whitecollar crime



In the sociological field, crime is the breach of a rule or law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a punishment. The word crime originates from the Latin crimen (genitive criminis), from the Latin root cernō and Greek κρινω = "I judge". Originally it meant "charge (in law), guilt, accusation."

When society deems informal relationships and sanctions insufficient to create and maintain a desired social order, there may result more formalized systems of social control imposed by a government, or more broadly, by a State. With the institutional and legal machinery at their disposal, agents of the State are able to compel individuals to conform to behavioural codes and punish those that do not. Various mechanisms are employed to regulate behaviour, including rules codified into laws, policing people to ensure they comply with those laws, and other policies and practices designed to prevent crime. In addition are remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal justice system. Not all breaches of the law, however, are considered crimes, for example, breaches of contract and other civil law offences. The label of "crime" and the accompanying social stigma are normally reserved for those activities that are injurious to the general population or the State, including some that cause serious loss or damage to individuals. The label is intended to assert an hegemony of a dominant population, or to reflect a consensus of condemnation for the identified behavior and to justify a punishment imposed by the State, in the event that an accused person is tried and convicted of a crime. Usually, the perpetrator of the crime is a natural person, but in some jurisdictions and in some moral environments, legal persons are also considered to have the capability of committing crimes.



Legislatures pass laws (called mala prohibita) that define crimes which violate social norms. These laws vary from time to time and from place to place: note variations in gambling laws, for example. Other crimes, called mala in se, are nearly universally outlawed, such as murder, theft and rape


  • One can view criminalization as a procedure intended as a pre-emptive, harm-reduction device, using the threat of punishment as a deterrent to those proposing to engage in the behavior causing harm. The State becomes involved because they usually believe costs of not criminalizing (i.e. allowing the harms to continue unabated) outweigh the costs of criminalizing it (i.e. restricting individual liberty in order to minimize harm to others).
  • Criminalization may provide future harm-reduction even after a crime, assuming those incarcerated for committing crimes are more likely to cause harm in the future.
  • Criminalization might be intended as a way to make potential criminals pay for their crimes. In this case, criminalization is a way to set the price that one must pay (to society) for certain actions that are considered detrimental to society as a whole. In this sense criminalization can be viewed as nothing more than State-sanctioned revenge.

States control the process of criminalization because:

  • Even if victims recognize their role as victims, they may not have the resources to investigate and seek legal redress for the injuries suffered: the enforcers formally appointed by the State have the expertise and the resources.
  • The victims may only want compensation for the injuries suffered, while being indifferent to a possible desire for deterrence (see Polinsky & Shavell (1997) on the fundamental divergence between the private and the social motivation for using the legal system).


The first civilizations had codes of law, containing both civil and penal rules mixed together, though not always in recorded form. The Sumerians produced the earliest surviving written codes, and it is known that Urukagina had an early code that does not survive. A later king, Ur-Nammu left the earliest code that has been discovered, creating a formal system of prescribed penalties for specific cases in 57 articles, the Code of Ur-Nammu. The Sumerians later issued other codes including the "code of Lipit-Ishtar" (last king of Isin - 20th century BCE). This code contains some fifty articles and has been reconstructed by the comparison among several sources.

Successive legal codes in Babylon, including the code of Hammurabi, reflected Mesopotamian society's belief that law derived from the will of the gods (see Babylonian law). (Many states at this time were theocratic, and their codes of conduct were religious in origin or reference.)

