Free White-Collar Crime: A Way To Manage The Greed Term Paper Sample

The following paper discusses white-collar crime, its effect on society, and theories to address this issue. There will first be a discussion of what white-collar crime is and who are the usual offenders. From there the discussion will shift to the reasoning behind the crime these perpetrators commit. To finish the paper we will look at a case study completed on the mindset of white-collar criminals and I will present two solutions to a problem that could greatly effect the future of our society. There are a variety of sources used for this research including books and a scholarly article. The attempt is not to completely eliminate white-collar crimes, but to minimize their effect on the companies and on the society as a whole as complete elimination may not be possible. White-collar crimes are not often heard about in the news or become one of the talked about incidents that happen, but they do much more than people may believe. White-collar crimes are usually some of the most financially involved issues and they involve those one would not expect. Businessmen in suits and ties who go to an office job are not ones who would be expected to commit crimes that have the biggest financial gain, but they are. White-collar crimes are not victimless and effect many people who are involved with these major corporations. This paper seeks to explore not only the people who commit the white-collar crimes, but the crime’s effect on society as a whole. White-collar crime does not simply involve an issue of one person’s greed, but it also involves robbing innocent people of financial gain which they work so hard to succeed.
When someone thinks about white-collar crimes there is a picture that comes to mind. This picture is usually one that differs from crime that we see on the news often, better known as street crime. There is a clear distinction between white-collar crime and street crime in the thought of many individuals, “Street crimes typically are committed by confronting victims or entering their homes or businesses, but most white-collar crimes are committed by using guile, deceit, or misrepresentation to create and exploit for illicit advantage the appearance of a legitimate transaction” (Shover, 1998, p. 4). The known offenders in white-collar crimes are not criminals that you envision when you picture someone being arrested, they are the businessmen in the suit and tie who are able to commit these crimes without directly attacking an individual. White-collar crimes usually involve financial matters and in a large sum.
Crimes like these may not be seen often as ones that effect society directly and as a whole, but they do. “The effects of financial scandals may also have national significance, particularly where the legitimacy of financial institutions is concerned” (Croall, 2001, p. 68). What Croall is saying here is that the impact these white-collar crimes has on society is one that involves the likelihood of new investors to start and existing investors to continue. The economy of the largest corporations and of the country as a whole would be effected by a lack of investments. Looking into how these offenses occur is interesting on it’s own. The paper will continue to discuss not only the effects of these crimes but actually how they are carried out.
White-collar crimes, as discussed before, usually do not have physical contact with another person. Many times, there is not much physical activity at all. Michael Benson and Sally Simpson discuss this in a book written on the topic, “The physical activities of white-collar crime are very simple commonplace activities such as writing, or talking on the phone, or entering information into a computer” (Benson & Simpson, 2009, p. 80). Very little physical effort is exhorted when a white-collar crime is committed. With this being said, there must be a mental capacity to which these crimes are committed. Benson and Simpson discuss this in their book as well, “They use three main techniques. In order of importance, the techniques are (1) deception, (2) the abuse of trust, and (3) concealment and conspiracy” (Benson & Simpson, 2009, p. 80). The techniques used in white-collar crimes are ones which involve cunningness and trickery, as opposed to ones that many people may be used to which involve strength and fear.
White-collar crime has seen an increase with the growth of technology. More people have access to computer systems of large corporations, and with this access they are able to access large sums of money. White-collar crime is, “crime committed by professional people at their jobs. White-collar crimes include stealing money from an employer’s bank account (as opposed to robbing a register), cheating customers, evading taxes and engaging in bribery” (Woolf, 2005, p. 8). Although the method of people committing crime is changing with technology, the reasoning is not. People commit all levels of crime for certain reasons, but one’s that involve robbery are usually committed with the idea of greed. These people who have access to the funds of the company are usually people that the company trusts, so they are not under a microscope. People see this amount of money and their accessibility to it and they allow greed to take over. There may be no true rationale as to why people commit these crimes. It may be possible that they see the amount of money that these large corporations have and have the belief that the money will not be missed. One thing is for sure, the people committing the crimes have one thing in common, they allowed their greed to take control.
There has been very little psychological experiments completed on white-collar criminals. Looking into such a crime, one can not simply say someone is greedy and leave it at that, there probably is a similarity between many of white-collar criminals. In his article, Gerhard Blickle discusses an experiment that was performed by J.M. Collins and F.L. Schmidt, specifically looking at personalities of white-collar criminals. They “compared prison inmates incarcerated for white-collar offenses and individuals employed in positions of authority” (Blickle, 2006, p. 224). Before this experiment took place the two researchers were already able to rule out psychopathy, “Psychopathy is associated with different sorts of crime such as drug abuse, violent assault, and bullying, but it is not associated with white-collar crime. Therefore, psychopathy can be safely ignored in the attempt to predict white-collar crime” (Blickle, 2006, p. 224). The study looked further into the social aspect of why things happen and the social mentality of those committing the crimes.
There was a sample group of prisoners that was used in looking at the personalities of white-collar criminals, and they findings are not surprising. When looking at the case study there is found to be “an interaction between conscientiousness and narcissism and an interaction between Social Desirability and Behavioral Self-Control” (Blickle, 2006, 227). The link of all these factors seem to make sense when looking at such a crime. Narcissism not only comes into account due to the idea of wanting to better one’s self in the eye’s of others, but also the idea that they are too good to get caught. The theory, which is one that involved much discussion, also described those who commit these crimes having “high narcissism, low behavioral self-control, or low integrity” (Blickle, 2006, 232). An equation of these characteristics are what have been found to be present in many white-collar criminals. These criminals place themselves on a level above the rest of society, believing that they can use their access and power to make a personal financial gain.
White-collar crime is not only a threat to the corporation, but to society as a whole. We are in a situation where we need to have faith in our financial institutions. In a time where we always hear of a bank that is no longer able to maintain, or a company that is going under, crimes on the white-collar level are just another part to a machine of uncertainty. Large corporations who allow these people to get into the executive roles that they are in when the crime is committed are the ones that need to look again at their policy and their hiring procedures in order to prevent future crimes from occurring. Although there is no true factor that can be discovered in these criminals there are still a few options. The first policy I would put forth if I were in charge of this process for these large companies is an extensive psychological check and see if they hold some of the tendencies that previous white-collar criminals have possessed. If they do, this does not necessarily mean that they should not get the job, it just means that the company needs to be aware that people may stray if they hold these characteristics. As my second policy enforcement I would implement a system of checks and balances. If one person is handling all the books and all the money of a company it is extremely easy for them to manipulate the figures. People would have to be held accountable for the decisions that they make with the companies money as well as the investor’s money.
White- collar crimes are often not described as crimes that have victims, except for multi-million dollar companies. If white-collar crimes continued, or increased, then there would be even a larger issue of people’s trust in large corporations. This would not only effect the way people invest, it may discourage them from investing at all. With a set of checks and balances it is very possible that white-collar crime can be detected earlier or even before it happens. References
Benson, Michael, & Simpson, Sally (2009). White collar crime: An opportunity perspective. New York: Routledge.
Blickle, Gerhard (2006). Some Personality Correlates of Business White-Collar Crime. Applied Psychology: An International Review, vol 55.
Croall, Hazel (2001). Understanding white collar crimes. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Shover, N. (1998). White-collar crime. The handbook of crime and punishment.
Woolf, Alex (2005). Exploring tough issues: Why do people commit crime. Chicago: Raintree.