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Digitisation of Financial Markets: A Literature Review on White-Collar Crimes

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• Raji Pillai   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5439-803X 26 &
• M. Lokanadha Reddy   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2613-0028 26  

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This is an empirical study which describes the financial issues with an increasing usage of the virtual currency in the present situation. With the introduction of the democratising, the influence of the ICT and its effect involved in various aspects of our lives like the economic, political, and the societal requirements. The financial frauds in various forms and its impact on financial market had been identified in the earlier research. The economic structure of the markets has been facilitating these. The frauds in the financial sector are identified as the lending frauds, identity frauds, and the investment frauds. The financial frauds are purely dependent on the market segmentation and the involvement of the various market instruments. The present study is carried out to understand the recent developments happening in the field of financial frauds, various developments like the free entry exit of participants, global currency involvement, increasing types of transactions in the financial sector, and the financial innovations involving technological and legal aspects. Technical problems in maintaining the secrecy and confidentiality of the dealings of the banking transactions. The present study tries to connect the different types of financial crimes to the facilities brought in by the ICT, and it needs more attention and more transparency to fight the white-collar crimes.

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Raji Pillai & M. Lokanadha Reddy

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Pradeep Kumar Singh

Wroclaw University of Economics, Jan Wyzykowski University in Polkowice, Polkowice, Poland

Zdzislaw Polkowski

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Sudeep Tanwar

ITS Mohan Nagar, Ghaziabad, India

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Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Craiova, Craiova, Romania

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Pillai, R., Lokanadha Reddy, M. (2021). Digitisation of Financial Markets: A Literature Review on White-Collar Crimes. In: Singh, P.K., Polkowski, Z., Tanwar, S., Pandey, S.K., Matei, G., Pirvu, D. (eds) Innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (IICT-2020). Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66218-9_7

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1 Core Themes in the Study of White-Collar Crime

Michael L. Benson, PhD, is Professor of Criminology and Director of the Center for Criminal Justice Research at the University of Cincinnati.

Shanna R. Van Slyke is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Economic Crime and Justice Studies at Utica College, NY.

Francis T. Cullen is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and a Senior Research Associate in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. He is author of Environmental Corrections. His current research focuses on the organization of criminological knowledge and on rehabilitation as a correctional policy. He is a past ↵president of both the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

• Published: 07 April 2016
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This chapter introduces the eight core themes that guided the selection of essays in this Handbook. These are (1) concept, (2) offender, (3) organization, (4) choice, (5) opportunity, (6) context, (7) costs, and (8) control. These themes have guided investigations and policy debates on white-collar crime and white-collar offenders for the past half-century. Like any area of vigorous scholarship, the study of white-collar crime is replete with theoretical controversies and unanswered empirical questions, but a great deal has been learned nevertheless since Sutherland coined the term. In this chapter, key research findings in the eight thematic areas are identified, major topics of theoretical debate that currently engage the field are explicated, and policy implications regarding the control of white-collar crime are discussed.

This anthology was designed to present a wide-ranging collection of cutting-edge research and theory on white-collar crime and its control. The process of assembling and organizing the various strands of research was guided by eight interconnected themes: (1) concept, (2) offender, (3) organization, (4) choice, (5) opportunity, (6) context, (7) costs, and (8) control. Although all of the essays present important insights and findings related to their specific topics, a number of general conclusions that link to our eight themes and that apply across the articles stand out. They include the following:

The definition of white-collar crime remains controversial and substantially influences who and what is studied as well as general conclusions about the nature of white-collar crime;

Regardless of how white-collar crime is defined, white-collar offenders differ from street offenders in regard to their social backgrounds, demographic attributes, and psychological characteristics;

Especially when compared to those who commit violent crimes, those who commit white-collar crimes appear to be more strongly influenced by rational choice considerations;

Like other types of crime, white-collar crime is not gender neutral in either motivations or mechanics;

Individuals who hold executive or managerial positions in organizations have abundant opportunities to engage in white-collar crime with a low likelihood of being caught;

Certain organizational features can create a criminogenic context that facilitates the concealment of white-collar criminal activity and limits the likelihood of its punishment;

Although difficult to measure with any degree of accuracy, the economic costs of white-collar crime outweigh the costs of other forms of crime; and

Different control mechanisms are used against white-collar criminals as opposed to street criminals, with white-collar crime control oriented toward regulation and the fostering of compliance while street crime control focuses on punishment and deterrence.

Below we explicate the eight themes that guided the anthology.

Although the term “white-collar crime” was not coined until near the middle of the 20th century, scholarly interest in what can only be called “white-collar criminals” goes back much farther in the history of criminology (Geis, Chapter 2 in this volume). For example, Lombroso (1887) compared “born criminals” to “criminaloids,” some of whom were people “high in power, who society venerates as its chiefs … their high position generally prevents their criminal character from being recognized” (p. 47). And at the turn of the 20th century, Ross also drew attention to the criminaloid or as he sometimes called such persons, the quasi-criminal: “He is a buyer rather than a practitioner of sin, and his middlemen spare him unpleasant details. Secure in his quilted armor of lawyer-spun sophistries… . The wholesale fleecer of trusting, workaday people is a ‘Napoleon,’ a ‘superman’ ” (1907, p. 53). But neither Lombroso’s criminaloid nor Ross’s quasi-criminal captured the criminological imagination like Edwin H. Sutherland’s white-collar criminal.

Even though Sutherland’s catchy term—white-collar crime—is relatively new historically speaking, the behavior that it references is ancient. Fraud has a history that can be traced back millennia, long before Lombroso and Ross put pen to paper ( Geis 1988 ; Johnstone 1998 ; Holtfreter, Van Slyke, and Blomberg 2005 ; Geis, Chapter 2 in this volume). In an analysis of Cicero’s (44 b.c .) On Duties and Dante’s (1314) Inferno , Chevigny (2001) showed that fraud and deception have been viewed as the most reprehensible of all crimes throughout much of human history. Indeed, it is only recently, as life has come to be seen as precious and as fear of death has heightened, that violence has come to be seen as the more reprehensible form of crime ( Pinker, 2012 ). Still, despite the historical recognition and condemnation of fraud, Lombroso, Ross, and Sutherland highlighted a special feature of its waywardness: it is committed by powerful offenders —those who hold privileged positions and who use the trust of others to break the law in order to maximize their personal power and wealth. All three noted that the misdeeds of the powerful often go unpunished for long periods of time and that they can adversely affect the fortunes of entire nations.

