White Collar Crime

White collar crime has been present for many years. It may have been over looked, but it still was present even in the twentieth century. White collar crime can be defined as nonviolent, illegal activities that principally involve traditional notions of deceit, deception, concealment, manipulation, breach of trust, subterfuge or illegal circumvention. White collar crime is a broad category containing many different types of offenses. Even things such as music piracy seem to fit this definition. Small crimes such as music piracy or illegal prescription drug buying is not really enforced much because these are not really major crimes. The criminal in this crime is probably an elderly individual or child. Most prosecutions of white collar crime happen to big business owners and not local citizens engaging in piracy. There really isn't a clear cut reason behind this phenomenon. My theory on the whole issue is that business owners are well known most of the time. They are respected men or women in society. If they engage in such a crime they would probably create the most social havoc then an elderly person would that bought illegal prescription drugs. No one is going to care about a senior citizen buying drugs but attention would be enticed by business executives smuggling money and getting rich. The ironic thing about white collar crime is that the crime itself is not all that important. What I mean by important is that its affect on society is much greater than the monetary losses that happened because of it. When you engage in white collar crime you are misleading, lying, and being somewhat of a con man to all those individuals present around you and to those in society. This violates the trust of all those in your society. Now you have an unstable society, disorganized society, and a distrustful society. Those other crimes mentioned before don't have this much of an affect on social institutions or social organizations.

Many people feel as if crimes are just something that poor or disadvantaged people engage in. White collar crimes may not be your traditionally conventional crime, but that does not insist that it isn't true crime. There is also this big notion of only the rich and powerful commit white collar crimes. Most white collar criminals are ordinar7y every day citizens. Financial problems can induce someone into committing white collar crimes. Business fraud is as common in the business settings as are street crimes in poor communities. During white collar crimes, it is not the big executives who are prosecuted, but it is the small town managers that get caught and prosecuted. With white collar crimes being rarely prosecuted, it makes it even easier for the so-called "big fish" to get away.

White collar crimes cost the U.S billions of dollars per year. Fraud and other types of abuse cost U.S. organizations more than $400 billion annually. This amount of money is in no comparison to the low cost of money that conventional crimes cost. On average organizations lose more than $9 per day per employee to fraud and abuse. The average organization loses about 6% of its annual revenue to fraud and abuse committed by its own employees. This seems to be something totally different from conventional criminals status. Men do commit most white collar crimes, committing over 75% of them. Managers cause four times the amount of loss as employees. The most costly abuses happen in organizations with less than 100 employees.

There are many different types of white collar crime present in society. Insurance fraud is one of the most lucrative white collar crimes present. Insurance fraud can be false claims made to insurance companies. This could also include personal injury and property damage claims that are exaggerated so that the individual can receive more money. Insurance fraud can include fraudulent automobile accident claims, phony workers' compensation claims, fraudulent health care billings, and catastrophe fraud. So one can imagine how much money is lost to fraud each year. Insurance fraud costs the U.S. sixty to eighty billion dollars annually, and results in more than $96 billion in yearly premium increases.

The first fraudulent scheme that I will discuss is the topic of automobile insurance fraud. According to the Insurance Fraud Institute, the majority of the claims they receive of bodily harm are exaggerated. Many of these people may be hurt, but not to the extent to which they claim to be. Many of these people only want reimbursement for high insurance premium costs, but these claims are what drive up the premium costs in the first place. This accounts for one-third of all insurance fraud cases. Some fraudulent cases come from staged accidents or inflated repair show estimates. Repair may even damage someone's property to purposely raise the amount of the price range that it would cost to get the car fixed. This may seem as if the