Question

Do you believe incarceration is an appropriate penalty for corporate crime? What about for other types of white collar crimes? Do you believe reintegrative shaming is an effective response to white collar crime? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Crimes those are financially motivated and nonviolated in nature committed by a person who has status, knowledge and power know as White collar crime. Sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 defines white-collar crime as “A crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation”

Incarceration may not be the appropriate penalty for the white-collar criminals. An argument can be given in defence of these criminals that the nature of crimes was not violent. But victims of these crimes affected to a great degree both financially and physiologically. These white collar criminals screw the wellbeing of millions at any time. The damage done by these crimes are thousands of times larger than any common steal or theft, so the sentence should also be thousand times bigger. The actual loss caused by white-collar crime is difficult to estimate but every year, white-collar crime causes far more economic damage than street crime. But white-collar criminals have even been treated more lightly than ordinary robbers due to their status, occupation, knowledge and also by the type of offence.

And unfortunately, there is no clear-cut explanation for this. I firmly believe there should be harsher punishments in these cases. They should be bringing to the society as law-abiding citizens. They should be treated like criminals and very harsh punishments should be given to these peoples. Reiterative shaming can be an effective punishment for white collar criminals.