Blue-Collar Crime and White-Collar Crime

 

WHAT IS BLUE COLLAR CRIME?

White Collar Crime:

Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime or 'incorporated governance' has been defined by Edwin Sutherland "...as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation." Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behaviour was learned from interpersonal interaction with others. White-collar crime therefore overlaps with corporate crime because the opportunity for fraud, bribery, insider trading, embezzlement, computer crime, and forgery is more available to white-collar employees.

Blue-collar crime:

The types of crime committed are a function of the opportunities available to the potential offender. Thus, those employed in relatively unskilled environments and living in inner-city areas have fewer "situations" to exploit (see Clarke: 1997) than those who work in "situations" where large financial transactions occur and live in areas where there is relative prosperity. Note that Newman (2003) applies the Situational Crime Prevention strategy to e-crime where the opportunities can be more evenly distributed between the classes.

Blue-collar crime tends to be more obvious and attract more active police attention (e.g. for crimes such as vandalism or shoplifting which protect property interests), whereas white-collar employees can intermingle legitimate and criminal behavior and be less obvious when committing the crime. Thus, blue-collar crime will more often use physical force whereas white-collar crime will tend to be more technical in nature, e.g. in the manipulation of accountancy or inventory records. In victimology, blue-collar crime attacks more obvious victims who report the crime, whereas in the corporate world, the identification of a victim is less obvious and the issue of reporting is complicated by a culture of commercial confidentiality to protect shareholder value. It is estimated that a great deal of white collar crime is undetected or, if detected, it is not reported.

Type of Crimes

There are several typologies (or categorizations) of crimes. Here is one typology with the list of types of crimes.

- Professional crime: when crime is pursued as a career, a day to day occupation

- Organized crime: groups which regulate relations between various criminal enterprises, e.g. smuggling & sale of drugs, prostitution, gambling, money laundering and other illegal activities; it is secret and conspiratorial

- White-collar crime or index crimes (individuals and businesses): illegal acts committed in the course of business activities, e.g. individual – income tax evasion, stock manipulation, consumer fraud, bribery & extraction of kick backs, embezzlement, misrepresentation in advertising, corporation – anticompetitive behaviour, environmental pollution, tax fraud, stock fraud & manipulation, production of unsafe goods, bribery & corruption, worker health & safety violations

- Technology-based or computer crime

- Victimless crime: willing exchange among adults of desired but illegal goods and services, supposedly no victim other than the offender

OR

1) Blue collar (otherwise known as crimes in the streets): tends to be criminal law (individual’s moral responsibility to society), easier to detect, values of US influenced by dominant groups & institutions so public’s attention is directed towards crimes committed by those in subordinate groups, people more afraid of these crimes, more sensational crimes, pressure on police due to fear

Types of blue collar crime:

1.1) Juvenile

1.2) Crimes against the person: involves violence or the threat of violence against others, violent including homicide and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault;

1.3) Crimes against property: involve theft of goods belonging to others, including burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson;

1.4) Victimless crime: violation of laws in which there are no readily apparent victims, a misnomer, including prostitution, gambling and drug abuse;

2) White collar crime (otherwise known as crime in suits): also known as business/economic and political crime, tends to be civil law (regulates economic affairs between private parties), crimes committed by people of high social position in the course of their occupations, rarely involve violence, involve significant public harm, victimizes everyone and no one, economic costs spread over large population; estimate of cost: 200 billion, 14 x cost of street crime

Types of white collar crime:

2.1) Workplace crime: crimes against employers by employees for individual gain

occupational crime: an individual or group’s illegal use of their professional position to secure something of value, found at all levels of the labour force, e.g. fraud;

2.2) Organizational crime: decision-makers of a corporation or government engage in illegal activity for corporate or organizational advantage as opposed to personal gain, terrorism, selling products which are known to be unsafe or defective

2.3) Strategic bankruptcy: company is successfully sued, declares bankruptcy and thus avoids having to pay up and co. is then reorganized into new co. which is clear of personal/co. liabilities (US legal system tends to protect organizations & private property against acts of individuals rather than protecting individuals and nation from organizations;

2.4) Patriotic crime: crimes committed in the name of achieving important national goals, actions taken outside legitimate channels, e.g. violation of international law, "protecting" national security, undeclared warfare, false imprisonment, failure to regulate pollution, tax laws.

Newest category of crimes:

- Hate crimes: criminal act motivated by racial or other bias such as religion, ancestry, sexual orientation or physical disability

- Computer crimes

Crime statistics:

1. FBI’s Uniform Crime reports: arrest and conviction rates are far higher for minorities

2. Victimization surveys

3. FBI’s crime index: includes street crime, e.g. homicide, rape, robbery, assault, larceny, burglary, & auto theft –crimes committed by low socioeconomic status people and with clear and identifiable victims

Types of violence: another way of viewing deviance and crime

- physical – most visible;

- psychological;

- structural – societal institutions violence against people;

- cultural – against a group of people;

- ecological – against the environment

Media and crime

- Most people get their information from TV and thus info on crime

- Reinforce stereotypes

- Equate deviance and crime

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