NCJ Number
192935
Date Published
2002
Length
513 pages
Annotation
This volume details specific forms of white-collar crimes and discusses the causes, societal responses, and consequences of white-collar crime.
Abstract
The text emphasizes the pervasiveness of white-collar crime across a wide range of institutions, including business, government, the medical profession, and religious organizations and includes selected cases from the past to demonstrate that white-collar crime has a long history. Individual chapters examine consumer fraud, noting that it is the most prolific of all white-collar crimes, and detail the sale of dangerous or defective products to consumers. Additional chapters focus on environmental offenses, offenses against occupational safety and health, insider trading in stocks, corruption of mass media and religion, securities fraud, the savings and loan scandals of the 1980’s, and related frauds within fiduciary enterprises such as pension funds and insurance companies. Further chapters focus on abuses of authority among government officials, crimes through which organizations and agencies have sought to achieve covert governmental goals through unethical or illegal means, corruption of public officials, Medicaid fraud, and computer-related crime. The final chapter examines societal, institutional, and organizational causes of white-collar crime; the distinctive manner in which police agencies, the mass media, and the general public respond to white-collar crime; and broader economic, environmental, and human consequences. The analysis concludes with a discussion of some effective strategies for controlling white-collar crime. Case examples, chapter reference notes, and index