White-collar crimes entail non-violent criminal activities in the commercial or business situations, mainly committed for financial gain. Majority of these crimes are prosecuted by the federal government and are very serious.
Even though white-collar crimes vary, most of them have several characteristics in common. First, people use deceit and concealment instead of applying force or violence to gain illegitimate property, money or services.
Secondly, white-collar crimes involve abuse of positions of trust and power. Public officials abuse their positions by soliciting and accepting bribes. White-collar crime is usually hard to detect than other types of crime because losses may not be noticed immediately by the victims and because most of these crimes involve sophisticated schemes and cover-ups.
White collar crimes have increased over the years. Traditionally, these crimes were considered less serious than other types of crime, but over the last few decades, there has been a growing recognition of the damages that they cause.
The cost of white-collar crimes to society is more than that of organized crime. It cannot be measured in monetary damages alone since it can also compromise the safety, pose health risks, lead to organizational failures, and cause injuries or even fatalities.
- Fraud
Fraud crime involves misrepresenting facts through words and actions for financial gain. The deceit is deliberate and meant to make the victim to take action. The action typically results in a financial injury. Not every false statement qualify to be considered a fraudulent act; the statement must be regarded as a material fact.
False pretense is also another type of fraud. It involves defrauding somebody by using false statements for financial gain. It mostly involves transferring personal property. There is also forgery crime under fraud. This is when someone falsely changes a document or creates a signature or document that is not their own with the intention to fraud another person.
- Embezzlement
Embezzlement involves misuse or abuse of position or trust to obtain money without legal authority, usually from an employer. For embezzlement to occur, some factors must be present. First, there has to be a financial relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. Second, the perpetrator must have acquired the property through this financial relationship and transferred possession to himself/herself, and finally, the perpetrator’s actions must have been deliberate.
- Tax evasion
This is also a form of whit-collar crime. It happens when the perpetrator attempts to avoid taxes that they would otherwise owe. Tax evasion includes filing tax forms with false information, illegally transferring property to avoid tax obligations, etc. Both individuals and businesses can commit criminal tax evasion. Just like fraud, there are several ways to that tax evasion crime can be committed.
- Bribery
Bribery can be defined as the act of giving or receiving money or another item of great value to influence a public official to discharge his or her official duties. When money has been offered or promised in exchange for that particular act, the official that is involved need not to actually accomplish the act for the offense of bribery to be complete; the crime is still punishable as a felony.
