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White Collar Crime Theory

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Criminal law is a concept which is based on a system of legal rules whose main aim is the safety of the public and avoiding of the illegal behavior. Those people who violate the law face imprisonment, fines, and other penalties, depending on the severity of the offense. Less serious crimes face mainly fines and warnings and a maximum of one - year imprisonment. These include petty theft and first offense while driving. A person who commits a more serious crime has a strict punishment such as a conviction for the long term. These crimes include violence, theft with break-ins, and murder, embezzlement and money laundering, which are called white collar crimes.
The denomination “white collar crime” was first used in 1939 by Edwin Sutherland. …show more content…

Due to the anomie theories, “crime is a symptom of some members of society not having the tools to achieve what their society defines as success” (Cliff, Desilets). Due to the conflict theories, upper - class people to maintain their status and financial position operates the lower class, which often leads to death. Such exploitation and harm to people are considered a crime capital. In return, structural theories of white collar crimes explain such crimes by the existence of pressure from the society as well as the unequal division of power. Micro – level crimes explain the reasons in individual level. Strain theory emphasizes the presence in person’s life negative aspects and stimuli that cause anger. In this case, people commit the white collar crimes due to the inability to achieve their goals and the fear of losing social status. Additionally, routine activities theory explains why corporate people commit such kind of crimes. According to this theory, three conditions conducive the realization of the crime, including “a target, a motivated offender, and lack of capable Guardians” (Lugo). The example of such theory can be the cases of insurance

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People commit crimes for various reasons and many different factors contribute to a person’s mental state and behavior. There are numerous theories that attempt to explain why individuals and particular groups of people become criminals. Psychologist and psychiatrist use science and research to attempt to determine a person’s deviant behavior. A person’s mental state usually contributes to the causation of the types of crimes that they commit. The main character in the movie “Bernie” demonstrates characteristics that fit into the frustration-aggression theory, modeling theory, and behavior theory.

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A world without laws would take us back to the stone age meaning without them we would be lost. The definition of criminal law is a system of law concerned with the punishment of those who commit crimes. Having a sense of morality is a necessity when concerning law and also the main purpose of law. Laws let us know what is right and wrong and minimizes mischief to individuals in society. Lippman (2013) revealed The New York criminal code that sets out the basic purposes of criminal which are: • Harm.

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The strain theory implies that crime may occur because of the stress or frustration placed on people when

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Criminal and conflict gang whose primarily intent of crimes for tangible gains. Social structure theorists consider that the main components to illegal behavior are the ascendancy of social and economic influences that are distinguished in rundown communities where the population is predominantly lower-class citizens (Siegel, 2010). This following theory goes into helping us comprehend ways the human behavior, is the result of physical

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A white collar crime is committed to make profits, they are not the acts of madmen or irrational people. They are rational acts that often require planning and careful

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in your answer. Criminologists have long recognized the prevalence of crime in work environments. According to Sutherland a white-collar crime is any crime committed by persons of high respectability and social statues in the course of their occupations. His idea of high respectability of these offenders is important because those members of the upper classes could commit crimes, a notion that was often missing in existing theories of crime of that time. The term white collar crime has a wide variety of meanings.

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CHOICES “White collar crime” refers to those offenses that are anticipated to generate fiscal gain using some form of dishonesty. This type of crime is usually committed by people in the commercial world who, as a result of their employment position, are able to get a hold of large amounts of other people’s money. “White collar crime” does not involve forceful, drug-related, or blatantly illicit activities. In fact, perpetrators are typically involved in otherwise lawful industries and may hold respectable positions in the community prior to the discovery of their fraudulent schemes. The slogan “white collar crime” was made up in 1939 by Edwin Sutherland during a dialog which he gave to the American Sociological Society.

