Introduction
Many people classify white collar crime as a crime of opportunity and the statistics of the offenders show that they are mostly individuals entrusted with a positon from which they illegally syphoned personal gain. The two areas of white collar crime to be discussed in this paper are the health care fraud and the weights and measures crimes. These two are the most common and used by millions of people each day. You may only see a burglary in your area once or twice in a lifetime or hear of a shooting very seldom but the health care fraud and weights and measure fraud are constant and you were probably a victim of one of these this week.
Weights and Measures
Weights and Measures fraud is mostly brought to the attention of law enforcement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology whose job it is to see that scales and items marked for sale are what they say that they are. For example, if you are willing to pay $11.99 for a strip sirloin USDA graded steak is that really what is in the package. Or if you are buying gasoline have additives and calibrations been put on the tanks so as to mislead the public into thinking that they are paying for a gallon of gasoline when in fact it is short of a gallon and it is full of additives that after repeated usage will damage your vehicle.
Granted in the schemes of criminal activity the weights and measures is not thought of as important. Incorrect measurement is not always a sign of criminal intent on the part of the vendor sometimes scales just get out of measurement. In China, there have been investigations of the people who are hired as investigators committing the largest frauds. In the area of counterfeit goods, a paid private investigator, Flaming Lee, was selling the confiscated counterfeit goods . The crimes of selling counterfeit goods are considered Federal crimes as fraud. Depending on the dollars involved the fraud statutes are invoked. In the cases of scales being greased thumb approach or meat that is not what it is claimed to be the violation is usually a monetary fine or a revocation of a license to sell.
The punishment for the weights and measures acts has been varied and widely disparaging. For most it is a violation and a monetary fine that include suspension of the license to sell if the criminal is a repeat offender. However, little is done to compensate the hundreds of individuals who every day have been victimized. Rarely are prison sentences given out for these crimes. Most offenders get a free ride and a fine. Sentencing should seek a middle ground as no one is suggesting a prison term for the gas station that misleads the public into thinking that they are an getting a gallon of gas when in fact they are not. But for truckers and others who use their vehicles often the results of these actions are quite costly. There is no process for reimbursement of these expenses. The criminal pretty much goes free to rob and cheat again if that was their intent. There needs to be a program of compensation or training for the individual business owner to go through and then if they are in violation a strict first offense penalty might serve as a better deterrent.
Health Care Fraud
Health care fraud is another crime of opportunity and one that is committed on an unsuspecting individual each day as they receive medical care. The crime can be as simple as the pill counter in the drug store miscounting the prescription dosage to the medical physician billing the insurance company improperly for their services never performed. An example of the types of health care fraud is the case from Houston where a physician and a home care company worked out an arrangement to falsely certify that patient were given home care treatment and bill for those services to Medicare. The physician was found guilty in Federal court and is awaiting sentencing which might result in jail time of 10 years and a $250,000 fine.
The argument exists as to whether the punishment for health care fraud fits the crime. Obviously the physician and the business owner are not the typical criminal that you would be afraid to meet in a dark alley. However there are inherent dangers in not using these cases to offer severe punishments as a deterrent to others considering a crime of opportunity. Whistleblowers and quit Tatum cases have helped the anti-fraud units uncover evidence of illegal billing practices as well as the quality of care issues.
Kickbacks are also a health care fraud issue in that many times physicians or for that matter, any person in a decision-making environment has the opportunity to influence the sale and purchase of health care related goods. The Federal anti-kickback Law clearly prohibits the inducement of services or sale of goods to influence the purchase of healthcare items by anyone who has a stake in the health care of the patients. Self-referrals are also considered a violation of the anti-kickback statute and are illegal. This is mainly in the area of one physician referring a patient to another physician in which the referring physician has a financial stake in the referral.
Conclusion
Yet, what's deceptive about their contention is the presumption that just violent criminals exact damage that is deserving of a tough punishment. To some extent, the damage that health care fraud cases brings about is minimized in light of the fact that most of the exploration on victimology has concentrated on customary non-white-collar crimes.
Along these lines, the level of harm suffered by casualties of crimes of opportunity is contrasted with the damages endured by casualties of non-professional violations since they're the acknowledged routine violations in general society. White collar crimes are viewed as an uncommon breed in the criminal equity framework in light of the fact that there's a long history of tolerance for these offenders; numerous mistakenly trust that salaried violations have no victims. Additionally, extortion offenses aren't reliably incorporated into wrongdoing casualty studies since criminologist may see that there are no unmistakable casualties, or the social damage is weakened among various people. Thus, misrepresentation casualties whose mischief hasn't been caught by studies would normally have all the earmarks of being harmless when contrasted with casualties of non-professional violations. “White-collar criminals commit crimes that have victims whose lives are significantly affected and, at times, destroyed by these acts”, concludes Marilyn Price a Psychiatrist that has studied the effects of white Collar Crime on society.
References
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Murray, P. (2016, March 30). Jury Convicts Doctor. Houston News, Retrieved from
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Retrieved from http://www.jaapl.org/content/37/4/538.long.
