Crimes Of The Rich And Powerful Criminology Essay

White collar offenders get away with their crimes easily and rich get richer poor get . It seems obvious that power inequality affects the quality of people’s lives. The rich and powerful live better than the poor and powerless. Power inequality affects the type of deviant activities likely to be engaged in (Barak 2000). The powerful are more likely to perpetrate profitable crimes such as corporate crime while the powerless people are more likely to commit unprofitable crimes such as homicide and assault and power can also be an importance cause of deviance. For example more likely for bank executives to cheat customers quietly than for jobless persons to rob banks violently.

Crime committed by respectable people of high social status in the course of their work and this is called white collar crime (Sutherland 1961 ) white collar crime occurs at several levels. Embezzlement for example it is committed by employees against companies and companies also commit white collar crime too when they engage in pricing fixing, sell defective products, evade taxes pr pollute the environment.

When companies are the perpetrators white collar crime is often referred to as corporate crime and sometimes corporate crime is more closely parallels organized crime than it does anything else. For example accountants ,auditors, and executives working for Enron corporation worked together to hide the company’s debts exaggerate its profits and pull in money from investors whom they tricked into buying their stock for much more than it was worth (Coleman2002)

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White collar crime brings heavy costs to society most scholars and law enforcement officials believe that the money loss due to corporate crime dwarfs that lost through street crime in addition to the economic cost there are social costs as well white collar crime can cost lives when tainted medicines or dangerous cars are sold , safety precautions are flouted on factory lines or toxic chemicals are dumped by manufacturers into rivers and streams the cost of white collar crime go beyond the actual money involved in the crime itself. The reasons for white collar crime are similar to those for street crimes. People want more than they can legitimately get think the benefits of a crime outrun it is potential costs (Young 2009)

In these days the magnitude of white collar crime in our society challenges the popular image of crime as a lower class phenomenon. Instead this appears that people of different status simly haqve different opportunities to commit crime. Those people in lower status are hardly in the position to engage in price fixing , stock manipulation and tax evation. They are in a position

White collar crimes are far less likely to be offcialy investigated and prosecuted than converntional crimes. In the simplest term what occurs in the streets is more visible and more easily inveatigated than what occurs in the suite.

Its hard to detect and it realy can be hard to notice if crime has accurred e.g fraud, tax fraud and shop theft there are also few good reasond that why business in UK and other companies don’t want to talk about white-collar crime its because the firms may not want to admit that they have been victim of theft and this can effect on their own business they may also not want to admit that their staff committed a crime.

Since crimes were attempts to gain personal advantage by force or fraud they could obviously be committed by the rich and powerful they could certainly involve force or fraud and they could clearly be committed without punishment by the state. Some doctors commit murder and doctors sometimes cheat on medicare and lawyers have been known to misuse funs entrusted to them by their clients: business executives sometimes angage in bid rigging : labor union executives sometimes embezzle funds from pension plans and also manufacturers sometimes dispose of toxic chemicals in wyas contrary to law.

Other criminal activities that are often missed by official and many sociological measurements of crime are those conducted by the powerful in society (pearce, 1976) crimes of the powerful is largely those commited by rulling groups and governments, corporate crime is that crimes commited not so much by individuals but rather by boards for example chair persons and including the breaking of the Health and Safety Work Act and white collar crime that crimes committed by professional people such as tax evasion, business fraudand insider trading. White collar drimesis difficult to estimate the extent and influence of whitecollar crime on victims because all too often those who suffer the consequences of white collar crime are ignored by victimologists.

Entry 2: Culture and crime

Wide differences in cultural heritage and value system have a direct impact on rates of crime and it is obvious that there are many cultural differences between the America and Japan that doesn’t mean that Japanese approaches to crime prevention cannot work in America (Freilich & Guerette 2006).

In Japan the society’s emphasis on apologies and resolving disputes outside the police and the court this can effect on reporting crime, prevent crime and this leads to crime stays on low level in Japan. When we pick the robbery case is the most fearful street crime in America is much higher than Japan for example in 2002 America recorded 182 and for each robbery in Tokyo New York had 462. Robbery rates for England, Germany and France do not approach those in America but resident of those countries are still twenty to thirty times more likely to be held up than people living in Japan. Even when we think about South Korea have same similarity with geographically and culturally with Japans and closest neighbour and has robbery rates 6.5 times than Japan (Gilman& Levy2005 ) culture plays important role in to control crime and prevent crime. There is also a lack of confidence in America and people likely to act as witness and they likely to report crime.

