NCJ Number
138292
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 56 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1992) Pages: 26-33
Date Published
1992
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The concept of white-collar crime is examined by defining the concept, analyzing its major components, and identifying its victims and the response of society and the judicial system to its offenders.
Abstract
White-collar crime, which is not an official legal category, frequently is used to group offenses with common characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of violent property and public order offenses. These generalized definitions pose numerous problems as they lack precision and provoke extensive controversy. Common elements of white-collar crime, outlined by Edelhertz et al. (1977), include: awareness on the part of offenders that their activities are wrongful or at least very much in a gray area; a disguise of purpose; a focus on the victim's susceptibility, ignorance, or carelessness; inducement of the victim to voluntarily perform an act for the scheme to be realized; and efforts on the part of white-collar offenders to ensure that they never are recognized as criminals. Victims of white-collar crimes, which may be occupational or organizational, include individual, business, and governmental victims. It is too soon to assess the impact of sentencing reform upon white-collar offenders. However, it appears that many more will be sentenced to penal terms based upon the Federal sentencing grids as operationalized in 1987, thus altering a pattern of inconsistency in society's reaction to the white-collar offender. 44 references