These are crimes that are committed by persons who have a high social standing while executing their duties. Those committing white collar crimes take advantage of their positions to generate a lot of financial gains that are not due to them. These are the affluent, educated confident of the society. Through their employment, they are able to find an opportunity to make unchecked access to big sums of money. They are able to use their brain power to rip off large sums of cash from their victims. Most of the effects of white collar crimes are of financial nature although they can also harm workers, public or the consumer for example the dumping of toxic wastes.
White collar crimes can affect other workers in a company unconsciously without being realized, they are cooperated into the system of white collar crimes and it poses a threat to the jobs of these workers. Many companies are losing a lot of money through cheating and embezzlement, running them down and resulting into unemployment. For the white collar crimes sentence for punishment constitutes; fines, imprisonment, disgorgement, community service, probation and many other types of punishment. There are some countries that are making very harsh sentences for criminals of white collar crimes line China.
The types of white collar crimes include bribery, blackmail, bank fraud, computer fraud, cellular phone fraud, counterfeiting, credit card fraud, currency schemes, embezzlement, and environmental schemes – over billing, forgery, and the list is long. Features of white collar crimes include: crimes that are intricate, refined and very technical, their actions tend to be mixed with genuine behavior which becomes confusing. The harm caused by white collar crimes is spread over a large number of criminals making it difficult to understand or identify the crimes. Though white collar crimes involve large sums of money, the crimes are extended over a period of time and they use symbols and not tangible objects.
The characteristics of white collar crimes include perpetrators who are motivated by the profit that they get out of their actions. These crimes can be learned through peer support and can easily spread fast without being realized. Sometimes these crimes are not reported while they are still in the nib and then they slowly diffuse in the other workers. This kind of crimes cannot be easily defined. If assessed it is common to find that the white collar criminals are not the rich and powerful, but the offenders are just ordinary people who get into financial problems and imagine their way out of the situations through unlawful and deceitful measures.
Given white collar crimes, the people who commit small crimes are the ones who are caught, but those who commit big offences are never caught. This is because the serious offenders insulate themselves from being prosecuted. In terms of conviction, the higher the socio-economic standing of the criminal the more serious the sentence imposed. Most senior managers are able to cover their backs and use the junior workers to perpetrate the crime.