Sir Henry Maine (1861) studied the ancient codes available in his day and failed to find any criminal law in the "modern" sense of the word. While modern systems distinguish between offences against the "State" or "Community", and offences against the "Individual", the so-called penal law of ancient communities was not the law of "Crimes" (crimina); it was the law of "Wrongs" (delicta). Thus, the Hellenic laws treated all forms of theft, assault, rape, and murder as private wrongs, and left action for enforcement up to the victims or their survivors (which proved a challenge in that although laws existed, there were no formalized courts in the earliest system). It was the Romans who systemized law and exported it to their Empire. Again, the initial rules of Roman Law were that assaults were a matter of private compensation. The significant Roman Law concept was of dominion. The pater familias was in possession of all the family and its property (including slaves). Hence, interference with any property was enforced by the pater. The Commentaries of Gaius on the Twelve Tables treated furtum (modern theft) as a tort. Similarly, assault and violent robbery were allied with trespass as to the pater's property (so, for example, the rape of a slave would be the subject of compensation to the pater as having trespassed on his "property") and breach of such laws created a vinculum juris (an obligation of law) that could only be discharged by the payment of monetary compensation (modern damages). Similarly, in the consolidated Teutonic Laws of the Germanic tribes, there was a complex system of money compensations for what would now be considered the complete range of criminal offences against the person from murder down.

Even though Rome abandoned its Britannic provinces sometime around 400 AD, the Germanic mercenaries who had largely become instrumental in enforcing Roman rule stayed on and continued to use a mixture of Roman and Teutonic Law, with much written down under the early Anglo-Saxon Kings. But only when a more unified kingdom emerged following the Norman invasion and the kings of England attempted to assert power over the land and its peoples did the modern concept emerged, namely that a crime is not only an offence against the "individual", it is also a wrong against the "State". This is a common law idea and the earliest conception of a criminal act involved events of such major significance that the "State" had to usurp the usual functions of the civil tribunals and direct a special law or privilegium against the perpetrator. All the earliest criminal trials were wholly extraordinary and arbitrary without any settled law to apply, whereas the civil delictual law was highly developed and consistent in its operation (except where the King wanted to raise money by selling a new form of Writ). The development of the idea that it is the "State" dispensing justice in a court only emerges in parallel with or after the emergence of the concept of sovereignty.

In continental Europe, Roman Law persisted, but with a stronger influence from the Church. Coupled with the more diffuse political structure based on smaller State units, various different legal traditions emerged, remaining more strongly rooted in Roman jurisprudence modified to meet the prevailing political climate. In Scandinavia, the effect of Roman law did not become apparent until the 17th century, and the courts grew out of the things, which were the assemblies of the people. The cases were decided by the people (usually largest freeholders dominating) which later gradually transformed into a system of a royal judge nominating a number of most esteemed men of the parish as his board, fulfilling the function of "the people" of yore.


The development of sociological thought from the 19th century onwards prompted some fresh views on crime and criminality and fostered the beginnings of criminology as a study of crime in society. Nietzsche noted a link between crime and creativity in The Birth of Tragedy he asserted: "The best and brightest that man can acquire he must obtain by crime". In the 20th century Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish made a study of criminalization as a coercive method of state control.

Natural-law theory







Governments criminalise antisocial behaviour — and treat it within a system of offences against society — in order to justify the imposition of punishment. A series of distinctions are made depending on the passive subject of the crime (the victim), or on the offended interest(s), in crimes against:

Or one can categorise crimes depending on the related punishment with sentencing tariffs prescribed in line with the perceived seriousness of the offence with fines and noncustodial sentences for the least serious, and (in some States) capital punishment for the most serious.


Researchers and commentators may classify crime into categories, including violent crime, property crime, and public order crime.

U.S. classification


Analysts can also group crimes by severity, some common categorical terms including:


Crimes against international law

Crimes defined by treaty as crimes against international law include:


Religion and crime

Socially accepted or imposed religious morality has influenced secular jurisdictions on issues that may otherwise concern only an individual's conscience. Examples of activities that have been criminalized on religious grounds are alcohol consumption (prohibition), abortion and stem cell research. In various historical and present-day societies institutionalized religions have established systems of earthly justice which punish crimes against the divine will and specific devotional, organizational and other rules under specific codes, such as Islamic sharia or Roman Catholic canon law.

