White-collar crime

White-collar crime is a phrase that refers to crimes perpetrated by people, corporations, and government personnel that are financially motivated, nonviolent, or not immediately violent. Edwin Sutherland, a sociologist, was the first person to describe it in 1939. He said that it was "a crime perpetrated by a person of respectability and high social position while they were engaged in their vocation." Theft of wages, fraud, bribery, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, labour racketeering, embezzlement, cybercrime, copyright infringement, money laundering, identity theft, and forgery are examples of typical white-collar crimes. There is some crossover between white-collar crime and corporate criminality.

The resources at the disposal of a prospective criminal directly influence the nature of the crimes that are committed. Therefore, people who are working in settings that require relatively low levels of competence have less opportunity to abuse than those who operate in surroundings in which significant financial transactions take place. Blue-collar crimes, such as vandalism and stealing, are often more evident to the public and, as a result, get a greater degree of active police attention. White-collar workers, on the other hand, have the ability to blur the lines between lawful and illegal activity, which allows them to commit crimes while drawing less attention to themselves. As a result, crimes committed by blue-collar workers are more likely to involve the use of physical force. On the other hand, in the business world, the identification of a victim is less obvious, and the issue of reporting is complicated by a culture of commercial confidentiality that is intended to protect shareholder value. It is anticipated that a significant portion of white-collar crime is either not discovered at all or, if it is discovered, is not disclosed.