Geis’s (Chapter 2 ) essay in this volume illustrates how strands of thought from diverse scholarly and professional fields—all connected by the image of a powerful and power-abusing victimizer—merged in the conceptualization of white-collar crime that Sutherland presented in his Presidential Address to the American Sociological Society in 1939. Sutherland later defined it as “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation” (1949, p. 9). From this definition and his other writings, five key features stand out in regard to Sutherland’s view of white-collar crime. First, the offenders were, by definition, individuals of high social status and respectability. Second, the offenses were committed within an occupational context. Third, the offenses were committed in a particular way—that is, through the “violation of delegated or implied trust” (1940, p. 3). Fourth, the offenses involved massive financial and other costs (e. g., to “social relations” [1949, p. 13]). Fifth and finally, civil and administrative violations could be counted as white-collar crimes because civil laws often deal with practices that are fundamentally similar to those proscribed by criminal laws and because many illegal practices can be sanctioned under either criminal or civil law and often both.

Sutherland’s approach to defining white-collar crime has been defended and followed by many distinguished white-collar crime scholars, such as, for example, Pontell (Chapter 3 in this volume) and Braithwaite (1985) . This approach to defining white-collar crime has been labeled the “offender-based approach” because of its focus on the social characteristics of the offenders ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Despite the fundamental importance of Sutherland’s insight into lawbreaking among those of high social status, the meaning of the concept of white-collar crime has mutated radically since the term was introduced.

Although Sutherland’s approach to defining white-collar crime is the one that resonates best with popular stereotypes of white-collar offenders, a competing conceptual approach emerged only a few decades after his address. This approach focuses on the nature of the offense rather than the offender. The most influential offense-based definition was promulgated by Edelhertz (1970 , p. 3), who defined white-collar crime as “an illegal act or series of illegal acts committed by nonphysical means and by concealment or guile, to obtain money or property, to avoid the loss of money or property, or to obtain business or personal advantage.” Edelhertz’s definition differs from Sutherland’s in important ways. It makes no reference to the social status of the actor or to the occupational location of the act. Rather, it focuses entirely on the means by which the illegal act is committed. Thus, for Edelhertz, any illegal act that is committed by “non-physical means and by concealment or guile” for economic or personal advantage is a white-collar crime.

As both Geis (Chapter 2 in this volume) and Pontell (Chapter 3 in this volume) argue, offense-based definitions enlarge the conceptual boundaries of white-collar crime far beyond the high-powered corporate executives that so concerned Sutherland. In Pontell’s view, this expansion has the effect of producing the “a priori operational trivialization of white-collar crime” as researchers end up studying a heterogeneous collection of small-time fraudsters and trust violators. He blames offense-based definitions for inadequate regulatory policies and largely inadequate if not entirely absent criminal laws against the harmful behaviors of society’s elites. Whereas the objective of Sutherland was to call attention to the misdeeds of the powerful, the objective of Edelhertz was to provide a definition more consistent with legal norms—that is, offense-based definitions are designed to reflect justice system policy and practice. This conceptual bowdlerization not only perpetuates and reinforces existing disparities in the operation of the justice system between white-collar and street crimes, but it also diverts attention from those deceptive acts that cause the most harm and that are committed by economic and political elites.

The defenders of Sutherland’s approach make a valid point regarding the potential dangers of defining white-collar crime in the manner suggested by Edelhertz. If using an offense-based approach means that high-status offenders end up being ignored, then criminology is not much better off than it would have been had the concept of white-collar crime never been invented. Sutherland was correct that crimes by powerful people in his day were ignored. If contemporary criminologists end up studying only small-time fraudsters and welfare mothers, then the theoretical value of the concept of white-collar crime is seriously diminished. Yet, it cannot be denied that people who do not have exalted social status commit crimes that for all intents and purposes are the same as the white-collar crimes committed by Sutherland’s corporate executives ( Weisburd et al. 1991 ). Corporate executives engage in accounting fraud and tax evasion, and so do small business owners. Bank presidents can misappropriate millions of dollars ( Calavita and Pontell 1990 ) while bank tellers embezzle a few hundred bucks. Researchers using the offense-based approach have brought this reality sharply into focus, and they have also demonstrated that both elite and non-elite white-collar offenders differ substantially on a number of dimensions from ordinary street offenders ( Wheeler et al. 1988 ; Weisburd et al. 1991 ; Benson and Kerley 2000 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ).

At present, the term “white-collar crime” is used in both senses by researchers. For some researchers, it refers to the corrupt, exploitative, and socially harmful acts of respectable and powerful individuals and organizations; for others, it refers more broadly to economic crimes that involve deception. As this volume demonstrates, both definitional approaches have been used by researchers to produce important findings and insights on contemporary crime problems. Since both conceptual approaches are found in the literature, it is important to pay attention to how individual researchers operationalize the term in order to accurately assess the significance of their work for the field of white-collar crime. Different definitions lead to different questions and yield different results. Not surprisingly, almost every contributor to this anthology devotes at least a few words of explanation regarding the definition that guided his or her analyses.

II. Offenders

The answer to the question “Who is the white-collar offender?” depends on how one defines white-collar crime (Klenowski and Dodson, Chapter 6 in this volume; Hochstetler and Mackey, Chapter 8 in this volume). For those who follow Sutherland’s approach, however, the question is hardly worth asking. The offenders who should concern us are, by definition, elite members of the corporate and political power structures of modern society. They are the ones who make decisions that affect the financial well-being of millions of people as well as the social and economic health of nations. What matters about them is their economic and political power, not their social or demographic characteristics. Nevertheless, it is implied in writings of Sutherland and his followers that white-collar offenders are predominantly white, male, psychologically normal, and unsullied by contact with the criminal justice system.

Sutherland undoubtedly was correct that the leaders of America’s major corporations frequently engage in behavior that is prohibited by law and that warrants sanctioning in criminal courts, even though the perpetrators rarely see the inside of a courtroom. Wealthy, high-ranking, and highly respected offenders certainly do exist, and they even occasionally appear on the nightly news or nowadays on the webpages of both major and minor news outlets. But the spotlight that is shined on the perpetrators of these national scandals reveals only a small segment of the white-collar offending population.