Military jurisdictions and states of emergency


Many constitutions contain provisions to curtail freedoms and criminalize otherwise tolerated behaviors under a state of emergency in the event of war, natural disaster or civil unrest. Such activities may include assembly in the streets, violation of curfew, or possession of firearms.

Employee crime

Two common types of employee crime exist: embezzlement and sabotage. The complexity and anonymity of computers may help sinister employees camouflage their crimes. The victims of the most costly scams are banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, and other large financial institutions. Most people guilty of embezzlement do not have criminal histories. It is more likely that they have a gripe against their employer, have financial problems, or simply can't resist the temptation of a loop-hole they have found. Screening and background checks on perspective employees can help; however, many laws make some types of screening difficult or even illegal. Fired or disgruntled employees sometimes sabotage their company's computer system as a form of 'pay back'. This sabotage may take the form of a Logic bomb, a computer virus, or creating general havoc.

Some places of employment have developed measures in an attempt to combat and prevent employee crime. Places of employment sometimes implement security measures such as cameras, fingerprint records of employees, and background checks. Although such methods have been subject to debates on privacy issues, they serve a good purpose to the companies using them. Not only do these methods help prevent employee crime, but they protect the company from punishment and/or lawsuits for negligent hiring.

See also




  • Aquinas, Thomas. (1988). On Law, Morality and Politics. 2nd edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. ISBN 0-87220-663-7
  • Attenborough, F. L. (ed. and trans.) (1922). The Laws of the Earliest English Kings Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprint March 2006. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-583-1
  • Blackstone, William. (1765-1769). Commentaries on the Law of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765-1769, Vol. 1. (1979). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-05538-8
  • Blythe, James M. (1992). Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03167-3
  • Cohen, Stanley (1985). Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment, and Classification. Polity Press. ISBN 0745600212
  • Daube, David. (1969). Roman Law: Linguistic, Social and Philosophical Aspects. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-85224-051-1
  • Driver, G. R. & Mills, John C. (1952-55). The Babylonian Laws. 2 Vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-825110-6
  • Dworkin, Ronald. (2005). Taking Rights Seriously. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-86711-4
  • Foucault, Michel (1975). Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, New York: Random House.
  • Gagarin, Michael. (1986). Early Greek Law. Reprint edition (1989). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06602-2
  • Garner, Richard. (1987). Law and Society in Classical Athens. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-00856-2
  • Guterman, Simeon L. (1990). The Principle of the Personality of Law in the Germanic Kingdoms of Western Europe from the Fifth to the Eleventh Century. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0731-3
  • Hart, H.L.A. (1961). The Concept of Law. 2nd revised edition (1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-876123-6
  • Hart, H.L.A. (1972). Law, Liberty and Morality. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0154-7
  • Kern, Fritz. (1948). Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages. Reprint edition (1985), Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
  • Kramer, Samuel Noah. (1971). The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago: University of Chicago. ISBN 0-226-45238-7
  • Maine, Henry Sumner. (1861). Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society, and Its Relation to Modern Ideas. Reprint edition (1986). Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-1006-7
  • Oppenheim, A. Leo (and Reiner, Erica as editor). (1964). Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Revised edition (September 15, 1977). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-63187-7
  • Pennington, Kenneth. (1993). The Prince and the Law, 1200–1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Polinsky, A. Mitchell. (1980). "Private versus Public Enforcement of Fines". The Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. IX, No. 1, (January), pp105-127.
  • Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven. (1997). On the Disutility and Discounting of Imprisonment and the Theory of Deterrence, NBER Working Papers 6259, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Skaist, Aaron Jacob. (1994). The Old Babylonian Loan Contract: Its History and Geography. Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press. ISBN 965-226-161-0
  • Tierney, Brian. (1979). Church Law and Constitutional Thought in the Middle Ages. London: Variorum Reprints. ISBN 0-86078-036-8
  • Tierney, Brian. (1964). The Crisis of Church and State, 1050–1300. Reprint edition (1988). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-6701-8

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