WHITE COLLAR CRIME

1. Lecture 15: Responding to the Challenge of White Collar Crime WHITE COLLAR CRIME

2. Goal • To achieve a more effective response to white collar crime. • How? • Raise consciousness about white collar crime. • Adopt structural, normative, and preventative policies.

3. Business ethics courses • Ethical committees/ombudsmen • Ethics or compliance officers • Sanctions

4. Positive Sanctions • Use of pleasant incentives/rewards to make people conform to laws prohibiting white collar offenses. • E.g., grants, tax credits, favorable administrative consideration.

5. Negative Sanctions • Actions that discourage the repetition or continuation of behavior. Can range from mild to severe, formal to informal. • E.g., imprisonment, fines, adverse publicity; stigma.

6. Four justifications for punishment: • Retribution: punishment should be comparable in severity to the deviance itself. • Deterrence: requires that the pains of punishment outweigh the pleasures of deviance.

7. Rehabilitation: views deviance as the product of social problems (e.g., poverty) or personal problems (e.g., mental illness); social offenders are improved and offenders subjected to intervention appropriate to their condition. • Social Protection: believes that if society is unwilling or unable to improve offenders or reform social conditions, protection from further deviance is necessary by incarceration or execution.

8. Formal Sanctions • Formal sanctions are applied in a public setting. E.g., awarding a prize (positive), announcing a fine (negative).

9. Informal Sanctions • Actions by groups/individuals that arise spontaneously with little or no formal direction. E.g., smiles, handshakes (positive); frowns, gossip, impolite treatment (negative).