Saturday, August 28, 2010

White collar crimes are wide spread in society


White-collar crime and its consequences are recognized from centuries which categorize number of crimes. Mostly business and government professionals are involved in series of frauds termed as white-collar crime because these are lucrative, comparatively risk-free, and nearly socially up to standard. Due to high occurrence of these crimes, security officials plan modern technique to fight back through prevention, investigation, and prosecution. When the term white-collar crime is conversed, people are encouraged to think decisively about the nature of crime, law, and criminal justice. In the criminal justice system, the focal point of the investigative efforts on the crimes of the poor. If it is viewed from same legal eye of the state, the crimes of the powerful are hidden. White-collar crime is defined as "those illegal acts which are characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust and which are not dependent upon the application or threat of physical force or violence.

Individuals and organizations commit these acts to obtain money, property, or services; to avoid the payment or loss of money or services; or to secure personal or business advantage. Generally the white collar criminals commit range of frauds to get personal financial gain. White collar crimes do not show any vicious activity, but the extent of these crimes are intense and it can bring about great economic loss for companies, investors. Computer fraud is characterized as the crime committed to perform a plan or illegal activity and the targeting of a computer with the intention to modify, damage, or put out of action the data of computer system. There are many examples of crimes which include offering missing goods to a buyer, stealing someone's funds by hacking into his bank or credit card account. Hackers find passwords and delete information, create programs to steal passwords, or even rummage through company garbage to find secret information. Embezzlement is another type of white collar crime, termed as the misuse of items with which a person has been assigned. Charges of embezzlement can even be levied if the embezzler intended to return the property later. Employee theft is most common example of embezzlement. Company employees can have access to company property so they can easily misuse the property. Numerous examples can be quoted such as theft of retail items, discounted sale of retail items, and theft from cash registers.

Health care frauds are a stereotypical white collar crime in which highly qualified medical practitioners and health supervisory abuse their posts and professional skills through misleading nonviolent tactics such as fake bills just for individual financial gain. Environmental crimes are the infringement of laws which are made to protect the environment and human health. Littering, Improper waste disposal, Oil spills, Destruction of wetlands are some of the Environmental crimes. Perpetrator of Environmental law violation is fined, put on experimentation, sent to jail. Financial crimes are major white collar crimes. These are any non-violent felony that is committed by or against an individual or corporation and lead to great fiscal loss. These frauds include tax evasion, cheating of company funds, and the sale of fictitious insurance plans.

Another category of serious white collar crime is government fraud, which is an unlawful act that deliberately rid the government of funds through trickery. When the government gets fiddled, taxpayers pay the price. Procurement and contractor fraud are examples of costliest government fraud. In Identity theft the criminal use the personal information of another in order to commit fraud. Crooks of this type of crime have to face heavy penalties if trapped. Insurance fraud is very common in which offender forged claims to an insurance company, personal injury and property damage claims that are overstated in order to collect extra reimbursements. Mail fraud is committed by using Postal Service or any private or commercial interstate mail carrier, such as Mailboxes, etc. Money laundering is a felony in which lawbreakers hide the resource and objective of illegitimately acquired funds. Public corruption is an act of violating the public official's duty of faith towards his or her society. Anyone who is elected, appointed, hired, or employee of a constituency of citizens commits crime on the state, or local level when an official takes favorable decision in exchange of offered some value. Securities fraud is committed by white collar criminal such as corporations, broker-dealers, analysts, and private investors when the executor intentionally deceives investors for financial profits. The culprit of tax evasion deliberately and illegally avoids paying mandatory taxes to the government. Telemarketing fraud fall under white collar criminal in which wrongdoer make some plan that uses telephone contact to fraudulently rid its victims of funds or assets. The most regular type of telemarketing frauds are prize offers and sweepstakes, magazine sales, credit card sales.

In today's hi-tech world, white collar crimes are creating a serious trouble for government. People who commit white-collar crimes are sometimes the same kind of people who are in a position to see to it that their crimes are not defined too detrimental. While the impact of white-collar criminals leave an immense impact on the nation but the cost to each individual is petite. Practically it is observed that no effort from police department goes into skirmishing white-collar crime.

Our social system is corrupted by number of white collar crime and it is a great challenge for us to discover suitable resolution to the increasing menace of white-collar crime. These crimes are directly affecting the economy of the nation and the public's confidence, therefore corrective action must be taken immediately for preventing, detecting, investigating, and prosecuting economic crimes in order to minimize their outcome. Main blockade to get to the bottom of the white-collar crime hazard is that the public is not aware of its seriousness. It is more important to create wakefulness and businesses, and the nation's lawmakers must be convinced with its significance in identifying that such high-tech and economic crimes have an undesirable effect on society. Mostly people are innocent and they are not aware of the degree to which their lives, financial status, businesses, families, or privacy might be pretentious by electronic crime. A rock-hard inspection or accounting background is obliging to detect white-collar crime because swindlers are very clever and they can manipulate the situation very well.

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