White-collar crime can be defined as the crimes which are committed by individuals of respectability and very high social status in the course of their occupation. There have been numerous debates as to what qualifies as a white-collar crime and it generally encompasses a variety of nonviolent crimes that are usually committed for financial gain in commercial situations..
Many white-collar crimes are very difficult to prosecute since the perpetrators are very sophisticated criminals who tend to conceal their activities through a series of very complex transactions. In symbolic interactions, criminal behavior is also learned from the interpersonal interactions with other people and the white-collar crime therefore partly covers the corporate crimes since the opportunities for fraud embezzlement and forgery are more available to the white-collar employees.
Most of the white-collar crimes include: computer and internet fraud, financial fraud, insurance fraud, bankruptcy fraud, phone and telemarketing fraud, government fraud credit card fraud money laundering, and embezzlement as well as economic espionage and trade secrete theft. The white-collar employees can intermingle and legitimate the criminal behavior and also they can be less obvious when they are committing the crimes. It is further estimated that a great deal of white-collar crimes is usually undetected and if by any chance it is detected then it is not usually reported..
White-collar crime is most likely to be a crime against a corporation. There is a demonstration of double standards between street crimes and white-collar crimes and also the white-collar criminals are not more rigorously pursued as the street criminals. By the virtue of their relative affluence, those who have been accused as white-collar offenders can afford to pay the best lawyers and they also have many influential friends in the senior ranks of the political elite and also in the law enforcement agencies and the judiciary.
Such connections often ensure a favorable treatment based on an individual and it also allows the laws to be drafted or the resource allocations to be shifted so as to ensure that the white-collar crimes are not enforced too strictly and are also not clearly defined. It is very evident that no police effort goes into fighting the white-collar crimes as well as enforcing the many corporate crimes which are in the government agencies’ hands. There are different public policies which are at work and they have differences in the levels of public interests, the complexity of the cases, and the lack of related literature to white-collar crimes all of which have very significant effects on the offenders of the white-collar crimes..
The differential treatment between the white-collar crimes and the street crimes tends to be more related to the degree of the violence or the physical force involved than the amount of the monetary loss and all other factors constant. This is true because white-collar crimes are usually committed by those who have opportunities that do not require any form of violence and white-collar crime offenders are less likely to garner very severe criminal penalties. An example of this is when someone mugs a victim on one of the streets by threatening the victims that they will gun them down or even knife the victim and they also steal the victim’s wallet. Such individuals are more likely to be punished with more severe sentences than an inside trader who always cheats the shareholders out of millions of dollars.
Reference
Meier, R. & Salinger, L. (1995): White-collar Crime, Classic & Contemporary Views. New York, Free Press.