There are several causes for why people commit white collar crimes. Societal causes include material possessions, money, power, and privilege. Institutional causes actually provide the means and opportunity for a person to commit financial crimes. Organizational causes include both occupational and corporate crimes. What I am trying to say is that the real cause of all white collar crimes is to benefit financially. The United States is an industrial economy which produces great amounts of wealth. Americans were taught to pride themselves on how much money they have. Because along with money comes power, privilege, and status. Our culture thrives on wealth, power, privilege, and status; therefore it is the American dream. Many people will do whatever is necessary to achieve the American dream. Whether it is robbing a bank or still credit card numbers it has been and will continue to be done. We are conforming to the values of our culture. Some people conform in legal ways and others do not. An unemployed high school drop-out wants the same thing a CEO wants which is money.
The institutional causes of white collar crime provide the means and opportunity to commit the crime. An internal structure of a business can in many facilitate fraud. Those types of businesses are called Criminogenic Industries in which factors facilitate fraud. Of course, an employee of the business is also a factor. The organizational causes include both occupational and corporate crimes. Organizational crimes are committed by employees against their employers. An example of an organizational crime is embezzlement. Occupational crimes are committed by the corporate officials in order for their corporation to profit, which in turn they profit. An example would be accounting fraud. The impact of white collar crime is enormous. Not only does it affect the specific individual or business that was defrauded, but then the burden is shifted throughout society. Some examples of the people impacted area as follows…The original victim(s), their employer, law enforcement, tax payers, businesses, consumers and/or the environment. It is easy to see that white collar crimes are not only expensive to the original victim, but to society as a whole.
Individuals who fall victim to identity theft will have to spend an enormous amount of time tracking down and closing fraudulent cards and accounts, filing police and FBI reports, rebuilding credit history, and trying to reclaim lost funds. On average, an individual will spend 600 hours trying to recover from identity theft. Not to mention the lost wages from missing work, and having a great difficulty trying to get a credit card, car, or house. The victim may also be arrested for the crimes that someone committed against them. Law enforcement and the entire criminal justice system will then be impacted. Then the taxpayers have to pay for the victim to be incarcerated for something that he or she did not commit.
Businesses constantly are victims of white collar crimes and they face just as difficult of a time as individuals do, if not more. When businesses are victims of fraud, or if the business itself is the perpetrator of the crime it really has a negative effect on society. First, the business and employees are impacted. Once again, the criminal justice system is as well. Then taxpayers, cost of goods or services, and consumers are all impacted. For a business to recover from lost money, it will raise the price of their goods/services. Therefore, consumers will have to fork out more money, which obviously has an effect on the economy. Regardless of whom the victim is or what type of white collar crime is committed, individuals, communities, businesses, criminal justice system, taxpayers, consumers, and the environment are all at risk of becoming a victim themselves.
White collar crimes are quite appealing which makes more people willing to commit them. There are numerous reasons in which people view financial crimes appealing including money, slight chance of being caught, slight chance of going to jail, and the crimes are readily accessible to almost everyone. If the perpetrator is smart enough, he may not get caught. The citizens of the United States are more worried about street crimes (robbery, assault, etc.) than they are white collar crimes. So, the politicians create strict laws and sentencing guidelines for street crimes. Therefore, jails and prisons are already so overcrowded that “nonviolent offenders” are a lot less likely to be incarcerated (Ms. Wilkerson’s Class Notes, 2007). Plea agreements, probation, home detention, community service, and restitution are much more common than incarceration for offenders of white collar crimes.