Researchers using offense-based definitions of white-collar crime have found that those who commit white-collar crimes are much more heterogeneous in their social, demographic, and criminal-background characteristics than the stereotypical image of the white-collar offender would suggest. Consider, for example, gender, race, and social class. Although it is true that most white-collar offenders are white and male, the female share of some low-level forms of white-collar crime, such as embezzlement and identity theft, is substantial (Klenowski and Dodson, Chapter 6 in this volume; Dodge, Chapter 10 in this volume). But the involvement of women in elite frauds, especially in leadership roles, is still exceedingly rare ( Steffensmeier et al. 2013 ; Benson and Gottschalk 2014 ). Likewise, non-whites also commit low-level white-collar offenses in significant numbers, and trend data suggest that for the past three decades both women and non-whites have been commanding an ever larger share of white-collar crime, especially in regard to low-level offenses ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Perhaps the most surprising findings to emerge in the past three decades, however, concern the class standing of those who commit white-collar offenses. As several of the chapters presented here note (Klenowski and Dodson, Chapter 6 ; Hochstetler and Mackey, Chapter 8 ), most of the people who end up in the federal judicial system for white-collar offenses are not wealthy and are not high-ranking corporate executives. Rather, they occupy the middle levels of the class hierarchy (Karstedt, Chapter 9 in this volume).

The expansion of the population of white-collar offenders along gender, race, and class lines has led to a new body of theory and research on their social origins and backgrounds ( Piquero and Benson 2004 ; Piquero and Piquero, Chapter 12 in this volume; Benson, Chapter 13 in this volume). Rather than simply assuming that early childhood and family experiences have little to do with white-collar offending in adulthood, researchers have begun to investigate whether involvement in white-collar crime may arise out of the childrearing practices of the middle and upper classes. Indeed, some have gone so far as to speculate that a middle-class upbringing has features that are the functional equivalents of the poverty, abuse, conflict, and neglect that play such prominent causal roles in street offending. These features include the inculcation of a sense of entitlement, an emphasis on competitive success, and a worldview in which the application of ethical norms and standards of behavior is always considered to be negotiable ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). In short, like ordinary offending, white-collar offending is beginning to be explored as a behavioral pattern that is part of the life course and that arises out of a developmental process (Singer, Chapter 11 in this volume; Piquero and Piquero, Chapter 12 in this volume; Benson, Chapter 13 in this volume). In one sense, this theoretical development represents a departure from Sutherland’s perspective on white-collar offending, as he was opposed to class-based explanations of crime in general. On the other hand, it is consistent with his broader aim of reforming criminological theory, because white-collar offending is now being brought under the theoretical umbrella of life-course criminology, one of the dominant theoretical perspectives in criminology ( Cullen 2011 ).

III. Choice

The life-course perspective calls upon us to view criminal offending as part of a broader process of human development that involves biological, psychological, and social domains. But, despite the all-inclusive nature of life-course theorizing about crime, in the end, specific acts of white-collar law violation occur because specific choices are made by specific individuals or groups of individuals working in concert. A corporate executive decides to ignore the expensive regulations for storing hazardous chemicals that end up polluting a river. Midlevel sales managers in competing companies get together and decide to share customers to ensure market stability and organizational survival for all. An accountant accedes to a demand from the company CEO to figure out a way, illegal if necessary, to improve the bottom line before the next quarterly report is due on Wall Street.

In regard to white-collar crime, choices are theorized to be a function of the actor’s subjective assessment of the net rewards of crime compared to the net rewards of not engaging in crime—that is, of complying with the law ( Paternoster and Simpson 1993 ; Simpson 2013 ). The net rewards of crime are defined as the benefits of crime minus its costs; the same definition applies to non-crime as well ( Wilson and Herrnstein 1985 ). When the former exceed the latter, crime is expected to result. Although white-collar crimes are almost always economically oriented in one sense or another, the decision making of white-collar offenders involves much more than a simple assessment of how much money some particular offense might garner. In other words, decision making by business managers and executives involves more than just a cold-blooded calculation of the economic utility of different courses of action. In particular, decision makers are sensitive to the potential that they or their companies may suffer reputational costs as a result of the exposure of lawbreaking ( Paternoster and Simpson 1996 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). Indeed, these informal costs appear to figure more prominently in the decision-making calculus of offenders than formal legal sanctions ( Simpson 2013 ). Research also suggests that decision making in business is guided by moral and ethical considerations ( Simpson 2002 ; Simpson, Gardner, and Gibbs 2007 ). Those who would engage in white-collar crime may refrain from doing so if they regard the act in question as immoral or socially harmful.

On the other hand, if potential offenders believe that their actions can be framed in morally acceptable terms, then the restraining effect of morality is greatly weakened. White-collar offenders are especially adept at framing their activities to themselves in such a way that the moral and reputational costs of crime are neutralized, at least in the offender’s eyes ( Benson 1985 ; Willott, Griffen, and Torrence 2001 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ; Klenowski et al. 2011 ). The ability of white-collar offenders to deny the criminality of their actions is enhanced by the complex nature of business activity and the normative ambiguity that surrounds it ( Green 2004 , 2006 ). At what point does a conversation between competitors become a price-fixing conspiracy? When does boastful advertising shade into outright consumer fraud? White-collar offenders are also insulated from the moral costs of white-collar crime by the public’s ambiguous view of government efforts to control and regulate business and economic activity ( Cullen, Chouhy, and Jonson, forthcoming ).

Like other people, white-collar offenders are not robots devoid of feelings and emotions. Indeed, emotional factors can influence choices in regard to white-collar crime ( Benson and Sams 2013 ). For example, if business owners or managers feel that they have been unfairly stigmatized or sanctioned by legal authorities, they may respond with anger and defiance rather than compliance ( Simpson 2013 ). Thus, even though the world of business is often portrayed as one in which rationality and cool calculation rule, research suggests otherwise. White-collar crime choice has an emotional component.

Finally, white-collar crime is often carried out in an organizational setting, and this setting influences criminal decision making (Tomlinson and Pozzuto, Chapter 18 in this volume). No discussion of choice in regard to white-collar crime would be complete if it did not acknowledge the organizational dimension of decision making. The idea of an isolated individual decision maker is not applicable to those who work in organizations, because people who work in organizations inevitably interact with coworkers, superiors, and subordinates as well as people who work in other organizations. In these interactions, the preferences and subjective assessments of the interacting parties are shared and become part of each individual’s decision-making gestalt.

IV. Organization

As noted above, organizations can be conceptualized as providing a setting that influences decision making. Indeed, from the perspective of choice theory, the organization is simply another source of benefits and costs that individuals take into account when deciding on various courses of action. For example, variation in the degree to which organizations monitor employee performance in regard to ethical standards will make deviant behavior potentially more costly in some organizations than in others. And there are other organizational characteristics that influence how people behave (Huisman, Chapter 21 in this volume). Tomlinson and Pozzuto (Chapter 18 in this volume) argue that three particularly important characteristics are (1) the reward system, (2) the organizational culture, and (3) the organizational structure.

