White Collar Crime Essay, Research Paper

White neckband offense

Welcome to the age of white collar offense. A clip when the words stealers and business communities go manus in manus. White collar felons don & # 8217 ; t acquire their custodies dirty in their work. They use their caputs to acquire what they want alternatively of utilizing a small musculus. These felons are merely every bit unsafe as the rapers and liquidators. In these times, even the most apparently respectable people are suspected of white collar offenses. President Clinton and the first lady Hillary Clinton have been tangled up in the Whitewater and Travelgate concern ventures. Although the two have non been officially charged with any error, there is a commission presently look intoing their traffics and charges are non out of the inquiry for either of them. In Michael Isikoff & # 8217 ; s and Mark Hosenball & # 8217 ; s Newsweek article & # 8220 ; Cracks in the Wall, & # 8221 ; they describe the Clintons & # 8217 ; traffics with Whitewater and the possible effects of them: & # 8220 ; The Senate Whitewater commission is sing inquiring for bearing false witness charges against Susan Thomas and Maggie Williams, Mrs. Clintons & # 8217 ; head of staff, in connexion with her testimony about the remotion of paperss from Vince Foster & # 8217 ; s office & # 8221 ; ( Isikoff 29 ) . This instance goes to demo that there soon a turning job with our state, and it is called white neckband offense. White collar offenses are really legion in sort. New 1s are ever being invented by person with a good cozenage. Embezzlement, revenue enhancement equivocation, and fraud are some of the more popular sorts. A individual who has the power of commanding money in a concern is most likely commit peculation. A sawed-off definition of peculation is & # 8220 ; to steal money that is entrusted to Phillips 2 one. & # 8221 ; This is one of the fastest lifting offenses in the state. Harmonizing to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, peculation rose 30 eight per centum from 1984 to 1993 ( U.S. Dept. of Justice 239 ) . Forgery is another turning signifier of white collar offense. This is defined as the act of copying or forging paperss or signatures for the intent of lead oning person. Forgery besides shows the same growing tendencies as peculation. From 1984 to 1993 counterfeit and forging increased 21 per centum ( U.S. Dept. of Justice 240 ) . Bogus ads, occupation cozenages, and telephone cozenages are all illustrations of fraud. Basically these cozenages ask you to direct money for something that is non-existent. An illustration of a telephone cozenage would be if person called to inquire for contributions for a bogus organisation or charity. If you donated the money, it would either non acquire to the organisation or charity you wanted, or the charity merely did non be in the first topographic point. The most obvious manner these offenses differ from other offenses is that they don & # 8217 ; t necessitate any & # 8220 ; dirty work. & # 8221 ; When people think of offenses, they think of acquire away autos and bank rip-offs, but many felons ne’er even touch a gun. Their arm of pick is a computing machine or a telephone. They are merely as lifelessly with these as the adult male with the gun in the bank. White collar offenses are committed out of greed. The people who normally commit these offenses are financially unafraid. A batch of offenses are committed out of greed, but virtually all white collar offenses are committed out of greed. Statisticss show that the bulk of white collar offenses are committed by certain groups of people. Using the Federal Bureau of Investigation & # 8217 ; s findings, White collar offenses are decidedly committed by certain people. nine thousand five-hundred and six people, who were all over 18, were arrested for peculation in nine-teen 90 three. Merely five 100s and eighty- Phillips 3 six people under 18 were arrested for the same offense, in the same twelvemonth. The findings were about the same although for work forces and adult females. Work force were one and a half times more likely than adult females to defalcate money. The statistics for fraud and counterfeit were about the same ( U.S. Dept. of Justice 239 ) From these findings, work forces over 18 are most likely to be charged with peculation, fraud or counterfeit. Women over the age of 18 are a small less likely to perpetrate one of the specified white collar offenses. Peoples in authorization places are besides more likely to perpetrate these offenses. These people have mo

re opportunities to commit a white collar crime than a person with little authority. Peter Michelmore, a journalist for Readers Digest describes this situation well in his article, “On the Trail of a Scam” He describes a savings and loan scam and the man behind it all. “Meyer learned that New Era was run by John G. Bennet, Jr., a 57 year old evangelical Christian.” (112) New Era was a getting money from a private university, in which he promised huge returns on their investment. New Era did show them huge profits, but only to gain their trust and invest more money. The private university was gaining trust in New Era and investing more money. Finally, when They had invested a large sum of money, New Era collapsed and John Bennet walked away with the university’s money. Mr. Bennet is a prime example of our findings. He is a man over the age of eighteen and he is in a position of power. People have entrusted him with their money. To commit his crime, he needed to be in a position where he was trusted, or in authority. After he won their trust, he took their money. White collar crimes are growing at an alarming rate and must be curbed. There are many things that the nation can do to slow the growth of these crimes. The white collar crime that affects the most people is the scam. For that reason, scam prevention will be emphasized more than embezzlement. I feel that the most effective weapon against these crimes is to inform the Phillips 4 public. If the general population knew more about these scams they could protect themselves much better. Alison Young, a Detroit Free Press journalist, has a few tips. Take a look at the what the person is offering or trying to sell you. Make sure that it is plausible. If the person or organization you are dealing with has an eight hundred number, call it and request information. Be very weary of anyone who will not comply. Use caution around people who try to do quick deals or say that you must act now. Do not give out your credit card number by phone to someone whom you are not comfortable with. If you discover a scam being run with a legitimate company’s name, let the company know so they can fix the problem. (from Young A1+) These tips, along with using old fashioned common sense should help keep anyone out of the grips of a scam or any other sort of fraudulent business encounter. The most obvious way to help stop these crimes is to impose stricter penalties for committing them. This would scare off anyone considering committing a white collar crime. If someone knows that if they get caught, they will face a long prison sentence, it would make them less likely to even consider it. A couple of problems with this possible solution is that sentences for white collar crimes are already strict and prisons in our country are beginning to become overcrowded. Taking those two factors into consideration, harsher sentences on white collar crimes does not seem to be the answer. Possibly the answer to slowing down the growth of white collar crimes is to make them harder to commit. In the case of embezzlement, if everyone at a particular business or company would keep a an eye out for anything suspicious, that alone would detour potential thieves. The real solution to this problem is going to have to come from the people who are being affected by it. They are the most likely to stop it. They cannot let anyone take advantage of them anymore. Keep Phillips 5 an eye out for yourself, and let everyone know that you are keeping an eye out. A person with this attitude will be a less likely target. White collar crimes are a rapidly growing problem concerning our nation and need to be controlled. They are growing at such an alarming rate that soon they could be on the top of our country’s list of problems. The growth of these crimes is comparable to growth of this nation’s drug problem. Drugs were once a isolated problem in this country. Most did not give them much thought because it didn’t have much of an effect on them. Most do not give white collar crimes much thought because they are only things that they read about in newspapers and hear on the news. If these crimes continue to grow at the present rate, they will be out of control before we know it.