Sociology

White collar crimes refer to non-violent criminal activities that are perpetrated by businesses or individuals like office staff or sales people in the course of their duty. The terminology was defined by Edwin Sutherland as he presented a speech to the American Sociological Society. These crimes include misappropriation of funds, corruption, unjust competition, tax avoidance, and unjust labor dealings (Dininni, 2007). The original intention of the terminology was as a categorization of perpetrators but has extended to include a wide range of non-violent criminal activities that include aspects of deceit and dishonesty as their core component (Podgor, 2007).   
    
Conventionally, perpetrators of white collar crimes were prosecuted sporadically. It was also very rare for such criminals to face prison sentences or any reasonable sanctions. The major reason for this as been cited as the complexity of the criminal activities. A lot of finances are involved in preparing and trying the perpetrators (Podgor, 2007). However, in the recent past, due to the public consciousness on the huge economic burden to the society as a result of these crimes, law enforcement agencies have started to prosecute these criminals. Both the federal and state laws have enlisted the kinds of criminal activities that are considered as white collar crimes. The commerce clause of the United States constitution provides the federal government with the power to control these criminal activities. Quite a number of federal law enforcement agencies participate in enforcing white collar crime law.

Additionally, many of the states have their own law enforcement agencies for the enforcement of the legislation. In nations that use the Civil law in their justice systems, there are a few special enforcement agencies that are used in dealing with white collar crimes. Instead, ordinary law enforcement officers, often led by specialized financial law enforcement carry out investigations of white collar crime. As far as dealing with this kind of crime is concerned in the United States, the federal government has a number of enforcement agencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) supervises the financial markets to control and detect fraud. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has a list of the crimes that are considered white collar (Dininni, 2007). 

In the recent past, white collar crimes have been on the increase probably as a result of the transformations in demographic and economic factors. Changes in technology have also increased the incidence of white collar crimes. White collar crime has become a widespread predicament in the society. Nevertheless, this crime has for a long time been overlooked probably due to the fact that it does not cause direct harm to people. It has been assumed because it is not as dangerous as other crimes like homicide. As a result, the society has failed to realize the serious cost of these crimes to the United States production industry and consumers. It is evident that these kinds of crime whether perpetrated by businesses or individuals, have severe financial and social consequences to the United States society. In any situation where financial costs are involved, the net consequence of the variety of white collar crime is increased fiscal burden for the average United States citizen. This is because these kinds of crime increase the cost of business transactions. Such increase is ultimately passed on to the public by increasing the costs of products. Whenever a firm suffers a loss as a result of a white collar crime, it compensates by raising prices for consumers (Podgor, 2007). This can also result to lower pays for the workers or even cutting employment opportunities. The effect can continue to increase when the workers become unable to repay their loans and become unable to access credits. In cases of stock fraud like it happened in America in the 1980s, investors can loose trust in the stock market. This means that a country can loose a lot of money. The impact of white collar crime to the society is serious, but the exact statistics are very hard to come by. This is due to the secretive nature of the crimes and the difficult in finding correct data (Podgor, 2007).