Consider how an internal reward system could be designed to provoke white-collar crime. Organizations are inherently goal-seeking entities ( Gross 1978 , 1980 ). To achieve their goals, they must organize and motivate individuals to behave in ways that promote organizational goals. One way to do this is to align the achievement of organizational goals with individual benefits—that is, to reward people for doing things that lead to organizational success. For example, raises or promotions can be granted to people who meet certain sales targets or other types of productivity standards, while those who fail to meet the standards are fired, demoted, or otherwise punished. Organizations vary in how quantifiable organizational goals are and how tightly personal rewards are tied to the achievement of these goals. Enron is a classic example of an organization that had very clear financial goals and a very tightly coupled system for aligning corporate goals and individual rewards. Its infamous review and reward system required supervisors to rate a specified percentage of their subordinates as unsatisfactory and sanction them accordingly ( McLean and Elkind 2003 ). This brutal system pressured Enron’s employees to try to enhance their performance by any means available, including illegal ones.

Although it makes intuitive sense to consider organizations as settings that influence how people make decisions, act, and interact, organizations have also been conceptualized as agents in and of themselves ( Braithwaite and Fisse 1990 ; Huisman, Chapter 21 in this volume). Indeed, it has been asserted that the organizational form is inherently criminogenic ( Gross 1978 , 1980 ). A long line of research has focused on the organizational correlates of white-collar crime ( Simpson 1987 ; Zey 1993 ; Simpson 2002 ; Clinard and Yeager 2006 ; Simpson, Garner, and Gibbs 2007 ; for a general overview, see Simpson 2013 ). Many different factors have been investigated, including size, culture, profitability, hierarchical structure, strategy, type, and competitive environment. But empirical findings are inconclusive and no concise set of factors has yet been identified that predicts organizational offending with any degree of accuracy ( Simpson 2013 ).

The choice perspective assumes that criminal behavior is essentially goal-seeking behavior. The offender is viewed as an agent who wants something and chooses to use illegal means to get it. In regard to organizational offending, however, this agent-centered view is at times inappropriate, because in some cases organizations violate the law not because they choose to do so but rather because they are simply incompetent to comply with their legal obligations (Huisman, Chapter 21 in this volume). Small and medium-sized organizations in particular may not have the personnel resources or technical expertise to keep up with the voluminous regulations that govern almost all industries and economic enterprises. Their law-breaking behavior is perhaps more akin to the individual who forgets to file her taxes on time than it is to the amoral pursuit of illegal gains. Some instances of organizational deviance are best viewed as the inevitable byproduct or unintended consequences of organizational structures and routines ( Vaughan 2005 ). Organizational incompetence is not a factor that criminologists have devoted much attention to, but if organizations are to be conceptualized as actors, then we must recognize that, like people, they do not always know what they are doing and their actions are not always intentional.

V. Opportunity

Opportunities are now recognized as an important cause of all crime ( Felson and Eckert 2015 ), and in the past few decades, criminologists have focused increasingly on the situational and ecological factors that facilitate opportunities for street crime ( Cohen and Felson 1979 ; Clarke 1983 ). As causal factors, opportunities are considered to be even more important for white-collar crime. One would be hard pressed to find any study of any form of white-collar crime that does not in one way or another blame the occurrence of the crime on the offender’s having an opportunity to do it. For white-collar crime, the answer to the question “Why did they do it?” is almost always “Because they could.” The list of case studies of particular white-collar crimes that blame them on the opportunities afforded by lax regulatory oversight is, to put it mildly, large.

The nature of white-collar crime opportunities, however, differs from that of street crime ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Opportunities for street crime arise when a motivated offender encounters a suitable target that is not capably guarded ( Cohen and Felson 1979 ). For most street crimes, guardianship involves either somehow inhibiting the offender’s access to the target or somehow making the offender feel that undertaking the crime would be accompanied by a risk of detection that is unacceptably high. Typically, the risk of detection is raised by putting the target under surveillance.

But white-collar crime opportunities are different. The most important difference between white-collar and street crime opportunities is that white-collar offenders have legitimate access to the targets of their offenses ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ; Felson and Eckert 2015 ; Madensen, Chapter 19 in this volume). This access almost always arises out of the offender’s occupational role or position within an organization. Unlike the burglar who must break into a house to steal something, an embezzler can merely take money out of the cash register. Likewise, the doctor who submits a fraudulent claim to the Medicaid program has legitimate access to both patients and the Medicaid reimbursement system. As Marcus Felson has argued for a long time, the distinguishing feature of white-collar crimes is that the offender has specialized access to the target. Because white-collar offenders have legitimate access to the targets of their offenses, the standard crime-prevention technique of reducing crime by blocking the offender’s access to the target is difficult if not impossible to use in the case of most white-collar crimes.

In addition to having specialized access to their targets, white-collar offenders have another advantage over their street-level counterparts. That advantage resides in the superficial appearance of legitimacy of white-collar offenses. In other words, the offenses are not obvious ( Braithwaite and Geis 1982 ). For example, the doctor who submits a fraudulent claim to a healthcare insurer tries to make the claim appear like an ordinary legitimate claim. The manufacturer who illegally disposes of hazardous waste may take steps to make the waste appear nonhazardous, such as by mislabeling the barrel that contains it ( Rebovich 1992 ). The fraudulent and misleading financial reports published by Enron were good enough to fool many sophisticated investors ( McLean and Elkind 2003 ). The victims of Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme were blissfully unaware that the financial statements they received from him were wildly inflated ( Henriques 2011 ). Indeed, a distinguishing feature of many white-collar crimes is that even the victim often is unaware of the offense until it is too late to respond, and in some cases victims may never learn of the offense. The superficial appearance of legitimacy means that the types of surveillance used to prevent street crime—such as reports from victims, observation by security guards, or closed-circuit cameras—are virtually useless in regard to white-collar crimes. Other forms of surveillance or oversight are needed to prevent white-collar crimes, and when they are lacking or insufficient opportunities for white-collar crime expand.

For white-collar crimes, surveillance must be specialized and usually is carried out by regulatory agencies. In theory, these agencies are supposed to provide oversight by inspecting places of business and reviewing business records and activities to make sure that they comply with the law. But, as scholars from Sutherland forward have repeatedly pointed out, regulatory oversight is almost always inadequate, and even when violations are discovered the penalties associated with them are usually bearable for offenders ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). As with ordinary street offenders, white-collar offenders feel much more comfortable executing their schemes if they are confident that no one is watching or that the costs of being caught are not too high. Under these conditions, opportunities to engage in white-collar crimes surely seem plentiful and attractive to potential offenders. Thus, the inadequacy of regulatory oversight is a major element in the opportunity structure of white-collar crime.

