FUNDAMENTALS OF

WHITE COLLAR
CRIMES
 INTRODUCTION TO WCC

• White-collar crime refers to financially motivated,

nonviolent crime committed by business and government
professionals.
• There are certain anti-social activities which the persons of upper
status carry out in course of their occupation or business.
• These anti-social activities are called white collar crimes.
• Refers to financially motivated non-violent crimes committed by
businesses and government professionals.
• The term “white collar crimes” was first defined by sociologist
Edwin Sutherland.
• Earlier crime was associated with activities of lower-class
offenders. Cause of crime was assumed to lie in the
pathologies of individual offenders and poverty and
deprivation.
• Sutherland challenged this traditional notion of crime and
gave his theory of white-collar crimes.
• It’s current usage include broad usage of non-violent
offences where cheating, dishonesty and corruption are
major elements of crime.
DEFINITION
• Sutherland: A crime committed by a person of respectability
and high social status in the course of his occupation. This
definition has following attributes-
• It is a crime
• Committed by person of respectability
• Of high social status
• In the course of occupation.
He also included crimes committed by corporations and other
legal entities within his definition.
PROF. SUTHERLAND
 EDWIN H. SUTHERLAND AND WHITE
COLLAR CRIME
Crime committed by a person of respectability and
high social status in the course of his occupation”
(In his address to the American sociological society in
1949)

Later he modified his definition as follows:

“A person of the proper socio-economic class
who violates the criminal law in the course of
his occupational or professional activities”
 ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF WCC
Sutherland coined the term ‘White collar crime’ based on the concept
of ‘Criminaloid’ used by E.A.Ross (1907) in ‘Sin and Society’. Ross
used this concept to focus upon the businessman who engaged in
harmful acts under the mask of respectability. Criminaloids are the
most potent danger to the society causing maximum loss.
Sutherland was applauded for questioning the conventional idea on
defining crimes. By coining the term WCC, he defined crime in terms
of perpetrator and not the class of act.
Sutherland considered WCC is more dangerous to society than blue
collar crime for the following two reasons:
1) Financial loss is higher
2) Damage inflicted on public morale
 CONCEPT OF WCC BEFORE 1949
1) Barnes and Teeters
Among businessmen
Chicanery and plunder in history
People believed that those who betrayed would
eventually suffer if not by legal means
Victim feared of being ridiculed or received
little sympathy
Caveat emptor
 Continued…
2) Prof. Albert Morris
His paper on “Criminal Capitalist” read by Edwin C. Hill before the
International Congress on the Prevention and Repression of Crime at London
in 1872.
Growing significance of crime as an organized business requiring the
cooperation of real estate owners, investors and manufacturers and other
‘honest’ people.
Attention to the necessity of a change in emphasis regarding crime.
3) Muckrakers
4) Textbooks on labour problems, corporation problems, problems
of finance, etc.
CRITICISMS TO SUTHERLAND’S DEFINITION OF
WCC
1) Conceptual ambiguity
2) Empirical ambiguity
3) Legal ambiguity
4) Administrative handling of WCC
5) Social argument: WCC do not regard themselves as criminals
6) Unethical act which are lawful are termed as WCC
7) Some WCC are not committed only by upper socio-economic class
8) Dr.Gilbert Geis- Corporations themselves liable for the acts of
executives and personnel
 DEFINITIONS OF WCC
Clinard & Quinney (1973)
Corporate crime- Illegal behavior committed by employees of a
corporation to benefit the corporation, company or business.
Occupational crime- Violations of legal codes in the course of activity in
a legitimate occupation.

