White collar
crime has been around longer than people
may think. Over the years the types of crimes that fell under the white collar
crime category grew larger and larger. It wasn't until recently when we finally
got a definition, a very vague definition but one at the very least, on white
collar crime.
One
of the very first types of white collar crime that was brought to our attention
was embezzlement, bribery, and monopolizing businesses. These were the first
types of white collar crimes and they actually came from the 15th
century and originated in England. These
crimes were the first actions of white collar crime, but it wasn't until the
industrial revolution in the Western industrial society that white collar crime
became widespread and people became more aware of it. In order to stop
businesses from creating more power for their own company, something had to be
done. The Unite States had seen a huge growth in monopolizing businesses. In order to stop that from consistently occurring,
congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890,
made it illegal to monopolize businesses in the United States (McGrath, 2008).
Although
there were laws and regulations that were being passed by congress, we still didn't have a definition for white collar crime. So, white collar criminals were
getting away with their crimes and were not being punished like the street
criminals. In 1939 sociologists Edwin Hardin Sutherland, from the American
Sociological Society, came up with this definition for white collar crime. He
decided to come up with a definition because he saw how bad white collar crime
was becoming in the United States. Police
officers didn’t do anything about these crimes, because they were not violent or
theft crimes (McGrath, 2008). Sutherland
defined white collar crime as, “crime committed by a person of respectability
and high social status in the course of his occupation” (Podgor & Israel,
2009).
Now
that we have a definition for white collar crime, does it really fit the
description of crimes that are consistently occurring in the United States? The
definition that Sutherland gave many years ago, no longer defines all of the
crimes that fall under the white collar crime category because it has grown over
the years. The United States started off
with just bribery, embezzlement, and monopolizing businesses We have grown into
more crimes such as insider trading, computer crimes, many different types of
fraud, etc. Since white collar crime has grown, laws and regulations had to
grow too. Over the years, more laws and regulations were made for each type of
white collar crime because they are different in their own way.
In
the future, maybe another sociologist, can
“coin” another definition for white collar crime as Sutherland did in the 1930’s.
We do need a new definition that can
cover all of the new crimes that have come along with white collar crimes. It
is a growing crime and we need to grow with it. We need to be sure that we can continue
to grow with the definitions for the crimes and also the punishments for these crimes.
If we don’t, we will have more people committing white collar crimes and they
will continue to live in society with the rest of us.
Work Cited:
McGrath, J. (2008). How white collar crime works. How stuff works. Retrieved from
http://money.howstuffworks.com/white-collar-crime2.htm
Podgor, E., & Israel, J. (2009). White collar crime in a nut shell. (4th ed., p.1). St. Paul, MN: Thomson
Reuters.
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