1. Please, READ the text below.
2. And, DISCUSS the following in BOLD, in a short paragraph:

• Definitions and forms of white-collar crime.

DEFINITIONS AND FORMS OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIME Half a century ago, Herbert Edelhertz (1970, p. 3), a former prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, proposed an alternative definition of 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 payment or loss of money or property, or to obtain business or personal advantage." The definition Edelhertz offered does not require a white-collar offender to be of high social status; instead, it focuses on the nature of the crime committed and on the way in which it is carried out.

Edelhertz (1970, pp. 8-11) outlines four types of white-collar crime:

Personal crimes: "Crimes by persons operating on an individual, ad hoc basis, for personal gain in a non-business context" Abuse of trust: "Crimes in the course of their occupations by those operating inside businesses, Government, or other establishments, or in a professional capacity, in violation of their duty of loyalty and fidelity to employer or client" Business crimes: "Crimes incidental to or in furtherance of business operations, but not the central purposes of such business operations" Con games: "White-collar crime as a business, or as the central activity of the business" David Simon (1996) proposes another termelite devianceto further describe white-collar crime. According to Simon and others, forms of elite deviance share common characteristics. In defining elite deviance, Simon (1996, p. 11) offers the following common characteristics:

The acts are committed by persons from the highest strata of society: members of the upper and upper-middle classes. Some of the acts are crimes in that they violate criminal statues and carry penalties such as fines and imprisonment. Other acts violate administrative or civil laws, which may also involve punishment. Other acts, although not illegal, are regarded by most Americans as unethical or immoral (i.e., deviant). Thus, elite deviance may be either criminal or noncriminal in nature. Some of the actions are committed by elites themselves for personal gain, or they were committed by the elites or their employees for purposes of enhancing the power, profitability, or influences of the organizations involved. The acts are committed with relatively little risk. When and if the elites are apprehended, the punishments inflicted were in general quite lenient, compared with those given to common criminals. Some of the incidents pose great danger to the public's safety, health, and financial well-being. In many cases, the elites in charge of the organization are able to conceal their illegal or unethical actions for years before they become public knowledge.

Marshall Clinard and Richard Quinney (1980) suggested several other ideas (referred to by others as subtypes of white-collar crime) to describe the complex nature and forms of white-collar crime. Table 12.1 presents definitions of white-collar crime and some specific examples of these offenses. Organizational or business crimes generally are "committed by an organization in the course of its regular business" (Clinard & Meier, 1998, p. 198).

A similar form of white-collar crime is corporate crime. Corporate crime involves any illicit activity by members of the organization to advance its interests. In short, the business rather than the individual benefits when corporate crime occurs. The term occupational crime is applied only to crimes committed by individuals in the context of the offenders' job duties. These offenders act solely in their own personal interest and typically do not benefit their employers.

Law professor J. Kelly Strader (2002) distinguishes white-collar crime from other forms of criminal activity, or what he calls "street" crime. To Strader, white-collar crime is different from street crime because it does not

Necessarily involve force against a person or property Directly relate to the possession, sale, or distribution of narcotics Directly relate to organized crime activities Directly relate to such national policies as immigration, civil rights, and national security Directly involve "vice crimes" or the common theft of property Government crimes are not unlike the types of white-collar offenses previously described. Public officials and other government employees, however, carry out these offenses. Alex Thio (1978) cites three motives for governmental criminal activity: (1) monetary gain, (2) the acquisition of power, or (3) condescending attitudes of government officials toward the public. Public officials and political candidates may accept illegal campaign contributions, embezzle government money, misuse taxpayer money, or further abuse power through criminal actions or discrimination.

Gary S. Green (1990) expands the idea of occupational crime by identifying four emergent categories. His typology of occupational offenses and offenders is as follows:

Organizational occupational crime: Crimes committed for the benefit of an employing organization. In such instances only the organization or the employer benefits, not individual employees. State authority occupational crime: Crimes by officials through the exercise of their state-based authority. Such crime is occupation specific and can only be committed by officials in public office or by those working for them. Professional occupational crime: Crimes by professionals in their capacity as professionals. The crimes of physicians, attorneys, psychologists, and the like are included here. Individual occupational crime: Crimes by individuals as individuals. This is a kind of catchall category that includes personal income tax evasion, the theft of goods and services by employees, the filing of false expense reports, and the like.

Table 12.1 White-Collar Crime

Occupational

A violation of trust by an employee, usually for personal financial gain.

Employee theft

Embezzlement

Insider trading

Fraud

Corporate

Offenses committed primarily to enhance the financial and competitive interests of the corporation.

False advertising

Consumer fraud

Antitrust violations

Price fixing

Environmental crimes

Government

Illegal activities engaged in by agents of the government to protect or advance the political position of an administration, regime, or ruling party.

Abuse of power

Bribery/corruption

Concealing illegal activity

Engaging in fraudulent activities is one of the major types of white-collar crime. Defrauding banks, insurance companies, and investment/securities schemes are examples of fraudulent crimes. False information is presented to gain a financial profit from the target (e.g., a bank, an insurance company) or to dupe a potential investor by misrepresenting the risks involved and the profits to be gained from the investment. Computer fraud and credit card fraud are also common forms of fraudulent criminal activity. Computer hackers steal identifying information to gain access typically to a bank or credit card account and pose as its rightful owner.

Ponzi schemes, like the one described at the start of this chapter, rank among the most lucrative fraudulent crimes. Ponzi schemes involve an investor who is convinced that in a short time his or her investment will yield a very high return. Funds are given to the organizer of the Ponzi but are never invested. Rather, the unusually high dividends paid to the new investor come from funds received from other investors. The new investor recommends that others quickly invest their money with the same broker. Large dividends are promised. The Ponzi scheme crashes when there are not enough "new" investors to generate the funds needed to keep the scheme going or when the organizer of the Ponzi leaves with all the funds.

Analyses of white-collar crime tend to focus on two dimensions: either the offender-based perspective, or the opportunity perspective. The offender-based perspective considers the status, power, and respectability of the perpetrator, while the opportunity perspective focuses on offenders with "access to resources to offend, and that hold organizational positions of power" (Benson & Simpson, 2015, as cited in Gottschalk & Gunnesdal, 2018).

In sum, the National White-Collar Crime Center highlights two central criteria for distinguishing white-collar crime from other forms of property offending. These criteria are

The status of the offender within the organization or community, which provides an opportunity to commit the crime The use of deception is necessary to carry out the crime. Deceptive strategies include: "misrepresentation of the perpetrator's abilities, financial resources, accomplishments, some false promise, or claim intended to deceive the victim, or possibly a deliberate effort to conceal information from the victim."

DEVIANCE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD Tumblr

This book is about deviance, and one special focus is on deviance in the digital world. Blogs have become a widely used method of expression in the online world. They allow an individual to create and share whatever he or she wants about any topic he or she enjoys. However, one issue with blogs is that they can be difficult to find, given that they are each a single website amidst the sea of the Internet. Tumblr is a popular social media platform because it allows its users to customize their own microblog and share it with other users within the website. This freedom of expression allows for wide boundaries and optional anonymity. What sort of deviance could be found on a site like Tumblr? Visit the site and identify some blogs that exemplify online deviance. In keeping with the theme of this chapter, see if you can find some blogs that discuss the white-collar crime category. One of the most popular is the White Collar Crime Professor's Blog, which can be reached at https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog. Compose answers to the questions in this box and submit them to your instructor if asked to do so.