Chapter 12: Economic Crimes: Blue-Collar, White-Collar, and Green-Collar

Economic Crime

An act committed in violation of the criminal law for the purpose of monetary gain and financial benefits.

Blue-Collar Crime

Traditional common-law theft crimes such as larceny, burglary, and arson.

White-Collar Crime

Crimes of business enterprise such as embezzlement, price fixing, and bribery.

Green-Collar Crimes

Crimes that damage the environment and violate laws designed for its protection.

Theft

The intentional taking, keeping, or using of another’s property without authorization or permission.

Occasional Criminals

Offenders who do not define themselves by a criminal role or view themselves as a committed career criminals but are willing to commit crime if the occasion arises.

Situational Inducement

Short-term influence on a person’s behavior, such as financial problems or peer pressure, which increases risk-taking.

Professional Criminals

Offenders who make a significant portion of their income from crime.

Larceny

Taking for one’s own use the property of another, by means other than force or threats on the victim or forcibly breaking into a person’s home or workplace; simple theft.

Constructive Possession

A legal fiction that applies to situations in which persons voluntarily give up physical custody of their property but still retain legal ownership.

Petit (Petty) Larceny

Theft of a small amount of money or property, punished as a misdemeanor.

Grand Larceny

Theft of money or property of substantial value, punished as a felony.

Shoplifting

The taking of goods from retail stores.

Snitch

Amateur shoplifter who does not self-identify as a thief but who systematically steal merchandise for personal value.

Booster (Heel)

Professional shoplifter who steals with the intention of reselling stolen merchandise.

Booster Box

Device with a false bottom that can be opened and shut by a professional shoplifter, lined with metal or some other substance to prevent security tags from setting off alarms, placed over merchandise.

Target Removal Strategies

Displaying dummy or disabled goods as a means of preventing shoplifting.

Target Hardening Strategies

Making one’s home or business crime proof through the use of locks, bars, alarms, and other devices.

Merchant Privilege Laws

Legislation that protects retailers and their employees from lawsuits if they arrest and detain a suspected shoplifter on reasonable grounds.

Car Cloning

Using a vehicle identification number (VIN) from a legally registered car to hide the identity of a stolen vehicle for resale.

Naive Check Forgers

Amateurs who cash bad checks because of some financial crisis but have little identification with a criminal subculture.

Systematic Forgers

Professionals who make a living by passing bad checks.

Fence

A buyer and seller of stolen merchandise.

Forged Signatures

Legitimate blank checks with an imitation of the payer’s signature.

Forged Endorsements

The use of a stolen check, which is then endorsed and cashed or deposited by someone other than the payee. I

Identity Assumption

When criminals learn information about a financial institution customer, such as name, address, financial institution account number, social security number, home and work telephone numbers or employer, and use the information to misrepresent themselves.

Counterfeit Checks

Presented based on fraudulent identification or are false checks drawn on valid accounts.

Altered Checks

After a legitimate maker creates a valid check to pay a debt, a criminal then takes the good check and uses chemicals or other means to erase the amount of name of the payee, so that new information can be entered.

Closed Account Fraud

This is based on checks being written against closed accounts.

Check Kiting

The process of depositing a check from one bank account into a second bank account without sufficient funds to cover the amount.

Burglary

Entering a home by force, threat, or deception with intent to commit a crime.

Arson

The willful, malicious burning of a home, building, or vehicle.

False Pretenses (Fraud)

Misrepresenting a fact in a way that causes a deceived victim to give money or property to the offender.

Mark

The target of a con artist.

Confidence Game

A swindle, usually involving a get-rich-quick scheme, often with illegal overtones, so that the victim will be afraid or embarrassed to call the police.

Pigeon Drop

A con game in which a package or wallet containing money is “found” by a con-artist, and the victims are bilked out of money they are asked to put as collateral.

Chiseling

Using illegal means to cheat an organization, its consumers, or both, on a regular basis.

Insider Trading

Illegal buying of stock in a company on the basis of information provided by someone who has a fiduciary interest in the company.

Exploitation

Forcing victims to pay for services or contracts to which they have a clear right.

Influence Peddling

Using one’s institution position to grant favors and sell information to which one’s co-conspirators are not entitled.

Embezzlement

Taking the possessions of another (fraudulent conversion) that have been placed in the thief’s lawful possession for safekeeping, such as a bank teller misappropriating deposits or a stockbroker making off with a customer’s account.

Corporate (Organizational) Crime

Powerful institutions or their representatives willfully violate the laws that restrain these institutions from doing social harm or require them to do social good.

Sherman Antitrust Act

Federal law that subjects to criminal or civil sanctions any person “who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy” in restraint of interstate commerce.

Division of Markets

Firms divide a region into territories, and each firm agrees not to compete in each other’s territories.

Tying Arrangement

A corporation requires customers of one of its services to use other services it offers.

Group Boycott

An organization or company boycotts retail stores that do not comply with its rules or desires.

Price Fixing

A conspiracy to set and control the price of a necessary commodity is considered an absolute violation of the act. Occurs when two or more business competitors conspire to sell the same or similar products or services at an agreed-upon price.

Bid Suppression

One of more competitors who otherwise would be expected to bid, or who have previously bid, agree to refrain from bidding or withdraw a previously submitted bid so that the designated winning competitor’s bid will be accepted.

Complementary Bidding

Occurs what some competitors agree to submit bids that are either too high to be accepted or contain special terms that will not be acceptable to the buyer. (Designed to inflate other bids)

Bid Rotation

Al conspirators submit bids but take turns being the low bidder.

Subcontracting

Involve competitors who agree not to bid or to submit a losing bid in return for receiving subcontracting or supply contracts in exchange from the successful low bidder.

Legalist

According to this view, environmental crimes are violations of existing criminal laws designed to protect people, the environment, or both.

Environmental Justice

According to this view, limiting environmental crimes to actual violations of the law is too narrow. Green crime should include all acts that have identifiable environmental damage outcomes and originated in human actions.

Biocentric

According to this view, environmental harm is viewed as any human activity that disrupts a biosystem, destroying plant and animal life.

Criminal Environmental Pollution

A crime involving the intentional or negligent discharge into the biosystem of a toxic waste that destroys plant or animal life.

Compliance Strategies

Methods of controlling white-collar crime that rely on the threat of economic sanctions or civil penalties, creating a marketplace incentive to obey the law.

Deterrence Strategies

Methods of controlling white-collar crime that rely on the punishment of individual offenders to deter other would-be violators.