Discussing The Sentencing Disparities

Edward Sutherland was the first man in history who studied white-collar crime, where he later published an article widening the field of criminology in considering more than just typical street crime. White collar crime is determined as “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation’, while street crime is an illegal offence that usually takes place or begins in a public place (White-collar crime vs. street crime essay, n.d.). Throughout this essay, we will be elaborating further on the concept of white-collar crime and street crime, and the sentencing disparities between these two criminal offences.

White-collar crime is a financial offence which involves robbing, deceiving, and cheating. This type of crime is generally committed by a person of high social status and integrity such as businessmen, representatives of the government, officials, and other socially power- ful positions. Such type of crime includes examples like false bankruptcy, industrial espionage, fraud, tax evasion, and corruption.

It does not involve one to one physical harm; however, the consequence of the deed is devastating. Nonetheless, it can still cause bodily injury to a person, for instance, some organisations can act double as dangerous as a street offence. Hence white-collar crime can be indeed further critical than street crime (White-collar crime vs. street crime essay, n.d.). Although these type of crimes are not what society would describe as violent crime, they can still destroy multiple lives. Moreover, these types of crimes have a significant impact on the nation’s economy.

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White collar offences cost the United States roughly 300 billion dollars annually. Unfortunately, when a business suffers money loss due to white-collar crimes, it has to make up for its failures in some way which usually results in termination of multiple jobs, cutting down on employee’s wages, and also potentially increasing the price of their services or products Miller (n.d.).

In contrast to white-collar crimes, street crimes are usually committed in the streets which often has its perpetrators under the influence of drugs or alcohol (White-collar crime vs. street crime essay, n.d.). Thefts, robberies, rape, murder, and vandalism are all types of street crime which as a result, they are considered to be the most dangerous examples of misconduct due to their violent nature. Street criminals are usually young offenders who commit these type of offences so that they would be able to meet the need for purchasing alcohol and drugs. In addition to this, the situation in the street creates a psychological fear of the people living in that particular area. Wealthy white-collar criminals hire the most expensive defence lawyers in the world to represent them in court while typical street offenders cannot support such luxuries (White-collar crime vs. street crime essay, n.d.). Stylianou (2003) argues that individuals distinguish crime based on their regulating cul- ture and general beliefs on formal social control.

Early research, according to Rossi, Waite, Bose, and Berk (1974) implied that white-collar offences were not seen as critical concerns and were portrayed as lack of concern by the citizens, particularly concerning crimes perpe- trated against an individual or the community (Geis, 1973). Weisburd, Waring, and Chayet (1995) states that for the white-collar criminals, a short-term penitentiary sentence will not SENTENCING DISPARITIES: WHITE-COLLAR AND STREET CRIMES 2 contribute further than a slight influence beyond the occurrence of sentencing, punishment, and prosecution. According to C Goff and N Nason-Clark (1989), even though specific forms of white-collar offence are recognised as being severe, mainly when there is physical harm involved, there is little understanding about people’s point of view when involving the gravity of street crimes opposed to white-collar crime. White-collar violations were not perceived as being severe, particularly when contrasted to offences charged against an individual or society itself, as argued by Geis (1973).

Furthermore, when it came to punishment, white-collar offenders did not get caught, prosecuted, and punished as necessary. In the post-Watergate research condemning white-collar crime, Hagan and Palloni (1986) noted that perpetrators were more prone to undergo jail penalties, however, these penalties were usually for lesser duration measures than those received for common street crime sentences. During those penalised cases, they endured less severe penalties and completed their term in minimum- security facilities. Hence, the necessity for white-collar perpetrators to undergo lengthy penitentiary punishment, was insignificant since the white-collar criminal was considered to be especially receptive to the threating remark of penalising. Thus, it was discouraged by solely getting engaged within the criminal prosecution system. However, this vulnerability was because of the idea that the white-collar criminal remained logical, with further to suffer than the street crime offender; therefore, further sensitive to penalty.

As noticed by Hagan and Parker (1985), several crimes were expensive and complicated to condemn, which eventually resulted in sentences not proportionate to the violation or also a decrease in charges with more sympathetic penalties. The final decision is not only based on the type of crime committed but also on many factors such as matrimonial situation, gender, age, ethnicity, education, social status, income, political opinions, and also previous criminal records. Consequently, while it is assumed that any of this correspondence is relevant to the prevention-based thoughts toward street violation, it is not solely dismissed that they will link in the corresponding direction to the white-collar violation. Also, it is speculated that analytical attributes like knowledge and earnings may not correlate likewise to penalty warnings proportional to the two separate crime types.

Benson and Moore (1992); Wheeler, Mann, and Sarat (1988) argue that probably people with high-level of knowledge and raised wages will be inclined to observe the performance of a white-collar criminal set against street crime. Thus, having a lower possibility of apprehension and when caught, be sentenced less harshly than for street crimes. Simultaneously, high-level of education and income are also requirements for earning a white-collar job. Besides, those having white-collar professions tend to have more knowledge about fraud and make it a point that the offence goes mostly undiscovered (Benson & Moore, 1992; Wheeler et al., 1988). As stated by Sutherland University of Portsmouth (2012), some white-collar perpetra- tors evade criminal prosecution because of the position prejudice of the judges. Judges have widespread concern under national sentencing legislation. The court must take into consideration the gravity of the offence, the need to prevent criminal behaviour, defend the citizens and avoid unfair sentence disparities amongst related offenders.

