Certain professions offer lucrative opportunities for criminal acts and unethical practices which hardly attract public attention. There have been crooked and unethical persons in business, various professions and even in public life doing illegal activities without fear of loss of prestige or status.
They tend to become unscrupulous because of their neglect at school, home and other social institutions where people get training for citizenship and character building. These deviations have scanty regard for honesty and other ethical values.
Blue or traditional crimes are direct and involve physical action such as beating, removal of property or use of force, assault, robbery, dacoity, murder, rape, kidnapping and acts involving violence. Blue collar crimes are more common with the under privileged class. Those who are violating the trust should be termed white collar crime so as be distinguished from traditional crime.
A guilty mind is an essential ingredient of every blue collar crime, but many statutes dealing with white collar crimes do not require it. White collar criminality has become a global phenomenon with the advance of commerce, fast development economy, industrial growth and modern scientific technology.
White collar criminals are intelligent, stable, successful and foresighted persons of upper socio-economic groups, persons of respectability, prestigious groups and relatively members of privileged class. They could be businessmen, industrialists, contractors and suppliers as also the corrupt public officials and politicians, who are dangerous to the society. They commit crimes in course of their occupation.
Organised business and its evil effects are more dangerous to society than ordinary crimes. Because the financial loss is far greater than financial loss from burglaries, robberies, larcenies etc., the most worrisome part is there is no effective programme for the enforcement of criminal law against them and the influential persons involved in these crimes are able to resist enforcement of law against them.
White collar crimes are basically characterised as (1) deceiving the employers (2) deceiving the Government (3) stock market fraud (4) deceiving clients (5) corporate crimes and (6) exploitation of positions. They could be hoarding, black marketing, adulteration, corruption in general colleges, universities, legal and engineering educational system, fraud in ATM, bank transaction, money in secret place, fake employment, placement rockets, cyber crimes, fraud real estate, chit fund scam, security fraud, black money in foreign banks, share purchase and manipulation of share prices, use of false weights and measures, adulteration of food and petrol, consumer frauds, low bid allow tenders, bribery and coal scam, election offences, tax evasion, lawyers working on contingency fees or percentage basis, etc.
The Government has introduced various regulatory legislations such as Prevention of Corruption Act, Imports and Exports Control Act, 1947, the Industrial Development and Regulation Act, 1951, Essential Commodities Act, 1955, Companies Act, 1956 which are amended from time to time to check white collar criminality.
In recent penal programmes, sufficient amendments introduced for the modern socio-economic institutions of white collar criminality such as Companies Act, 1992, Insurance and Banking laws, the appointment of lokpal.
Being a social problem, white collar crime is a legal problem. This type of crime is the temptation for considerable material gain with little or no loss of status. Misleading impression that the executive and judiciary authorities who are concerned with the prevention of crimes react favourably to the upper and middle class society and dispose of while collar criminals with mere censure or admonition, white collar criminals are on the rise. But in fact they are subjected to severe penal sanctions under the law without being given any pre-warning.
(Dr Maharana is a faculty member, Jeypore law College, Koraput)