Sutherland- White collar crime is crime committed by a person of respectability and high status in the course of his occupation. This can lead to occupational crime which is crime committed by employees for personal gain and corporate crime which is crime committed for the company’s benefit. It’s said the corporate crime does far more harm than ordinary crime as it has enormous physical, environmental and economic costs. Examples of this include financial crimes (Tax evasion), crimes against consumers (selling unfit goods), crimes against employees (health and safety laws) and crimes against the environment (toxic waste dumping)
The abuse of trust
Professionals occupy positions of trust and respectability that give them the opportunity to violate this trust e.g. accountants have been involved in tax fraud and money laundering. In Sutherlands view, this makes WCC a greater threat to society than WC street crime because it promotes distrust of key institutions.
The invisibility of corporate crime
CC is often invisible or not seen as real crime because the media give very limited coverage and often describe is as technical problems, there is a lack of potential will to tackle CC, CC is complex as law enforces are under resourced to investigate, de-labelling as offences are defined as civil and there is no jail time, only fines and underreporting as the victim is society at larger rather than a particular individual. Victims may not know they have been victimised and not regard it as real crime. They may also feel powerless and pointless into taking it to court as the corporations can afford better lawyers and more likely to win the case.