However, the final SENTENCING DISPARITIES: WHITE-COLLAR AND STREET CRIMES 3 decision of the sentence is not all in the hands of the judges. Remarks made by Bonn (2017) on the FBI illustrate that the yearly expense of street crime is $15 billion whereas white- collar crime is estimated to have reached $1 trillion. A current settlement by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit (The United States Court of Appeals, n.d.) outstands the competing viewpoints on deciding a suitable penalty for white-collar offend- ers. For example in the United States v. Sample, the court overthrew a probation sentence concerning the defence who deceived investors over $1 million after pleading guilty to counts on wire and mail fraud charges. The advised judgment for the Sample’s violations exceeded the five-year mark.

The magistrate regularly emphasised the significance of restitution in his determination. Therefore, he believed that it is better if the defendant stayed in his current high-paying job rather than go to prison; done so that he could pay back his victims. Mr Sample was confined to probation for five years. The court claimed that if the defender did not have his huge paying business and his expertise to secure those amounts, the court would give the offender a different penalty. That is one of the purposes why the court was amenable to locate the offender on probation because of his employment and earning capability. The 10th Circuit ruling argued that people are confused by the court’s implied proposal because if the offender was to be poor or a member of a lower social class, then the offender might instead be sentenced to serve time in prison. Furthermore, the plea court discovered that depending on the accuser’s money as a justification for decreasing a sentence was inappropriate, taking Mr Sample’s wages as reversing all other ruling factors overstepped the bounds of legitimate alternatives.

Another similar case is that of Mr Trump’s former chairman, Mr Manafort, who stood condemned concerning two sums of bank fraud, five sums of tax fraud and one sum of neglecting to uncover an international bank statement. In the case of bank fraud, it cannot only outrage an economic system but also places taxpayers at jeopardy of having several damages. However, the court has not decided till this day, and they planned to schedule the hearing in December. Eventually, white-collar offenders usually argue for no prison time, or at least a small penalty so that they would be able to return to their jobs while being fruitful citizens to their society. Additionally, Congress founded the United States Sentencing Commission (Henning, 2018) to embrace the national sentencing direc- tions was to eradicate the difference between white-collar crimes and street crimes further. However, the choice of how much a sentence should be forced continues to be a challenging matter.

On the one hand, white-collar offenders can lead to living free from wrongful treatment while also writing letters from relatives and friends demonstrating to their humanity and commitments while on the other hand, it is not something that is likely to happen when convicting, for instance, a drug trafficker. The United States Sentencing Commission (Hen- ning, 2018) believe that first-time white-collar criminals do not generally re-offend. Thus, this makes them more commiserative, which regularly drives to smaller penalties. Brian K. Payne (2012) argues that white-collar crimes are perceived as evenly severe as street crimes that have nearly the equal components. In contrast to the latter, their punish- SENTENCING DISPARITIES: WHITE-COLLAR AND STREET CRIMES 4 ments differ in various ways. Despite the widespread damage white-collar crime does, it is a lot troublesome to discover because it needs many hours to formulate a case and they usu- ally do not include grievous physical injury or killings (White-collar crime vs. street crime essay, n.d.).

Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law (2009) claims that it is complicated to exe- cute white-collar crime offenders because they have a way to multiple means to cover their actions and the illegal doing can be disguised within a fair economic project. These type of crimes are referred to be non-violent crimes though prompted by financial profit. When it comes to prioritising the people, it is important to say that law enforcement companies are obliged to centre their demanding consideration on violent crimes rather than on financial crimes. It is safe to say that street crimes are considered violent crimes since because they are more noticeable. In these crimes, circumstances differ because there are always the victims who have been seriously injured or wounded (White-collar crime vs. street crime essay, n.d.).

Therefore, these offences are given higher preference for preventing the offend- ers from re-offending. In all, the necessity to solve street crimes and locate the offender is of higher value for law enforcement agencies. On another note, CULLEN et al. (1985) observed that some particular white-collar crimes such as producing hazardous merchan- dises and selling poisoned food were regarded as being graver in several circumstances than loaded theft and arson. Furthermore, many of the respondents supported incarceration for antitrust criminals and defrauders more than for thieves and prostitutes. In conclusion, both of the discussed criminal offences yield devastating outcomes, and thus, should be prosecuted as such.

White-collar perpetrators may not seem as frightening or dangerous when compared to street criminals, but they do far further harm to the community. Both of the violations have their victims, and therefore, the consequences of these offences can be very damaging to society. Although they are entirely different regarding the crime itself, both can cause physical injury upon the individual. However, their punishments strongly differ in many separate ways. Subsequently, street crimes are given higher importance so that they prevent criminals from committing the same again and again. Therefore, the need to find the perpetrators of street crime and resolve the crime committed is of high priority for law enforcement agencies, primarily since such crimes tend to offer the highest direct threat to the public physical safety.

References

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