Definition of White Collar Crime and Commercial Crime and the Differences Between Them

Introduction.

The writers of this assignment encompass a comprehensive aspect of victim -commercial crime. For one to be the victim of a commercial crime has to experience a crime committed against him or her with the offender’s motive to gain something of value from the victim. Therefore, for an offender to engage in this kind of crime has to do it to benefit from it financially if not to commit it for the fun of it.

Definition of concepts

Crime

According to Bartol (2008:24) crime is an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by the law.

Victim

It is a person who is harmed, injured or murdered as a result of a crime (Shapland, 2007:84).

Commercial crime

It covers crime such as fraud which is deceiving a person or a company to get goods and money through forgery. It is caused by greed, common criminality and uncertainty about employment (Peacock, 2013:55).

White collar crime

It is the crimes committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the cause of his occupation (Peacock, 2013:56).

The difference between white collar crime and commercial crime

The types of white collar crimes

• Insider Trading

Another common white collar crime is that of insider trading. Insider trading involves people using connections that they have on the inside to buy or sell stock before the relevant information is made public. For example, someone who knows that a company may be facing a lawsuit or a layoff may decide to sell stock before the information is released in order to sell at a higher rate. Conversely, a person may wait to buy until the bad news hits in order to purchase at a lower price. In contrast to some other white collar crimes, regulators have become increasingly savvy ate detecting certain trades that seemed to be based on tipped off information. It may be difficult for a person to hold onto stock knowing that this may ultimately mean losing money when they have confidential information. (Beiner and Messerschmidt, 2000:138).

• Money Laundering

You could also be charged with a white collar crime if you have been found to launder money. Money laundering occurs when someone takes dirty money, which is dirty because it was acquired illegally, and launders it until it can be mixed with clean money. The money is typically taken from accounts and other places and deposited into the suspect’s accounts. The money is then laundered by mixing it in with clean money so it is hidden in plain sight. (Beiner and Messerschmidt, 2000:139).

Wage theft

Wage theft is the illegal practice of withholding wages from an employee. It is common among low wage workers and illegal immigrant workers.

Wage theft can happen in the following ways:

1. No pay at all.

2. Employee misclassification, this occurs when employees are misclassified as independent contractors.

3. Not paying overtime.

4. Deductions in pay.

5. Minimum wage violations.

• Forgery

Beiner and Messerschmidt (2000:177), state that forgery is a white collar crime that generally refers to the false or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone. For example when someone forge money with the intention that he or she shall induce somebody to accept it as genuine and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice.

• Ponzi schemes

It is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profit to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from product sales or other means and they remain unaware that other investors are source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds and as long as new investors do not demand full payment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own (Shapland, 2007:84).

• Cybercrime

It is a crime that involves a computer and a network, the computer may have been used in the commission of a crime or it may be the target. Cybercrime can be defined as offence that are committed against individuals or groups of individuals or groups of individuals with a criminal motive to intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental harm, or loss to the victim directly or indirectly, using modern telecommunication networks such as internet and mobile phones, cybercrime may threaten a person or a security and financial health (Milton, 2013:13).

• Identity

It is the deliberate use of someone else’s identity usually as method to gain a financial advantage or obtain credit and other benefit in the other person’s name and perhaps to the other person’s disadvantage or loss. The person whose identity has been assumed may suffer adverse consequences, especially if they are held responsible for perpetrator’s action. This happens when someone uses another’s personally identifying information like their name, identifying number or credit card number, without their permission to commit fraud or other crimes (Peacock, 2013:98).

• Embezzlement

Van Dijk (2007) state that the embezzlement is the act of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purpose. For example, a lawyer might embezzle funds from the trust accounts of their clients, a financial advisor might embezzle the funds of investors, and a husband or wife might embezzle fund from a bond account jointly held with the spouse.

The types of commercial crime

• Theft

According to Milton (2018:23) theft is defined as the unlawful and intentional appropriation of moveable corporeal property which belongs to and is in the possession of another. in essence, theft is accompanied by an assault. However, Burch ell and Milton point out that it is regarded as a more serious crime than the sum of its parts. it is essentially a crime that is associated with the streets. Theft causes greater sense of fear among the general public than ordinary thieves or con artists because they use callous, open ruthlessness and violence or terror to force their victim to submit.

Theft possesses a double element of fear of losing one’s property and fear of losing one’s life. Robbery is a form of theft and no robbery may be classified as such in the absence of theft. A completed crime of theft is an important provision for robbery too be classified as such. The accused is only guilty of assault of assault if the act of theft is not completed

A threat of violence should comply with the following requirement such as it should be a threat of physical violence and also the threats should be one of immediate violence. Only certain specified categories of theft may be regarded as white collar or commercial crimes. For example it is obvious that the person who steals laundry from a washing line or steal motor vehicles cannot be classified as a white collar criminal. The white collar criminal referred to is the person who steals money by, for instance altering the share register of a company reflecting his or her principal as a shareholder so as to misrepresent himself or herself, or his or her own company as the shareholder (Milton, 2013:13).

• Fraud

Sunman (2008:33) refers to fraud as the unlawful and intentional of misrepresentation which causes actual prejudice or which is potentially prejudicial to another. Fraud can be described as a crime where the victims suffers or may suffer any kind of loss as the result of placing his or her trust in misrepresentation made by the perpetrator. Fraud is the unlawful and intentional making of misrepresentation which causes actual prejudice or which is potentially prejudicial to another. Elements of the fraud are the following misrepresentation, prejudice or potential, unlawfulness and the intention. For example, the true of the white- collar fraudster is usually a charming as compared to commercial crime, well-educated individual who relies on guile and deceptions to trick the unsuspecting victim into parting with their hard earn cash.

