Atlanta-Based Federal Criminal Defense Attorney Examines White Collar Crime, Defined

Atlanta federal criminal defense attorney

This week, Atlanta-Based Federal Criminal Defense Attorney Jeff Manciagli offers some insight into the relatively new “white collar crime”, a term first coined by Professor Edwin Sutherland as recently as only 1939.

“Professor Sutherland first coned the term to differentiate the attributed characteristic differences and under-laying motives of what he called a ‘white-collar criminal’ from those of typical street criminals,” the Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney explains.

As it’s told, Mr. Sutherland originally presented his theory in an address to the American Sociological Society, proposing dedicated study to two distinct fields, crime and high society, which had no previous empirical correlation or relation between the two defined per terms of written law.

His definition’s ideology was “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation,” detailing the very early foundations of how corporate criminals of diverse nature came to be defined once such offenses were detailed, and laws against them were passed. Even in passing those laws, the definitions of what the courts see as White Collar Crime are to this day under evaluation, and teeter between both state-level and federal level quadrants of regulation.

Sutherland noted that in his time, “less than two percent of the persons committed to prisons in a year belong to the upper-class.” His goal was to prove a relation between money, social status, and likelihood of going to jail for a white-collar crime, compared to more visible, typical crimes. Statistics still show a large majority of those in jail are poor, “blue-collar” criminals, despite efforts to crack down on corporate crime. However, there is a large margin for corporate and white-collar crime, and the window for committing such acts widens in margin as business grows more successful, with every passing day.
Despite the great lengths that Professor Sutherland went to in describing exactly what he categorized as white-collar crime, the clarity of the subject was, and is still a broad and ambiguous point of debate.
Sutherland saw white-collar criminals are opportunists, who over time learn they can take advantage of their circumstances to accumulate financial gain. They most often are educated, intelligent, affluent and confident individuals who were qualified enough to get a job which often times allows them unmonitored access to large sums of Corporate dollars. White collar criminals have been known to typically con their victims into believing and trusting in their credentials, only to use that trust against the unknowing and trustingly vulnerable.

Many do not start out as criminals, and in many cases never see themselves as such. One problem with these types of criminal is that they’re often so smart, that their greed and selfishness lends to them believing in the wholesomeness of their own illegal and unethical practice. This, in turn, leads to one of the grossest criminal plagues looming over our nation. It’s not even a matter of if a large-scale Corporate CEO, CFO or President will embezzle money or otherwise rob his company or consumers. It’s only a matter of when.

For more information on federal and white collar criminal defense in the state of Atlanta, Visit the website of Jeff Manciagli for more information.