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Lesson 13: Street Crime and White Collar Crime and the Prison Industrial Complex

Social ProblemsRobert Wonser

Blue-collar Crimes - Traditional common law theft crimes such as larceny, burglary, and arson.

White-collar Crimes - Crimes of business enterprise such as embezzlement, price fixing, and bribery.

Green-collar Crimes - Crimes that affect the environment.

Types of Economic Crimes

Business frauds and swindles Ponzi schemes – An

investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors.

White-Collar Crimes

The OG Ponzi, Charles Ponzi, 1929

Bernie Madoff, 2009

Influence peddling - Using one's institutional position to grant favors and sell information to which one's co-conspirators are not entitled. Influence peddling in government Influence peddling in criminal justice Influence peddling in business

White-Collar Crimes

Embezzlement - A type of larceny in which someone who is trusted with property fraudulently converts it to his or her own use or for the use of others.

Client fraudHealth care fraudTax evasion

White-Collar Crimes

Corporate (organizational) crime - Powerful institutions or their representatives willfully violate the laws that restrain these institutions from doing social harm or require them to do social good.

White-Collar Crimes

Rational Choice: GreedLure

Rational Choice: Need

Theories of White-Collar and Green-Collar Crimes

Rationalization/Neutralization View

Cultural View

Self-Control View

Theories of White-Collar and Green-Collar Crimes

Discuss which of the criminological theories fits best for green-collar criminals.

Rational Choice Greed Need

Cultural

Self-Control

Others?

Class Discussion/Activity

Deterrence versus Compliance Compliance strategies: Methods of

controlling white-collar crime that rely on the threat of economic sanctions or civil penalties to control potential violators.

Deterrence strategies: Methods of controlling white-collar crime that rely on punishment to deter would-be violators.

Controlling White-Collar and Green-Collar Crime

The Prison Industrial Complex

The term prison–industrial complex (PIC) is used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies.

Incarceration Trends

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Incarceration Rate

Paid between 93¢ and $4.73 per day, and collecting no benefits, prisoners are a cheap labor source for about 100 companies (source).

If you’ve bought products by or from Starbucks, Nintendo, Victoria’s Secret, JC Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Eddie Bauer, Wendy’s, Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fruit of the Loom, Motorola, Caterpiller, Sara Lee, Quaker Oats, Mary Kay, or Microsoft, you are part of this system.

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When prisoners are in state and federal prisons, the U.S. taxpayer is subsidizing low wages and corporate profits, since they are paying for prisoners’ room, board, and health care.

When prisoners are in private prisons, prison labor is a way to make more money off of the human beings caught in the corrections industry.

In other words, prison labor is an efficient way for corporations to continue to increase their profits without sharing those gains with their employees.

Prison Labor is Cheap

Angela Davis on PIC