White Collar Crime Lecture Review

Corporate Crime

  • Definition: Illegal and harmful acts committed by officers and employees of corporations to promote corporate interests.
    • Examples: Corporate theft, violence, financial manipulation, and corruption.

Occupational Crime

  • Definition: Financially driven illegal activities committed within a legitimate occupation.
    • Examples: Retail crime, service crimes, employee crimes.

Governmental Crime

  • Definition: White collar crimes committed by government entities or officials aimed at promoting governmental interests.
    • Examples: State crime, political white collar crime.

Major Hybrid Forms of White Collar Crime

  • State-Corporate Crime: Involves government, corporate interests, and international financial institutions.
  • Crimes of Globalization: Activities that transcend national boundaries, often involving corporations and states.
  • High Finance Crime: Financial crimes often associated with large institutions.

Other Forms of White Collar Crime

Enterprise Crime

  • Definition: Involves combined activities of organized crime and legitimate business.

Contrepreneurial Crime

  • Definition: Swindles and frauds disguised as legitimate businesses.

Technocrime

  • Definition: Crime involving advanced technology and computers.

Avocational Crime

  • Definition: Non-organizational illegal acts by white-collar workers.
    • Examples: Income tax evasion, insurance fraud, credit card fraud.

Exam Preparation: Key Themes

  1. Typology of White Collar Crime: Be prepared to categorize examples.
  2. Diane Vaughn's Contributions:
    • Study: Historical ethnography regarding the Challenger launch.
    • Key Insight: Decision-making culture led to acceptance of launch risks, causing tragedy.

Rational Choice

  • Concept: Offenders weigh costs and benefits, making strategic decisions in crimes.

Challenger Explosion Analysis

  • Argument: A mixture of corporate and state objectives promoted practices leading to disaster.

Workplace Safety Laws

  • Historic Note: Comprehensive laws instituted in the 1970s in the U.S.

Agencies Policing White Collar Crime

  • Major types:
    • Law Enforcement Agencies
    • Regulatory Agencies

Oldest Law Enforcement Agency

  • Agency: U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Barriers to Regulation

  • Reason: Desire to protect big business hinders stricter measures against white-collar crime.

Instrumentalist Perspective of Law

  • Definition: Law reflects elite control and is designed to serve the interests of the elite class.

Role of Ethics in WCC Regulation

  • Importance: Ethical standards serve as the first line of defense against criminal behavior.

Legal Framework for WCC

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

  • Purpose: Improve financial reporting and auditing practices post-Enron scandal (2002).

Credit Rating Agency Reform Act

  • Purpose: Enhance rating quality to protect investors, initiated after the 2008 financial crisis.

Theories Explaining White Collar Crime

  1. Conflict Theory: Focus on how powerful groups shape laws to maintain their position.
  2. Crime and the American Dream: Societal pressure leads individuals to commit crimes in pursuit of success.
  3. Differential Association: Criminality is learned behavior.
  4. Coleman's Integrated Theory: Focus on motivation and opportunity.
  5. Fraud Triangle: Consists of Opportunity, Motivation/Pressure, Rationalization.

Levels of Analysis

  • Micro: Individual offender characteristics and choices.
  • Meso: Situational factors influencing crime.
  • Macro: Societal conditions that encourage WCC.

White Collar Crime Definition and History

  • Origin: Coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939.
  • Definition: Illegal acts by individuals of high social status during legitimate occupational activities.
  • Scope of Harm: Encompasses social, economic, and political impacts.

Characteristics of White Collar Crime

  • Essential Qualities: Respectable status, financial harm, occupational opportunity.

Newsmaking Criminology (Friedrichs)

  • Definition: A method to elevate public awareness of criminological issues.

Collective Knowledge Doctrine

  • Definition: Considers an organization’s knowledge as the sum of its employees' knowledge; established in
    U.S. v Bank of New England.

10-10-80 Rule

  • Overview:
    • 10% will never commit fraud.
    • 10% actively seek to commit fraud.
    • 80% may commit fraud under certain conditions.

Societal Response to WCC

  • Tendency to view scandals as accidents, leading to under-punishment compared to conventional crimes.

Criticisms of Regulatory Agencies (Friedrichs)

  • Too responsive to political agendas.
  • Bureaucrats hold excessive power with inadequate accountability.

Corporate Criminal Responsibility vs. Individual Responsibility

  • Corporate Responsibility: Organization held liable for employee actions.
  • Individual Responsibility: Focuses on individual liability.

Role of the U.S. Marshall in WCC

  • Investigates white-collar crimes and captures fugitives.

Consensus vs Conflict View of Law

  • Consensus View: Laws reflect shared societal values.
  • Conflict View: Laws are tools for the powerful to control the less powerful.

Referral for Prosecution

  • Most regulatory agencies refer cases to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal prosecution.