Regulatory oversight so often lacks credibility because both regulation and oversight are parts of a political process that is riddled with conflicting and competing interests (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume). Every industry and profession in the United States hires lobbyists to advocate for the special interests of their employers in the halls of Congress and in the offices and meeting rooms of regulatory agencies. These special interests work tirelessly to diminish regulatory restrictions, especially those that might lead to criminal accountability for anyone in the industry or profession (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume). Occasionally, a scandal is so large and outrageous that the public demands action and as a result new rules and regulations are enacted. For example, after the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, the U.S. Congress passed the law popularly known as Sarbanes-Oxley that in theory is supposed to prevent future accounting frauds by strengthening regulatory oversight of the internal accounting practices of large companies and raising penalties for transgressions. As soon as the public’s attention wanes and turns elsewhere, however, special interests begin whittling away at the strength of the enforcement process until eventually real enforcement gives way to the appearance but not reality of oversight and accountability.

Finally, opportunities for white-collar crime continually evolve as financial and technological innovations create new products and new forms of business activity. For example, the massive amount of fraud that occurred in the mortgage and investment banking industries between 2000 and 2008 was made possible in part by such financial innovations as the invention of the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) as an investment vehicle ( Barnett 2013 ). CDOs were so complicated and so little understood by investors and regulators that it was not hard for the major investment banks to market them in a fraudulent manner ( Barnett 2013 ). The evolution of the Internet and online banking coupled with the expansion of consumer credit has made identity theft both more feasible and more lucrative ( Copes and Vieraitis 2012 ). As recent scandals involving such major corporations as Target and Home Depot show, it is now possible to steal the financial identities of millions of people at a time and get access to their lines of credit. For identity thieves, opportunity started knocking in the 1990s. As the economy and technology evolve over time, opportunities for white-collar crimes follow in their wake, leading some scholars to proclaim white-collar crime as the crime of the future ( Weisburd et al. 1991 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ).

VI. Context

As the preceding section discussed, opportunities for white-collar crime are shaped in part by political processes. These processes in turn are part of a larger institutional and cultural context that influences both opportunities and motivations for white-collar crime ( Bonger and Horton 1916 ; Coleman 1987 ). Nearly a century ago, Bonger and Horton (1916) argued that capitalism itself created a moral climate of egoism that inflamed the desire for material success, thus providing a potent source of motivation for crime in all social classes (Simpson and Rorie, Chapter 16 in this volume). More recently, as Headworth and Hagan (Chapter 14 in this volume) show in their analysis of white-collar crime in the financial crisis of 2008, the cultural landscape of the United States has for some time been dominated by an “orientation toward financial markets that privileges the notions of self-regulation and self-correction over government intervention.” As a result of this orientation, individuals working in the financial markets prior to 2008 felt both entitled and empowered to develop complex and little-understood financial instruments, such as CDOs based on pools of subprime loans. Then, in the name of economic growth and with the unwitting backing of the U.S. government, these financial instruments were marketed using fraud and deceit to unsuspecting investors. And when the underlying assets—that is, subprime loans on which the instruments were based—began to fail, the economy followed suit.

Although it is tempting and to a certain degree correct to blame the economic collapse of 2008 on the financial malfeasance of greedy and self-serving investment bankers as well as the fraudulent activities of others who worked in the mortgage industry, this individualized view tells only a small part of the story. Before it can be activated, greed needs an outlet, an opportunity to manifest itself—and the opportunity to engage in the financial malfeasance with little risk of sanction throughout most of the first decade of the 21st century was created by the U.S. government. As Headworth and Hagan (Chapter 14 in this volume) and Prechel (Chapter 15 in this volume) show, the government played a key role in shaping and deregulating financial markets. It pushed the investment banking industry to develop the complex structured debt instruments that were marketed to investors ( Barnett 2013 ). Through deregulation, it “altered the boundaries of legitimacy, legality, and criminality in finance, expanding the realm of explicitly or implicitly sanctioned behaviors” (Headworth and Hagan, Chapter 14 in this volume). The cultural milieu that infused capital markets provided actors with justifications for their risky financial innovations and transactions, while the structure of banking organizations as well as the market itself ensured that responsibility would be diffused to such a degree that finding responsible parties in the aftermath of the collapse became virtually impossible. Hence, almost none of the “big players” in the investment banking world have been criminally charged, let alone convicted, despite widespread agreement among commentators that fraud was rampant leading up to the collapse of 2008 ( Benson 2012 ; Levi 2012 ; Barnett 2013 ).

The onslaught of fraud in the mortgage and investment banking industries prior to 2008 is only one example of how cultural and institutional contexts can create conditions in which white-collar and corporate crime can flourish. But it is certainly not the only example. Indeed, there is a strong theoretical and research tradition in the white-collar crime literature that focuses on interconnections between economic fluctuations, cultural contexts, and rates of white-collar and corporate crime (Simpson and Rorie, Chapter 16 in this volume). This research tends to show that the effects of economic fluctuations are crime specific—that is, some forms of white-collar crime are more sensitive to economic fluctuations than others. The research also shows that both economic booms and economic recessions can influence different forms of corporate and white-collar crime in different ways, because both booms and recessions can affect motivations and opportunities ( Benson 2012 ; Levi 2012 ). For example, economic recessions can put struggling businesses under enormous pressure and threaten them with total failure. Under these conditions, it is almost axiomatic that some owners and executives will respond by breaking the law in an attempt to keep their failing enterprises from going under. On the other hand, an expanding economy can lead to a mad scramble to get in on the action and make money by any means necessary as quickly as one can. The thrift scandal of the 1980s is an excellent example of this dynamic ( Calavita and Pontell 1990 ).

Thus, if anything has been learned since Sutherland introduced the world to white-collar crime, it is that (1) white-collar crime feeds off of and is inextricably linked to legitimate economic activity and (2) opportunities for white-collar crime expand or contract depending on the evolution of political-legal arrangements and the pendulum-like swings in cultural orientations that oscillate between belief in the efficacy of government regulation versus faith in the invisible hand of the free market (Prechel, Chapter 15 in this volume).

Measuring social phenomena is often difficult, and this is especially true in regard to phenomena such as criminal activity, which is by its very nature meant to be clandestine. Nevertheless, those who study ordinary street crime have made some strides in measuring its extent, trends, and costs. The extent can be estimated by mathematically combining information about the number of offenses known to the authorities with information about reporting rates for those offenses to get a rough number for the overall annual crime rate. The number can then be tracked over time to determine whether crime is increasing or decreasing. And by employing a little more mathematical wizardry, researchers have even been able to get better-than-ballpark estimates of how many offenses active offenders commit in a given time period. Once the number of offenses is known, trends in the overall costs of street crime can be estimated by multiplying the average cost per offense by the number of estimated offenses.

