Social Organization and Power

1
Organized (White Collar?) Crime
Defining the concept The term white collar
crime coined by Sutherland (1939) Significant
because it moved the field away from crimes of
the street towards upper-world crime and
interest in complexity of social organizations as
criminal resources Crime committed by a person
of respectability and high social status in the
course of his occupation Sutherland focused on
crimes of business acts that were violations
of federal economic regulations (as opposed to
embezzlement, etc.)
2
Social Organization and Power

• Organization as a weapon to cause harm
• Organized Crime (IOC groups)
• State Organized Crime (Value Jet Crash)
• Occupational Crime (Physician Fraud)
• 2 Scales to consider
• Organizational Complexity
• Victimization More serious (often sophisticated)
  white collar offenses produce greater levels of
  victimization

3
Social Organization and Power

• Organizational Complexity provides power to do
  more criminal/financial harm

From Weisburd, Wheeler, Waring and Bode (1988)
4
White Collar Crime

• The Cost of White Collar Crime
• WC far outstrips losses from street crime
• Financial Costs
• Average take for a robbery 434 (1978) 4
  billion total
• Bribery 3-15 billion
• Price-fixing Anti-trust up to 350 billion
• Welfare fraud 1 billion
• Enron losses estimated at 50-100 billion (2002)
• Unnecessary surgeries 4 billion
• Health/Life Costs
• Roughly 20,000 homicides annually in the US
• National Safety Council estimates 14,000
  deaths/year due to workplace accidents
• 100,000 deaths/year due to occupationally related
  disease
• Estimates of 40-50 of all work-related deaths
  are the result of legal violations (as opposed to
  hazardous work conditions not in violation of the
  law)

5
Explaining White Collar Crime

• Mertons Anomie Theory (Ch. 5)
• Legacy of Durkheim
• Anomie - normlessness
• No regulation on individual desires
• R.K. Mertons Anomie/Strain
• Individual Adaptation to Social Conditions
• Social Condition/Structure composed of two
  elements
• Cultural Goals
• Institutional Means

6
Explaining White Collar Crime
Type of Cultural Institutional Adaptation
Goals Means Conformity Innova
tion - Ritualistic - Retreatist -
- Rebellion -/ -/

• Implications
• Structural Distribution of Institutional Means
  is Unequal
• Cultural emphasis on success leaves individual
  aspirations unchecked
• -One of the elements of the bond (regulation) is
  not accomplished
• -This is the result of people being successfully
  attached (or integrated)
• -This is truly Anomic a culture that does not
  provide its members with the social elements
  necessary to bond and control their behavior.

7
Relevant Chapters

• 32. International Organized Crime
• Narcotics as a money-making venture
• Often links to legitimate businesses
• Different from street gangs?
• Globalization of deviant/criminal enterprise
• 33. The Crash of Valuejet Flight 592
• Typical of Sutherlands definition of White
  Collar Crime Corporate Crime
• New idea State-Corporate Crime gtgt Govt. as
  criminal actor
• What is the role of the government (or regulating
  agencies charged with protecting the public)?
• 38. Opportunity and Crime in Medical
  Professions
• Protective Cloak
• Status
• Altruism
• Autonomy
• Types of Crime
• Kickbacks