While some people can effectively cope with strain some certain people have traits that may make them particularly sensitive to strain. These include an explosive temperament being overly sensitive or emotional low tolerance for adversity and poor problem solving skills. Aggressive people who have these traits are likely to have poor interpersonal skills and more likely to be treated negatively by others and their combative personalities make them feared and disliked. These people are likely to live in families whose caretakers share similar personality traits. They are also more likely to reject conventional peers and join deviant groups.

In summer 2004 a dramatic murder trial took place in New York City that aptly illustrates how lower class cultural concerns the code of the streets clash with the rules and values of American culture and how deviant cultures can exist side by side with middle class culture.

According to the studies the relatively high U.S. crime rates can be explained by the interrelationship between culture and institutions. The dominance of the American Dream mythology ensures that many people will develop wishes and desires for material goods that cannot be satisfied by legitimate means that people are willing to do anything to get ahead from cheating on tests to get higher grades to engaging in corporate fraud and tax evasion and those people who cannot succeed become willing to risk everything including a prison sentence(Valier 2004).

American dream have a different effect on people depending on their place in the social structure. The studies shows that the American dream had a greater effect on whites than African Americans the reason is that whites may have greater expectations of material success than African Americans whose aspirations have been tempered by a long history of racial and economic deprivation. When whites experience strain they are more apt to react with anger and antisocial behaviour.

At the institutional level the dominance of economic concerns weakens the informal social control exerted by the family, church and school. In my opinion these institutions have lost their ability to regulate behaviour and they have instead become a conduit for promoting material success. Parents pushing their kids to succeed at any cost and schools encourage the kids to get in to the best colleges by any means possible as well as religious institutions promote their wealth and power because religion lets you down all the time when you are keen on it too much.

Entry 3: Race, ethnicity and crime

I strongly not agree with the government recent policy change on immigrants. Te immigrants have faced the challenges involved in living in a new and different political and cultural environment. Many immigrants have faced discrimination in one form or another because of their colour and their inability to speak English fluently or their customs. After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 reinforced the belief that he rights of immigrants should be limited and the government start passing a number of laws that could affect immigrants life in future emotionally and financially for example to apply for a passport you have to go through the citizenship and Naturalisation law stages in order to get your passport and it costs about £800 per person age 18.

Black people being the victims of crimes as well as the perpetrators of crime due to their position in areas of social deprivation (Newburn 2003) some poor and disadvantaged people do commit crime because they are poor and disadvantaged. Some of these people get end up staying in prisons and courts as a result. This does not mean that the poor and disadvantaged commit most crime. Black people are likely to be stopped and searched by the police and there are a higher proportion of arrests following these searches and black people receive harsher treatment in the court and in sentencing procedures. According to the Home Office statistic in June 2001 ethnic minorities for 19 percent of the male prison population (12 % black and 2% Asian) (Roberts 2003). The institutional racism operates within the criminal justice system people with different background with different religion e.g. has always been treated differently and classified as second class people within the eyes of justice. Also the Stephen Lawrence inquiry report highlighted the problem of disproportionality and indicated the discrimination was a major problem and also this research has actually pointed to racial stereotyping by the police and black people are likely to get stop and search than white people. In Stephen Lawrence case was 18 black students were hoping to become an architect and was fatally stabbed while waiting for the bus that was a racial attack but police investigation failed to bring the killers into justice this had a big influence on black community.

During the early nineteenth century there was not any race and crime issue. This was not due to lack prejudice or indeed a lack of crime. It was because there were relatively few immigrants living in the UK. Black and lower class populations have the highest rates of street and index crime involvement in the UK. (Frank 2009) and Sociological theories argue that the location and experiences in the social environment are responsible for these differences in crime involvement (Calvin & Gerald ). In an early contribution to the sociology of knowledge DeGre (1995) observed that all science including those disciplines not involved in the study of human society are part of the tertiary institutions of a culture being influenced by the larger constellation of stresses and strains, cultural values, technological accomplishments and needs and overall definitions of life goals that characterize the social group society and world situation in which they are operative. No one comes into the world with criminality in the way in which one is born with a certain colour of eyes and crimes committed by immigrants are more frequently prosecuted than those committed by white people because immigrants are less likely to defend themselves legally and they are less often in a position to secure a good lawyer and they are more promptly sentenced to prison and in the court stages they are likely to plead guilty to drop their sentence to a lower level this is because they are come from a different culture different belief and different laws that they faced in their own countries and there always a language barrier

There is a media effect on race and ethnicity from TV news and from movies people are getting the wrong ideas on immigrants and religion. Media plays important role here in my opinion media shows the criminal act and report them to the public in a negative way rather than report them in a positive way. Because it is a personal interest of media personnel. One more importing thing as well as this if the media giving the news related to crime with fascination in this case the crime ratio of that specific crime will increase for example if in newspapers the news about terrorism is reported so frequently then in this situation the ratio of stop and search will increase according to the British Crime Survey BCS a number of stop and search has actually gone up after the 7/7 London bombing.