It seems reasonable to expect that the costs of white-collar crime also vary over time, and that they also trend up or down depending on how active white-collar offenders are. If we could count the number of white-collar crimes, we would be on our way toward estimating its costs. Counting, however, turns out to be a problem, and very little is known about the dark figure of white-collar crime. As numerous scholars have noted, for various reasons estimating the amount of white-collar crime to any reasonable degree of accuracy seems to be a very difficult task, if not one that is outright unachievable ( Sparrow 1996 ; Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ). Thus, estimating the costs of white-collar and corporate crime is a project accompanied by large margins of error.

Estimating the amount of white-collar crime is complicated for both conceptual and substantive reasons. Conceptually, estimation of the amount of white-collar crime depends crucially on how the term is defined (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume). Offense-based definitions, which typically include any property offense involving deceit or deception, result in dramatically higher white-collar offense counts than do offender-based definitions, which include only occupationally related offenses committed by high-status individuals. Dramatically higher counts are also achieved if regulatory violations are included along with criminal violations. Substantively, white-collar crime is difficult to count because the offenses are not obvious and do not leave easily observed traces of their occurrence ( Braithwaite and Geis 1982 ; Benson, Kennedy, and Logan, forthcoming ). Instead, the crime itself is typically hidden behind or integrated into legitimate occupational or financial activities ( Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Often, even the victim may not realize that an offense has occurred. For example, healthcare professionals who submit fraudulent claims to the health insurers or government programs try to make them look like legitimate claims and hope, often correctly, that they will go unnoticed ( Jesilow, Geis, and Pontell 1991 ; Sparrow 1996 ). Even when a white-collar offense has been discovered, it can still be difficult to put a dollar value on it (Cohen, Chapter 5 in this volume).

Nevertheless, despite these conceptual and substantive difficulties, there are a number of points of agreement about the amount and costs of white-collar crime. First, white-collar crime is widespread and its costs outweigh those of ordinary street crime by several orders of magnitude (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume; Cohen, Chapter 5 in this volume). Second, either directly or indirectly white-collar crime affects almost everyone (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume; Cohen, Chapter 5 in this volume). For example, fraud in the mortgage and investment banking industries recently has been implicated in the economic collapse of 2008 ( Barnett 2013 ; Simpson and Rorie, Chapter 16 in this volume), and in the 1980s fraud in the savings and loan industry cost taxpayers literally billions of dollars ( Calavita and Pontell 1990 ). And there are more subtle costs that cannot be so easily calculated in dollars and cents. Consider how the presence of harmful chemicals in the environment, food, or consumer products may lead to illness and reduced quality of life (Croall, Chapter 4 in this volume). In addition to the physical and financial costs of white-collar crime, it may also have severe psychological effects. For example, many of the victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme described themselves as emotionally devastated by the loss of their life savings ( Henriques 2011 ), as were the employees of Enron who lost their retirement accounts when it went bankrupt ( McLean and Elkind 2003 ).

Finally, as Cohen (Chapter 5 in this volume) perceptively notes, the costs of white-collar crime also include what he calls “avoidance behaviors.” Avoidance behavior refers to actions taken by individuals and businesses to avoid becoming a victim of a white-collar crime, or in the case of businesses to avoid being mistakenly charged with a crime. For example, purchasing a credit monitoring service to protect oneself against identity theft is a form of avoidance behavior and also can be considered a cost of white-collar crime. Avoidance behaviors also include actions taken by governments to help prevent crime. Consumer education campaigns and consumer protection agencies help prevent white-collar crimes, but they also cost tax dollars and add to the money lost to white-collar crime.

VIII. Control

For a variety of reasons, white-collar crime poses special problems for criminal justice agencies. First, the crimes themselves are difficult to detect because they are often camouflaged as legitimate business activities ( Braithwaite and Geis 1982 ; Benson and Simpson 2014 ). Second, even when a white-collar crime does come to light, if it is committed in an organizational setting, it can be difficult for investigators and prosecutors to pinpoint a responsible party—that is, an individual or group of individuals who can be convicted and sent to jail ( Benson and Cullen 1998 ). Indeed, prosecutors often face a difficult decision over whether to charge the corporation itself or some individual involved in the offense (Dervan and Podgor, Chapter 27 in this volume). Third, the investigation of crimes committed in organizational settings can be extremely complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive (Dervan and Podgor, Chapter 27 in this volume). Furthermore, the defendants in white-collar cases have abundant legal and financial resources with which to fight criminal charges by taking full advantage of the procedural safeguards that are built into modern legal systems to protect against the coercive use of authority by criminal justice officials ( Mann 1985 ). For all of these considerations, prosecutors have reason to be chary of trying to use criminal sanctions to control white-collar crime.

That white-collar crime and corporate crime pose a grave threat to individuals and society should, by now, be obvious. “Crime in relation to business,” as Sutherland (1940) called it, has given us financial scoundrels who steal billions, environmental disasters that destroy habitats and require billions to clean up, and workplace tragedies whose emotional and physical costs are so appalling that it is tasteless to put a price on them. In light of the size and severity of the problem, one might think that white-collar crime control would be a top priority at all levels of government, but that would be a mistake. With as close to a universal consensus as one can get among scholars, those who study white-collar crime agree that the governmental responses to white-collar crime control are inadequate at best and laughable at worst. Nevertheless, even though official responses to white-collar crime can be fairly described as “limp” ( Shover and Hochstetler 2006 ), they are not entirely absent, nor are they entirely ineffective. In the final section of this chapter, we describe the different approaches that are used to control white-collar crime, focusing primarily on regulatory oversight and criminal sanctions.