Clinard & Yeager

WCC- An offence committed by individuals in the course of their
occupations and the offences of employees against their employers.
 Continued…
Schrager & Short
WCC (on the basis of distinct ‘social disorganization’)- Illegal acts of
omission or commission of an individual or group of individuals in a
formal organization in accordance with operative goals of the
organization which have serious physical or economic impact on
employees, consumers or the general public.
Paul Tappan
WCC- A special type of solitary professional criminality wherein
professionals, businessmen, clerical workers commit systematic and
repeated acts in violation of criminal law during course of or in addition
to their occupation.
DEFINITION
• Hartung: defines white collar offence as a violation of law
regulating business, which is committed for a firm by the
firm or its agents in the conduct of its business.
• Clinard : he first introduced the concept of “occupational
crime”. He defined white collar crime as-
• A violation of law committed primarily by groups such as
businessmen, professional men, and politicians in connection
in with their occupations.
CHARACTERSTICS OF WCC
• These crimes result in social injuries far greater than
conventional crimes, where only individuals are affected. These
crimes are regarded as class apart because the administrative,
investigative and judicial procedures are different from the
procedures for other violation of criminal laws.
• They use deception to obtain money, property or some other
advantage or to cover up other criminal activity.
• Both mens rea and intention in the crime are to obtain money,
property or some other advantage or to cover up other criminal
activity.
CONTD.
• In most white-collar crimes multiple actors are involved who
conspire together to commit fraud.
• Policemen do not take them into custody for the fear that
businessmen might retaliate.
• In majority of economic crimes, sentences imposed by courts
are mild. Many white-collar offenders bribe the enforcement
personnel and escape clutches of law.
• It is an illegal act or series of illegal acts committed by non-
physical means and by concealment or guile.
 CHARACTERISTIC
• Crime by people who hold status.
• Not traditional criminals
• Method- Non violent- Fraud, Misrepresentation, adulteration
• Deliberate and planned
• More tolerant by high status people
• Victims- society (larger number of people)
• Hard to detect- Expert Knowledge required to identify the crime
• Not easy to crub
 CLASSIFICATION OF WHITE
COLLAR CRIMES
• White-collar crimes may broadly be classified into four
major categories as follows:-
• Ad hoc crimes: offender pursues his own personal objective
having no face to face contact with the victim. Eg- Hacking
on computers, credit card frauds tax evasion, etc.
• White-collar crimes involving a breach of trust bestowed
by an individual or institution on the perpetrator. Eg- insider
trading, financial embezzlements, misuse of funds fictitious
payrolls, etc.
 CLASSIFICATION OF WHITE
COLLAR CRIMES

• Individuals occupying high positions or status who commit

crime in organizational operations. Such people find an
opportunity in the course of their employment to earn quick
money or gain undue advantages by using their power or
influence.
Eg- fraudulent medical bill claims, fake educational institutions,
issuance of fake mark sheet/certificates, etc.
• White-collar crimes may also be committed as a part of the
business itself. Violation of trademarks or copyrights, patent
law or competition law, etc. the violation of domain name and
other corporate crimes.
 CLASSIFICATION OF WCC ON THEORITICAL
PERSPECTIVE

1. Personal or ad hoc crimes

2. WCC in which the offender ‘abuses’ the trust or faith
bestowed over him by individual or institution
3. Offenders of real high status
4. WCC committed as a part of business itself
WHTE COLLAR V. TRADITIONAL CRIMES

• Meaning: Blue-collar crimes refer to people who work physically, using their
hands, whereas white collar crimes refer to knowledgeable works, who use their
knowledge to commit crimes.
• Independent of social and personal conditions : White collar
crimes have no relation with the social conditions, like poverty, or personal
conditions of the offender albeit it matters in the conventional nature of crimes.
• Direct access to the targets: offenders of commit white collar crimes
have easy, direct and valid access to their targets. But in blue-collar crimes to commit
theft in the house offender first have to break the door or make a passage of entrance
to get inside the house and thereafter commit theft.
 WHITE COLLAR V. TRADITIONAL
CRIMES

Veiled offenders : In the case of white collar crimes, one does not have to
come face to face with the victim and so their identity remains veiled. Whereas in case
of 5 blue collar crimes, one has to come face to face in order to inflict injury upon
others.
Greater harm: The harm caused by white collar crimes are much more difficult
to bear than those inflicted by blue collar crimes. Also, the harm caused by white collar
crimes could cause great harm, not only to the public, but to the other institutions and
organizations as well.
Mens Rea: Mens rea is an essential ingredient of blue collar crime but many
statutes dealing with white collar crimes do not require mens rea in strict sense of the
term.
 DIFFERENCE
WHITE COLLAR CRIME CONVENTIONAL CRIME