Entry 4: Future trends

The actual volume of crime in Britain has been going down for over a decade or more. Violent crime has also not risen particularly even though the media plays it up big time. The majority of offenders in prison or in front of the courts have little to do with violence and the average custodial sentence is less than 12 months. Even domestic violence is down.

Certain categories of crime are higher than ever but actually not as high as previous years and quite stable e.g. gun crime. IN fact if we remove gun crime and knife incidents from the forms of violence black people especially experience we would be relatively free from physical violent crime.

Other crimes seem higher than before because the Home Office has changed the police recording procedures to make the clear up and conviction rates look good but that does not mean there has been any serious increase in these crimes.

But you can’t talk about crime and not talk about the negative effect from the media. Older people generally and white elderly in particular have a greater fear of crime even though they have a significant less exposure to it and one reason is they are so heavily dependent on the media and less mobile and able to see for themselves…The media in particular target this group and love to frighten the shit out of them and it plays into the party politics and games they love to play.

In policing style the police agencies use current statistics to spot crime trends in order to formulate the future law enforcement plans. The internet and the continued evolution of a digital economy offer expanding possibilities for such cyber crime as credit card fraud. atm fraud, identify theft, various computer hacking crimes and even the exploitation of children through internet based child pornography. The technology will play an important role in the future of criminal investigation and police work generally. The future of effective policing will be depending on strengthening the ties between the police and the communities they serve. Because UK is a divert country the police must represent the community and must embody its values and must be perceived as acting on behalf of the community and this requires a commitment on the police leaders as well as individual officers so the public will gain the trust of the police and they will be more confident in the CJS.

It is hard to think about the future of crime trends because current conditions can change rapidly as some criminologist believe that crime rates may eventually rise as the number of teens in the population increases only some of criminologist believe this. I think the age structure of society is one of the most important determinants of crime rates but the economy, technological change and social factors will play an important role in crime rate in the UK.

If unemployment continues to increase which will be and more attention will be paid to white collar crime and fraud as a result of the massive business failures in the banking, security and housing industries . The race and crime conundrum may become less important as crime and victimization. When the economy turns down people who are unemployed will become more motivated to commit theft crimes and that a good economy will reduce the number of crime. The good positive way is a poor economy actually will help lower crime rates because unemployed parents are at home to supervise their children and guard their possessions. Because there is less to spend

I think age in crime will effect crime rate in future because teenagers have extremely high crime rates kids who commit a lot of crime early in childhood are also likely to continue to commit crime in their adulthood.

CCTV does work and works best when it is used alongside wider strategy of partnership working between the police and councils and local communities to tackle crime locally and nationally. When it comes to the crime prevention the CCTV is the most effective in reducing crime for example in car parks is most effective when targeted at vehicle crimes and it is more effective in reducing crime in the UK than in other countries. The CCTV can increase the public confidence and the public will likely to support Criminal Justice System for example in reporting crime and act as a witness. Also in recent terrorist investigations including 7/7 London bombing and 21/7 and the conviction of Steve Wright for Ipswich murder that CCTV has played a important role in detecting crime and protecting the public .

The new crime threat will be cybercrime if things go as they are. This would be any crime that involves an information system and includes ID theft. As technology advances people are going to be more brazen to commit cybercrimes from home

Transnational crime organisation will continue to grow in diversity in many regions in the world. Developed countries like England and America will bore affected by TCSs than in the past.

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Freilich D, Guerette(2006) Migration, culture conflict, crime and terrorism Ashgate Publishing, Ltd

Valier ,C (2004) Crime and punishment in contemporary culture Routledge London

Rodney D. Coates (2004) Race and ethnicity: across time, space, and discipline Publisher BRILL

Newburn T (2003) Crime and Criminal Justice Policy London Pearson Education

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Author Larry J. Siegel (2008) Criminology Publisher Cengage Learning