On the rare occasions when prosecutors do move forward and secure convictions against “respectable offenders,” it is not exactly clear how they should be sentenced or what the most appropriate sanction is (Levi, Chapter 28 in this volume). On the one hand, it seems important to send a message that the law applies to rich and poor alike, and therefore it is appropriate to send white-collar offenders to prison. On the other hand, however, one can ask if it makes sense to spend money incarcerating individuals who pose little risk of future dangerousness purely for the sake of punishment. Thus, in sentencing white-collar offenders, judges face a paradox of how to blend the severity that public opinion demands with the leniency that correctional theory would suggest is appropriate ( Wheeler, Mann, and Sarat 1988 ; Levi, Chapter 28 in this volume). The evidence is mixed as to how they resolve this paradox, with some studies finding that upper-world offenders are sentenced more harshly than comparable lower-status counterparts ( Tillman and Pontell 1992 ; Van Slyke and Bales 2012 ), while other studies find little in the way of class-based differences in sentence severity ( Hagan and Nagel 1982 ; Wheeler, Weisburd, and Bode 1982 ; Hagan and Palloni 1986 ; Benson and Walker 1988 ). Even though there is some evidence that incarceration rates and sentence lengths for white-collar offenders have increased in the past two decades ( Stadler, Benson, and Cullen 2013 ), the likelihood that we will ever witness a mass incarceration movement directed at business executives is vanishingly small.

Although the criminal justice system has an important role to play in controlling crime in relation to business, especially in egregious cases, responsibility for the day-to-day oversight and control of harmful activities in business falls mainly on regulatory agencies. And it is within the framework of regulation that the major policy initiatives regarding the control of business activities are put forth. Both the day-to-day administration and enforcement of regulatory rules and the overall form and structure of regulatory policy are perennially controversial topics.

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a more controversial and longstanding subject than the proper role of government in the marketplace. When is government intervention necessary and when should matters should be left to the invisible hand of the market (Gunningham, Chapter 24 in this volume)? Should regulatory inspectors act like law-enforcement agents seeking to find and punish all rule violations, or should they take a more conciliatory, responsive approach to their work with regulated entities and try to help them comply with the law ( Fisse and Braithwaite 1993 ; Gunningham, Chapter 24 in this volume)? Do regulations work, or is their effectiveness inevitably eviscerated by special interests working behind closed doors (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume)? What should be done with transnational organizations that seem to operate outside the jurisdiction of any single governmental authority ( Braithwaite 1993 )? These are but a few of the many ongoing debates over the need for and effectiveness of regulation.

Regarding the effectiveness of regulation, the idea that lax regulation or lack of credible oversight is a fundamental cause of white-collar crime has the status of something approaching a biblical truth among white-collar and corporate crime scholars. A particularly compelling analysis of the role of inadequate regulatory oversight in corporate crime can be found in Ramirez’s study (Chapter 23 in this volume) of the financial scandals of the preceding decade. Ramirez recounts a familiar story in which the response to public outrage over some corporate scandal leads to the passage of new “tough” regulations. But after the public’s attention turns elsewhere, special interests work to “diminish regulatory restrictions and to subvert criminal accountability” (Ramirez, Chapter 23 in this volume). Throughout the history of regulation, scandal and outrage have often led to new regulations that are passed with great fanfare only to be quietly eroded later by the lobbying and backroom deals of special interests.

But even regulations that have been eroded can still have some level of effectiveness, and there are differing opinions on how best to judge effectiveness (Mascini, Chapter 25 in this volume). If effectiveness is judged by the application of tough regulatory sanctions to rule violations, then there is little evidence of that. However, as Mascini (Chapter 25 in this volume) notes, the movements toward responsive regulation and regulatory governance take a more polycentric as opposed to state-centric view of regulation. Under a responsive regulation system, the effectiveness of regulation is judged not so much by how many rule violations are sanctioned but instead by the degree to which harm is reduced and the interests of civil society are protected. According to proponents of responsive regulation, this is most likely to be achieved when regulators work cooperatively with regulated entities ( Ayres and Braithwaite 1992 ). Likewise, the regulatory governance model views the state, the market (i.e., corporations and other business entities), and civil society as part of a comprehensive and interlocking system through which socially responsible behavior by businesses is promoted.

Whether the happy and cooperative state of affairs envisioned by the regulatory governance and responsive regulation models is ever actually achieved in the market place is debated and depends on where you look (Mascini, Chapter 25 in this volume). There have been some success stories. For example, the airline industry has made important contributions to the safety of air travel. But there are also many industrial sectors where market participants have done little to improve the safety of workers or consumers and have vigorously resisted efforts by governments to do so ( Cullen et al. 2006 ). The effectiveness of different regulatory models is, therefore, difficult to evaluate as counterexamples can always be found. In the end, the “holy grail” of regulation may never be found, because “policy ideas on regulatory inspection are founded on conflicting conceptions of the good society” (Mascini, Chapter 25 in this volume).

IX. Conclusion

This Handbook was designed to bring together contemporary cutting-edge thinking on the problem of white-collar crime and its control. In regard to that goal, we believe we have succeeded, but we are also aware that a field as broad and deep as white-collar crime can never be captured in a single handbook, at least not in one that could be lifted by a normal person. Thus, in selecting what areas to cover and how many chapters to devote to them, we have necessarily had to be selective. This book could easily have had twice as many chapters and been twice as long. Nevertheless, we believe readers will find something of value here on each of the eight themes that guided our work—concept, offender, organization, choice, opportunity, context, costs, and control.

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WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALITY IN INDIA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

2020, ALIGARH LAW JOURNAL

White collar criminality is causing a potential threat to socioeconomic life of each and every country in the world. It is distinct from traditional crimes and therefore demands different treatment. In India, white collar crimes include bank frauds, blackmail, bribery, computer fraud, counterfeiting, environmental schemes, racketeering, embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion, telemarketing fraud, weight and measures etc. To combat the menace causing by this form of criminality, the Indian government has enacted several laws from time to time. However, despite having plethora of laws on white collar criminality the pertinent question that still exists is whether these laws are implementing effectively in India. This question has prompted the authors to make critical analysis on the working of laws dealing with white collar criminality by studying two important surveys from 2014-2017. Lastly, some valuable suggestions are also put forward hoping to contribute in effective implementation of such laws.

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This paper provides a detailed understanding about the newer form of crime as known white collar crimes. With the advent of technology and grouth of education, white collar crimes are on the rise, being protected by professionals in law findings loopholes in the existing law and judiciary and support from the government indirectly.

Umeed Qadri

This paper provides a detailed understanding behind the motives of people committing crimes. Researchers have named ―the people committing crime, where the crimes were minimal and confined to a particular area of administration‖ as Grass Eaters. People involved in white collar crimes and which has spread in almost all fields of business are termed as Meat Eaters. With the advent of technology and growth of education, white collar crimes are on the rise, being protected by professionals finding loopholes in the judiciary and support from the government indirectly. This has created a nexus where people from almost all walks of life have started forming group to do white collar crimes and being protected by professionals in law. This has lead to a situation where the small timers have become white collar criminals. Talking about the prevalence of white collar crimes in India, they are spreading like a rapid fire in every sphere of society. Though corruption, one of the species of white collar crimes, has been the most talked about issue in all spheres-social, economic and political, not much stringent steps/actions have been taken to curb this menace. Therefore the concern of this paper is to define white collar crime, study its historical development and formulate tentative solutions for eradicating the problem.

