White Collar Crime

White Collar Crime components A fraud Involves the violation of a social relationship of trust Involves some measure of surreptitious activity Involves some measure of creativity

Ermann and Lundman typology Deviance Against Owners Deviance Against Employees Deviance Against Customers Deviance Against the Public

Deviance Against Owners 1. Constitution Foods, Lumber, and Mint 2. Travel Chalet 3. Enron 4. Equity Funding

Deviance Against Owners Lessons learned: Appeal to the greed of the mark Difficult and costly to prosecute, so cases are often not pursued, and if pursued hard to win a. often complex; difficult for prosecutor to explain things to the jurors b. very easy for defense to confuse jurors c. defendants are often “upstanding citizens”

Deviance Against Employees Unsafe working conditions (OSHA) Coal mines Asbestos Meat packing plants Raiding pension funds Enron Hoffa Deposit/loan kickback schemes

Deviance Against Customers *Filing false financial reports (Enron; Equity Funding) *Sale of defective products (Corvair; Pinto) *Dumping defective products *Manufacturing & sale of counterfeit products *Stock and bond fraud (Ponzi scams; insider trading) *Bid rigging and price fixing (TVA scandal)

Deviance Against the Public * Environmental degradation (Bhopal: Love Canal; Rocky Flats) *Tax fraud/tax evasion (Times Mirror) * Identity theft * General financial fraud (land fraud, oil fraud, check kiting, illegal campaign contributions, medical fraud, contract fraud) * Money laundering