Controlling White Collar Crimes, Essays (university) of Criminology

Download Controlling White Collar Crimes and more Essays (university) Criminology in PDF only on Docsity! Running head: CONTROLLING WHITE COLLAR CRIMES Subject: Criminology (Humanities) - University of California (Los Angeles Campus) Controlling White Collar Crimes White collar crime was first defined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation". According to the definition given by Mr. Edwin Sutherland, white collar crimes are aided by the power given to an individual by their occupation. The misuse of power is done to satisfy an individual greed. Common types of white- collar crimes are Wages theft, Ponzi schemes, Insider trading, Cybercrime, Labor racketeering, Embezzlement, Fraud, Bribery, Copyright infringement, Identity theft, Money laundering, and Forgery. All these crimes are committed by educated people and not gang members. These types of crimes are mainly committed using corporate office and thereby called white collar crimes. The term “white collar” came from fashion of early 1900s to wear white collar shirts for office-based works. It is important to study the impact of white collars crimes on so as to identify the severity of the problem. The study of the severity of the problem will be done using case analysis. This study will also analyze secondary sources to arrive at a set of recommendation to control white collar crimes. Research Statement. Most of the white-collar crimes are done using by executives of Corporate houses. So, it must be studied if the Corporate structure support the occurrence of such crimes. It must CONTROLLING WHITE COLLAR CRIMES also be studied if there are any strategies to control occurrence of white-collar crimes. This study aims to answer two possible research questions: 1. Do Corporate house basic structure allow white collar crimes to take place? 2. What are best strategies of crime control for white collar crimes? Literature Review To find important insights on the topic, literature review is done using peer reviewed scholarly papers. 1. Sutherland, Edwin H. (1940). The White-collar criminal. American Sociological Review 5:1—-12. In this paper Sutherland highlighted the impact of white-collar crime from power and influence perspective. The impact created by a farmer is different to an impact created by a chief executive officer of a Corporate office. The author highlighted the fact that since positive impact of their work is different so negative impact of their works are also different. This study pointed that the scale of damage done by a white-collar criminal is much severe than done by normal criminal. 2. Cressey, D. (1953). Other People's Money: A Study in the Social Psychology of Embezzlement. New York: Free Press. In this paper the author analyzed the causes that drive people to seek other people wealth by wrong means. One of the major causes identified by the author was uncontrolled greed. This greed according to author came from highly competitive Corporate environment where success alone counts. 3. Schrager, L. and Short, J. (1978). Toward a Sociology of Organizational Crime. Social Problems 25 (1978): 407-419. CONTROLLING WHITE COLLAR CRIMES Case Inference: The linkage of bonus to mere sales numbers must be avoided by companies but they should rather have a holistic approach to judge performance. Pushing employees to achieve numbers alone can force them to take unethical approaches. The lower level employees did complain about orders from higher management to make fake entries that they had sold bank account opening services. Companies must have ethics helpline so that employees can complain in advance, if managers are giving unethical orders. The Impact of White-Collar Crimes The impacts of white-collar crimes in many cases are huge. This is because the people committing these crimes are sitting at higher positions of power and influence. Their actions influence lot of people lives directly than an ordinary act of stealing by a village thief. For example, hundreds of thousands of workers may be affected by unethical actions of a CEO. White collar crimes also exist in government offices. Corruption by government officials is epidemic in developing countries which cripple welfare activities. The failure of education and health programs in developing countries are due to corruption. Millions are affected by white collar crimes of bureaucrats in these countries. It is often that white collar crimes inspire more people to commit crimes compared to other crimes. The reason for the same is that people committing these crimes are in influential positions. We often view that white crimes are glorified while a common village thief is looked down upon. A recent movie named ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ provided glorification to white collar crime and was positively received by CONTROLLING WHITE COLLAR CRIMES people. It reaffirmed the view that white collar crimes have more potential to influence others in doing the same. Theories application for Crime Reduction Stakeholder Theory: This is an organizational management and business ethics theory which says that since companies run smoothly because of many stakeholders so the company has a moral obligation toward all of them. The stakeholders are community, environment, workers, shareholders, customers and executives among others. The theory emphasizes that a business organization runs only because of safe environment provided by community with able workers. So, the business organization must think about welfare of all stakeholders. This theory can be understood in counter revolution to growing white collar crimes and this can teach business students that businesses don’t operate in isolation without favorable conditions being provided by the community. So, businesses have a moral obligation toward community to serve it. Sub-Culture Theory — This theory can be applied to business organizations as well. If an organization pays importance to develop a culture based on values, then it can reduce chances of corporate crimes. The values can be of serving people, integrity and respect for individuals among others. Sub-culture theory states that the culture within small groups is more important that general culture of a region or a country. This should work for corporate houses and the human resources department must ensure that competitive spirit does not evaporate co-operation spirit. It is often noted that existence of only competitive spirit in absence of co-operation spirit results in crimes. CONTROLLING WHITE COLLAR CRIMES Conclusions The analysis of arguments, literature and theories helped to understand the problem deeply and it causes. Based on the study it can be recommended that teaching ethics to students, maintain positive culture in organization and strict government regulations can be among some of the measure to stem the tide of rising white crimes. There is also a need to sensitize people regarding the need to not glorify such crimes, as white- collar crimes are greatly damaging the productivity and growth of the world. People who have been blessed with opportunity and means to serve the society by being in powerful positions of power should not harm the society. There must be transparency and spirit of co-operation in Corporate houses to avoid uncontrolled greed.