International Journal of Behavioral Research & Psychology (IJBRP)

White-collar crime as moral or ethical violations follows ideals inherent within the principles of natural law. Natural law focuses on behaviors or activities that are defined as wrong because they violate the ethical principles of a particular culture, subculture, or group. The immoral nature of the activities is seen as the foundation for defining certain types of white-collar activities as criminal. Some prefer to call white-collar crime as violations of criminal law. White-collar crimes are criminally illegal behaviors committed by upper class individuals during the course of their occupation. From a systems perspective, those working in the criminal justice system would likely define white-collar crime as criminally illegal behaviors. Crime, in this context, is defined as “an intentional act or omission committed in violation of the criminal law without defense or justification and sanctioned by the state as a felony or misdemeanor” (Tappan, 1960, p. 10). The consequences of white-collar crime can be characterized as; individual economic losses, societal economic losses, emotional consequences, physical harm and positive consequences as well. Research on white-collar crime attitudes is important for empirical, cultural, and policy-driven reasons (Piquero, Carmichael, & Piquero, 2008). Because white-collar offenses are viewed as equally serious as street crimes, there may be a tendency among some to view white-collar criminals as similar to street criminals (Payne, 2003b). Many crime prevention programs work. Others don’t. Most programs have not yet been evaluated with enough scientific evidence to draw conclusions. Enough evidence is available, however, to create provisional lists of what works, what doesn’t and what’s promising. Those lists will grow more quickly if the Nation invests more resources in scientific evaluations to hold all crime prevention programs accountable for their results. Both crime and criminal have become the focus of attention in the present day Kashmiri society. It is a regrettable fact that we have not so far undertaken comprehensive macro and micro level studies of crimes in Kashmir which could have facilitated a better understanding of its causes and effects and help to devise proper remedial measures. It is evident from the facts that white-collar crimes in Kashmir are increasing day by day. There are multiple causes of white-collar crimes in Kashmir. The consequences of white-collar crime can be characterized as (1) individual economic losses, (2) societal economic losses, (3) emotional consequences, (4) physical harm and (5) “positive” consequences. Research on white-collar crime attitudes is important for empirical, cultural, and policy-driven reasons (Piquero, Carmichael, & Piquero, 2008). Keywords: White-Collar Crime; Criminal Behavior; Criminal Law; Consequences And Crime Prevention.

South Asian Law Review

Md. Hasnath Kabir Fahim , Mohammad Aktarul Alam Chowdhury

In the contemporary world of technological advancement and industrial revolution, white-collar crime is a ubiquitous phenomenon and thus transmits various threats towards the modern civilizations. Diverse types of elite class-generated socioeconomic felonies though do not trigger any personal physical injury but remarkably impair the economic fabric of the people of South Asian regions disintegrating their stock markets, public interest and government economy. Consequently money laundering, bribery, falsifying company accounts, tax evasion, intellectual property theft, human trafficking, medicine contamination, financial embezzlement and forgery have taken epidemic form in countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal. To this context, this research is an attempt to make critical study on the diversified modes of commission of white-collar crime and its impacts on socioeconomic values and orders of the South Asian countries. The paper further aims to analyse the relevant legal regime of the aforesaid countries dealing with such crimes within their territories. The study also examines various causes of white-collar crime taking place within these neighbouring countries. It lastly imparts some possible recommendations to safeguard their interest from the curse of white-collar crimes.

International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education

Dr. Shobhit Singh

White Collar Crimes denote those anonymous, impersonal, indirect and difficult to detect variety of crimes which have been tagged as concentrated in the upper classes and many a times countermanding the requirement of mens rea. These differ from the conventional crimes in the genesis, pertinacity of intent and responsibility, pedagogics of criminology and penal philosophy as well as the pattern of law enforcement, trial procedure and sanction applied. Hence, this research paper pinpoints at length the characteristics, types, causes as well as the convolution involved in dealing with these crimes. The approach of Indian judiciary has also been traced down to uncover its leaning towards the repression of such crimes. Furthermore, the research paper diagnoses the fact that when there have been plurative white collar crimes in the nature of accounting scandals, corporate crimes, financial frauds, industrial espionage, instances of money laundering, mortgage fraud, securities fraud, terr...

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Dr. Shahanshah Gulpham

Financial inclusion is the decade’s big achievement of the Government of India through the opening zero balance saving accounts mass level in nationalized scheduled banks. In recent past, India is facing big challenges to tackle the white collar and economic crime problems responsible for ruining the entire economic management and system of public policy allocations. The present paper is analyzing the various publicly concerned financial fraud and multiple economic offenses which are directly or indirectly affecting the country’s economy and responsible for sea-merging the financial condition of the nation. Even, there are multiple preventive provisions implemented to prevent such offences by the government and various initiatives taken parallel to combat the economic crisis. In this paper, a heuristic method of crime prevention has been suggested to tackle similar offences and reduce the occurrence of the frauds.

Tanusree Chakraborty

International Journal of Engineering Technology Research & Management

SIDHARTHA S E K H A R DASH

Concept of the legality of an action traverses through various popular and interchangeable words, yet adheres to specific meaning in every different legal circumstance. Illegal, unlawful, offence, irregular are seeming the same but the treatment given to these words in criminal jurisprudence worth exploration for learners of law. Every illegality is unlawful whereas every unlawful is not illegality. Immoral act not necessarily becomes illegal and irregular act without prejudice is curable. The author here analyses the concept of illegality for the beginners of law. Findings: Every illegality is unlawful whereas every unlawful is not illegality. Immoral act not necessarily becomes illegal and irregular act without prejudice is curable.

Dr. umer Ilyas

The objective of the study is to examine the dynamic linkage between instinct and white collar crimes. Unfolding key factors which effect criminal behaviour is at the heart of criminology. Over the period of time it is now worldwide accepted that the financial cost and physical harm caused by white collar crimes is much more than the impact of street crimes on any society. Studies have provided substantial evidence about society's concerns about white collar crimes. Laws were formulated for penalizing white collar criminals, but the area which still needs much of in depth study is about understanding instinct of white collars criminals. It is always suggested to be proactive rather than reactive. By unfolding instincts of these criminals' societies can have awareness before time from future financial and physical losses. The current study aims to guide researchers in unfolding white collar criminals instinct with the support of literature about corruption and white collar crimes so that they must be in a position to formulate preventive policies.

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