White collar crime is one of the emerging issues affecting the global society. It is described as a financially driven nonviolent crime done for gaining money illegally. In most cases, this type of crime is comparable with corporate crime, considering there are high chances of white-collar employees committing it. White-collar crimes include bribery, fraud, insider trading, Ponzi schemes, money laundering, cybercrime, forgery, and embezzlement. Therefore, based on the nature and complexity of white-collar crimes, it has emerged as one of the most challenging crimes to detect and prevent globally.
White-collar crimes are very complicated in nature. Particularly, with the advancement of technology, detecting white-collar crimes has become a big challenge for the authorities. Technology is complicated and getting away with most kinds of white-collar crimes is much easier because high tech techniques are used in hiding such crimes. Besides, these types of crimes are usually committed by individuals who are highly experienced professionals. Therefore, only those that have knowledge in a given area are likely to discover such crimes.
According to Green, white-collar crime was first discovered several decades ago by American sociologists, who observed that such crimes were committed by individuals of high status. Lately, white-collar crime is applicable within the context of law, media, and politics. On the other hand, Holtfreter et al. argue that despite the financial loss of white-collar crime is much high as compared to that of the other crimes, less attention has been given to the former. They noted that most people are in favor of punitive sanctions on street crimes over white-collar crimes. In addition to the discussion of the issue of the increasing white-collar crimes in the society, the authors further discussed on how effective this type of crimes could be controlled.
Works Cited
Green, Stuart. P. “White-Collar Crime.” The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. (2013), Vol. 29. No. 4.
Holtfreter Kristy; Slyke van Shanna; Bratton Jason, and Gertz Marc. “public perception of white collar crime and punishment.” Journal of Criminal Justice, (2008) Vol. 36, No. 1, 50-60
