims
Enterprise crimes
- Illegal acts of breaking rules for financial gain
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
The white-collar crime problem
- Cost- estimate how much it costs
- Much higher than street crime
- Hundreds of billions per year
- Examples - inflated expense accounts, false invoices, use of company supplies, cheque
fraud
- 2002 KPMG survey (881 corporations)
- Opportunities for fraud
- Turnover- more people are coming in and out of the corporations
- Financial authority
- Failure to deal- because they are unhappy so they take more money for them
- More serious than street crime
- Property- does the company pay for the damages?
- Life- people die if the work environment is not safe
- Safety standards
- Environmental damage
- Industrial accidents
- International problem
Typology of white-collar crime (Edelhertz 1970)
1). Ad-hoc violations
- Opportunistic-
- Example- when there is opportunity, get financial gain, can be against the company, or
government
2). Abuses of trust
- Use of position for personal gain
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Defined: illegalities committed by respectable persons within their occupational roles. Respectable person uses it for their personal gain: civil law/ administrative law- hidden by criminologist because it is not recorded, high financial cost- billions of dollars, damage. Illegal acts of breaking rules for financial gain. Examples - inflated expense accounts, false invoices, use of company supplies, cheque fraud. Turnover- more people are coming in and out of the corporations. Failure to deal- because they are unhappy so they take more money for them. Life- people die if the work environment is not safe. Example- when there is opportunity, get financial gain, can be against the company, or government. Example to protect the business, benefit the business like environmental pollution. Example- selling them fraudulent land that does not exist. Financial swindles- petty thieves, get rich quick scheme: example- (bcci) was a fake business selling fake bonds.
