White-Collar Crime
Chapter
Twelve
White-Collar Crime
 Industrial Revolution –
 Captains of Industry:
 Andrew Carnegie (Steel)
 J.P. Morgan (Banking)
 John D. Rockefeller (Oil)
 Cornelius Vanderbilt (Railroads)
 Muckrakers -
Robber Barons, Criminaloids
White-Collar Crime
 Edwin Sutherland – 1940’s coined the
term “White-Collar Crime.”
 “…a crime committed by a person of
respectability and high social status in
the course of his occupation.”
 “…respectability and high social status”
 “…course of his occupation”
White-Collar Crime
 White-Collar Crime – (Siegel)
 …illegal acts that capitalize on a
person’s status in the marketplace.
 Illicit Entrepreneurship –
 Difference between White-collar crime
and Organized Crime?
Illicit Entrepreneurship
 White-Collar Crime …illegal activities of people/institutions
whose acknowledged purpose is profit
through legitimate business transactions
 Organized Crime –
 …illegal activities of people/organization
whose acknowledged purpose is profit
through illegitimate business enterprise.
White-Collar Crime
 Other Terms for White-Collar Crime
 Elite Deviance
 Respectable Crime
 Upperworld Crime
 Types – Clinard & Quinney
 Occupational
 Corporate
White-Collar Crime
 Clinard & Quinney – Types of WCC
 Occupational Crime –
 “…is committed by individuals in the
course of their occupation for personal
gain.”
 Corporate Crime –
 “…crime committed by corporations.”
Occupational Crime
 Law Breaking for Personal Gain –
 Employee Theft –
 Pilferage
 Embezzling
 Fraud – (Professions)
 Physicians – Health care, improper
billing, Medicaid Fraud, unnecessary
surgery.
Occupational Crime
 Fraud – (Professions) Cont’d
 Lawyers –
 Billing clients for more time--- (Local
examples)
 Computer Crime -
Corporate Crime
Organizational Criminality
 Corporate Financial Crime –
 Price Fixing, Price Gouging
 False Advertising
 Corporate Fraud – Antitrust violations
Corporate Crime
Organizational Criminality
 Corporate Violence Workers and Unsafe Workplaces
 Consumers and Unsafe Products
 Automobile Industry
 Pharmaceutical Industry
 Food Industry
 Public and Environmental Pollution
Components of White-Collar
Crime
 Other divisions of White-Collar
criminality – Herbert Edelhertz
 Ad-hoc violations – Committed
episodically for personal gain.(Welfare
fraud, tax cheating)
 Abuses of trust – Committed by a
person in a place of trust in an
organization against the organization.
(Embezzlement, bribery,taking
kickbacks)
Components of White-Collar
Crime
 Collateral Business Crimes-
Committed by organizations to further
their business interests. (Antitrust
violations, use of false
weights/measures,concealment of
environmental crimes)
 Con Games – Committed for the sole
purpose of cheating clients. (Fraudulent
land sales, sales of bogus securities,
sales of questionable tax shelters)