The Discovery of White Collar Crime - Essay Example

“White collar crime tends to refer to crimes committed at a business by a businessman or woman”, (Conjecture Corporation, 2011). Sutherland, in his December 27, 1939 speech, asserted the fact that when people are surrounding by individuals who have criminal behavior, they are more likely to get involved in criminal activities. This called for the justice system to pose punishments upon these white collar criminals; however, these punishments will be mush lenient from those given to violent criminals because white collar criminals are not actually aggressive criminals who commit crime in series.

Schlegel and Weisburd (1994, p.4) state that when Sutherland brought forward the concept, he was himself very much confused about the idea because he used words like “respectability, high social status, and occupation”, in his definition. . ed either through computer or through paper, is often committed by people belonging to the middle class or the upper class because people get influenced by their origins. And since they belong to high social status, the crime may go undetected and if at all detected, then the criminals are able to hire expensive lawyers to defend their cases and they are also kept in prisons that have minimum security measures.

Thus, they enjoy freedom even in their prisons. Why a white collar crime is considered as less punishable than violent crimes is still questionable because many white collar crimes tend to be more harmful to the people. If a white collar criminal steals all the funds that included people’s savings of their lives, then the victims are made to lose everything if the money is not recovered. But they are still punished less and are given many concessions as compared to other criminals because they belong to a higher socio-economic status.

According to FBI, “White-collar crimes cost the United States more than $300 billion annually” (Karri & Associates, 2006). The concept of white collar crimes changes the way criminologists studied crime. Before this phenomenon, they looked at crime as an activity which can only be performed by street muggers and people belonging to lower social class. But after this concept was introduced, the rich and the poor, all were considered equal in the case of criminal activities. Thus, Sutherland was able to bring the powerful people at an equal status with the poor in the eyes of the Court of Justice and made sure that the rich people do not escape punishment due to their powerful political connections and strong financial position.

Sutherland and His Contributions Sutherland pondered upon the concept when he took his sociological