• Extortion

The crime of the extortion is committed when a person unlawfully and intentionally obtain some advantage, which may be of either a patrimonial or a non-patrimonial nature, from another by subjecting the latter to pressure which induces her to hand over the advantage. The element of the crime is the acquisition of a benefit by applying pressure causal link between the pressure and the acquisition of the benefit unlawfulness and intention

The extortion also referred to as blackmail and may therefore be seen as the reverse of bribery in that it is an offence committed by s person in stronger position against someone in a weaker position the so called top down crime. For example using the same example of the motorist arrested for speeding or for drunken driving, the traffic official or the police official solicits some of the gratification to allow the offender to go free. Sunman (2012:23

• Bribery

Bribery means receiving and offering of unauthorized gratification to or by a person who is party to an employment relationship. Despite changes, this offence is still referred to as bribery although strictly speaking I tis form of corruption. It is so called bottom up crime committed by a person in a weaker position to influence someone in as stronger position to act or not to act. An example is where a motorist who is arrested for speeding or for drunken driving offers the traffic official or police official some form of unauthorized gratification to allow that person to go free. Usually, money is regarded as a gratification but it could even be sexual in nature (Sunman, 2013:14).

• Corruption

Corruption is an crime against the public and statutory crime regulated by the provisions of the prevention and combating of corrupt activities act 12 of 2004. any person why, directly or indirectly accepts or agrees or offers to accept any gratification from any other person, wither for the benefit of himself or herself or for the benefit of another person or gives and offers to give any other person any gratification, wither for the benefit of that other person or for the benefit of another person in order to act, personally or by influencing another person so to act, in a manner that amounts to the illegal, dishonest, unauthorised, incomplete,or biased and misuse.

Selling of information or material acquired in the course of the exercise, carrying out or performance of any powers, duties or functions arising out of the constitutional, statutory, contractual or any other legal obligation that amounts to such as the abuse of a position of authority, a breach of trust and the violation of legal duty or set of rules is guilty of the offence of the corruption (Sunman,2013:112).

The impact of commercial crime on victims

• Consequences of commercial crime on victims

In most cases such people who engaged themselves under such crime of fraud when a company start realising that it is longer functioning in a usually way they start to investigate and in most cases when investigation occurs and the perpetrators are found they normally loose their jobs and some of them they even get criminal charges or punishment as form of imprisonment, a worse part of it is that it might not just be one or two people who committed such crimes but the might even be almost 50% of the employees and might be possible that even though they performed their work accordingly but as a results the company also collapse.

• Psychological effect of commercial crime

Psychological effects such as anger, depression or fear, which in serious cases, can cause sleeplessness, flashback to the offence or post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Van Dijk (2007:30) feeling of anxiety through shock that such a thing has happened and worries about repeat victimization, sometimes leading to feelings of loss of trust in one’s community and in society. Limiting one’s social life or work life, or changing one’s lifestyle, by not going to places like where the crime occurred or being afraid to go out altogether, because of unease or fears of repeat victimization (Shapland, 2007:94).

• Social effect of commercial crime

Corruption in the allocation of contracts to provide services to a community results not only in taxpayer’s money being wasted, but also in communities not receiving the services that they entitled to. For example in this regards are roads not being maintained, and the lack of water, sanitation and electricity, which are just few of services negatively affected due to incompetent officials. Nepotism is always a danger when contracts are awarded. Official award contract to close family member, and even to themselves through self-companies, without mandatory disclosure of their interest, so the rich get richer the poor get poorer (Bartol, 2008:89).

The strategies of overcome White collar and commercial crimes

White collar crimes

The first way of preventing a white collar crime to occur is to track internet activities, since majority of these crimes are committed online sometimes by employees. Software can be installed to monitor such activities in one’s business. Knowing that there is a software in your work place monitoring what you’re doing on the internet will prevent employees from engaging in illegal cyber acts.

Another method one can use is to keep on updating their business system. The more the system is Kept updated, the strong the firewalls or security within that system is. It will be hard for one to commit a crime because some systems once they are updated they can track any offender.

In a business whereby a computer is a tool of work, the owner can give their employees their personal unique codes to use when logging in a the system. In that way it will be easy to track who committed a crime since the computer will show the details of that person. It is also advised to plot cameras in a business area like offices, despite the fact that it invades the privacy of the employee but it is at the best interests of the company to see or record what the employee is up to. Rules are made in every premise; the owner of that specific business can establish rules that his or employees will live up to. Like stating that the computers are strictly for work nothing more, nothing less if caught you’ll lose your job. This will reduce the use of company resources for personal use, like social networks.

Commercial Crime

Most of the commercial crimes are physical crimes. Burglary is one of those crimes and it can be prevented by installing alarms in one’s property or hire a private security. The use of armed respondents it is also advised to be considered by the business Organisations. These armed respondents will respond to where the alarmed has triggered and they can catch criminals while on act of committing a crime.

Robbery or armed robbery to be precisely is another crime that businesses encounter mostly because there are many valuables things the offenders can get their hands on like money, expensive machines the business uses and even the personal belongings of the stuff. This robbery can be prevented by placing security guards at every entrance of the premise to control the accesses into the property. The company can also install gates that will require the fingerprints of the staff to open, in that way criminals will have no or will not be able to enter the into property.

Conclusion

We are all the victims of commercial crimes, the distinctions of merely a matter of degree, most, if not all of those crimes are committed by combinations of deception, abuse of power and greed. And also South Africa at large is affected by white collar crimes as anywhere else, a good corporate government should prevail in all business sectors and the individual must also try to prevent white collar crimes because is the right thing to do.