More leniency is shown No leniency is shown

Indirect, anonymous, impersonal
and difficult to detect Easy to detect
Done in professional or Not necessarily
occupational capacity
Criminals are intelligent, stable and Criminals are not necessarily
successful intelligent
Laws are effective
Laws are not effective
Does not require mens rea Mens rea is the essential element
Has greater impact Comparatively lesser impact.
 TYPES OF WHITE COLLAR CRIMES
Bank Fraud: To engage in an act or pattern of activity where the purpose is to
defraud a bank of funds. Blackmail: A demand for money or other
consideration under threat to do bodily harm, to injure property, to accuse of a
crime, or to expose secrets.
Bribery: When money, goods, services, information or anything else of value
is offered with intent to influence the actions, opinions, or decisions of the
taker.
Computer fraud: Where computer hackers steal information sources contained
on computers such as: bank information, credit cards, and proprietary
information.
Counterfeiting: Occurs when someone copies or imitates an item without
having been authorized to do so and passes the copy off for the genuine or
original item.
 TYPES OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIMES
Educational Institutions: The governing bodies of those institutions manage to secure
large sums by way of government grants of financial aid by submitting fictitious and
fake details about their institutions. The teachers and other staff working in these
institutions receive a meager allowing a big margin for the management to grab huge
amount in this illegal manner.
Environmental Schemes: The overbilling and fraudulent practices exercised by
corporations which purport to clean up the environment.
Insider Trading: When a person uses inside, confidential, or advance information to
trade in shares of publicly held corporations.
Money Laundering: The investment or transfer of money from racketeering, drug
transactions or other embezzlement schemes so that it appears that its original source
either cannot be traced or is legitimate.
PRIVILEGED CLASS
DEVIANCE
 DEVIANCE
Unacceptable behaviour
An action or behavior that violates the generally accepted norms of a
group, organizations or society
Each society has its own definition of deviant behaviour
Sociologists: “Any thought, feeling or action that members of a social
group judge to be a violation of their values or rules or group conduct
that violates definitions of appropriate and inappropriate conduct
shared by the members of a social system”.
 FACTORS THAT AFFECT DEVIANCE

Location

Age

Social status

Time, etc.
 Social Foundations of Deviance
Three social foundations of deviance identified here.
1. Deviance varies according to cultural norms.
No thought or action is inherently deviant; it becomes deviant only in relation to particular norms.

2. People become deviant as others define them that way.

Everyone violates cultural norms at one time or another. For example, have you ever walked around
talking to yourself or “borrowed” a pen from your workplace? Whether such behavior defines us as
mentally ill or criminal depends on how others perceive, define, and respond to it.

3. Both norms and the way people define rule breaking

Involve social power. The law, claimed Karl Marx, is the means by which powerful people protect
their interests. A homeless person who stands on a street corner speaking out against the government
risks arrest for disturbing the peace; a mayoral candidate during an election campaign doing exactly
the same thing gets police protection. In short, norms and how we apply them reflect social
inequality.
 Emile Durkheim’s Basic Insight on Deviance

In his pioneering study of deviance, Emile Durkheim made the surprising statement that there is nothing
abnormal about deviance. In fact, it performs four essential
functions:

1. Deviance affirms cultural values and norms.

As moral creatures, people must prefer some attitudes and behaviors to others. But any definition of virtue
rests on an opposing idea of vice: There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime.
Deviance is needed to define and support morality.

2. Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.

By defining some individuals as deviant, people draw a boundary between right and wrong. For example, a
college marks the line between academic honesty and deviance by disciplining students who cheat on
exams.
3. Responding to deviance brings people together.
People typically react to serious deviance with shared outrage. In doing so, Durkheim explained,
they reaffirm the moral ties that bind them. For example, after the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, people across 28 the United States were joined by a common desire to protect the country
and bring the perpetrators to justice.

4. Deviance encourages social change.

Deviant people push a society’s moral boundaries, suggesting alternatives to the status quo and
encouraging change.
 DEVIANCE AND CRIME
CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR DEVIANCE
Behavior that is in conflict with the Differs from the norms and values of
law the society
Agents of Control: Police and the Agents of Control: Informal control-
judiciary. parents , peer groups, religious
institution

 Crime is a subcategory of deviance

 Crime falls under the category of deviance

 All crime includes deviant behavior but all deviant behavior are not crimes.

 Deviance is relative to time and place.

 SOCIETY AND CLASS STRUCTURE
Primitive society : No classes

Civilization: Race for more and more land and area of supremacy gave
birth to the wars.
Wars= Capitalists formed a class of themselves and treated losers as
slaves
British period:
 Emergence of different class (Rich & Poor, High & Low)
 Based on economic, social, political and religious grounds
 Class system increases in size and became part of society
 PRIVILEGED CLASS DEVIANCE

Privileged class are those who have special powers and immunities

It is based on social, economic and political status

Deviance committed by privileged class/powerful persons of society

Deviance committed by educated, cultured, high- class persons, who

are well-clad and would not be normally reckoned as criminals
 Continued…

Maintain their class=

 Need Power and Position

 Achieved through money

 Grab more and more money

 Commit crime in their occupational, official, professional and social status

(Becomes a part of privileged class deviance)

 TYPES OF PRIVILEGED CLASS
DEVIANCE
Professional deviance
(Deviance by Journalists, Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, Architects,
Chartered Accountants)

Official deviance
(Deviance by Legislators, Judges and Bureaucrats)

Police deviance