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Strain theory is general is best applied to lower class struggles and doesn’t tend to offer any stable explanations for why white-collar crime exists. However, this theory is slightly addressed with Agnew’s theory which is why the theory was created much broadly than Merton and Durkheim’s. Agnew’s general strain theory presented multiple strain-producing types that can result in the chances of criminal behavior this theory was the most important and influential out of all the theories and countered Merton’s classic theory (Hosier & Hosier). Agnew identified types of general strain as failure to achieve positively valued goals, removal of positive stimuli, and the presentation of negative stimuli (Hosier, Ch. 5 Pt. 2 Lecture) Agnew was progressive in his points that stated there were various forms of strain that caused people to experience negative emotion but still does not account why for why people deal with the consequences of strain differently and now everyone who experiences strain or stress resort to delinquency, and how some individuals are capable of positive coping mechanisms.

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Strain theory is a crime theory that was developed by Robert Merton, an American sociologist. According to Robert, strain can be defined as the discrepancies that result from the goals that are culturally defined in reference to the means that are institutionalized and available to meet the set goals. As proposed by Merton, there exists a typological deviance that is based on two criteria; an individual’s belief in how the goals should be attained and an individual’s adherence or motivation to cultural goals. According to the theory, certain stressors or strains are responsible in increasing the likelihood of crime activities around the world.

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It does not consider other factors such as criminal associations, individual traits, and inner strains, which plays a significant role in determining punishment for the individuals in committing crimes. It is observed that this theory endeavours to know that whether the activities of crime as well as the victim’s choice, criminals commit the activities on start from rational decisions. The theory also determines that criminals consider different elements before committing crime. They engage in the exchange of ideas before reaching on any final decision. These elements consist of consequences of their crimes, which include revealing their families to problems or death, chances of being arrested, and others elements, which comprises of placement of surveillance systems (Walsh & Hemmens, 2010; Lichbach,

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In this view, there are many different moralities, which compete to become law. In several ways, this theory seems to match strain theory better than the consensus theory. As discussed previously, strain theory suggests that when goals become impossible to achieve through accepted means (defined by laws) crime is likely to occur. But why do these means fall short? It could simply be a natural consequence of society, or it could be a result of lawmakers, who are generally rich and powerful, seeking to protect their wealth by limiting the upward mobility of the economically disadvantaged.

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In 1985 Robert Agnew a sociologist come to an interest of studying the theory and finds a potential for the theory in explaining several causes of crime in society, but due to its limitation he developed and reformulated the theory to widen its dimension or scope. After revising the theory he come up into General strain theory of crime and builds its foundation in 1992. General strain theory argues that frustrations and anger leads someone to deviance and may result into committing a crime (Agnew, 1992). GST defines strains as negative life events and conditions which are commonly disliked by the people who experience it or negative experiences of a person in a given group (Agnew, 1992; 2001; 2006). Strain is often classified in two distinct types, the Objective Strain and the Subjective Strain.

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Violent Crimes: Street Versus White-Collar Crimes in the United States such as burglary and robbery roughly cost four billion a year. According to safeguard the world only seventeen percent of the homes in U.S. have a security system. “The New York Times” Street crime is a loose term for any criminal offense in a public place. White-Collar crime is non-violent crimes committed by business or government professionals for financial gain. Street crime vs. White-collar crime is controversial because street crime is more out in the open and it is most common.

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White collar crime is an organized crime committed by person of higher socioeconomic status in the course of their business, occupation, or profession (Sutherland, 2002). It was introduced to the Criminal Justice system in 1939, but was overlooked by many people because they never noticed it was happening. White collar crime has been taking place in America for a long time and is summed up as lying, cheating and stealing. There are numerous types of white collar crimes such as bribery, bank fraud, embezzlement, and insurance fraud to name a few (National Check Fraud Center, 2011). One case that we all know of, Enron, not only wiped out lifesavings, but cost investors billions of dollars.

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Additionally, crimes that are considered as being white collar, in which they are known in our middle and upper-classes. The General Strain Theory Robert Agnew proposed and formulated the general strain theory. Agnew’s general strain theory primarily focuses on the micro-level definitions of crime and the relationship it has with delinquency. By doing this, Robert Agnew made a notation of the effects that a person 's social environment and the position it plays in the determination of crime.

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