Why Do People Commit White-Collar Crimes?

In a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal, journalist Nicole Hung explored the role of gangs in white-collar crimes. According to the article, entitled “Gangs Turn to Bank Fraud”, crimes such as “check fraud and identity theft are…lucrative, harder to detect and carry lighter prison sentences” (Hung). Thus, providing gangs an opportunity to use their critical thinking skills as an advantage in order to commit while-collar crimes. In addition, according to the article in recent years the rate of white-collar crimes by gangs has increased as a result of a number of “high-profile data breaches…of credit card numbers” (Hung). Most importantly, the increase of white-collar crimes by gangs has become a major focus the police whose goal is to prevent gangs from continuing to defraud banks and people nationwide (Hung). Although gangs have restored to committing white-collar crimes, they still continue to commit violent crimes. In my opinion, both types of crimes have serious consequences. For example, with regards to white-collar crimes, people are being hurt financially, which can have a devastating impact on them as a result of losing their money and even their identity. I think the article does an excellent job at illustrating the spectrum of white-collar crimes by gangs and its effect on people all over the nation.

A theory that explains why people commit criminal behavior is the general deterrence theory. This theory suggests that “people will commit crime and delinquency if they perceive that the benefits outweigh the risks” (Sigel 103). For example, gangs who commit white-collar crimes know the risks of deciding to commit crimes checks frauds and identity theft. As previously mentioned, the article stated that these crimes have light consequence. Therefore, they outweigh the benefits over the risks, which include gaining millions of dollars through fraud and light jail