Core Values Of Equality And Social Justice In American Society

In Reiman’s article, “The Rich Get Richer and the Poor get Prison”, Reiman explain the truth about our criminal justice system. The system we have in place are targeting small crime like drug dealer, assault, and robbery, overshadow crimes like laundered money which is a white collar crime. Prison continue to grow in crimes I listed already while the white crimes are no where to see. The increase of the police power has grow to bring small crime in prison, “ In recent years, we have quadrupled our prison population and, in cities such as New York, allowed the police new freedom to stop and search they suspect. Watching the youtube video Treasury David S. Cohen not having an opinion on HSBC 800 million dollars in drug traffickers in Mexico,cuba,

The criminal justice system is made for two groups of people: the poor and the wealthy.

Seymour M. Lipset2 contends that negative traits that plague the American landscape, such as “high crime and economic inequality”, are fundamental characteristics of and are inherently linked to a capitalistic and openly admirable democratic society. Not only does American history reside in the nature for “disdain of authority”, but current American norms signal that everyone must elevate their own status and rise above the ranks, both economically and socially. In analyzing the trends of high crime, acts such as theft, narcotics production and distribution, fraud, etc. are a means to

7) In criminological theories, we saw how police activity is largely geared towards minor visible crimes committed by individuals from the lower stratums of society as oppose to “white collar crimes” committed by those of higher stratums (Dubé, CRM 3701, 2011). Abolitionists argue that by severely punishing some of the poor in order to deter society from committing crimes; we are only further contributing to the inequalities in today’s society.

Published in 2014, Matt Taibbi’s The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap explores the topic of income inequality and its relation to the criminal justice system. The Divide is in essence trying to capture the seemingly unwritten rule that different levels of wealth produces different treatment within the criminal justice system. The Divide explores this topic is several ways, first by investigating and exposing the corrupt business practices of investment banks and bankers during the 2008 financial crisis in America and subsequent time periods. The Divide explores the end result of these crimes, which ended up crippling the American economy and defrauding the American people. According to Taibbi, the end result was that a majority of these crimes were treated like administrative violations , as oppose to criminal violations, by the Justice Department and resulted in monetary fines as punishments and almost zero criminal charges filed. On the other hand, Taibbi examines how poor Americans, often Hispanic women or African Americans, are

The book "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison" by Jeffrey H. Reiman provides a very interesting account of how the rich are being treated by the criminal justice system in a more favorable than the poorer and nonviolent criminals who are generally mistreated. Reiman started his book by stating that the recently noted decline in crime rate is skewed. This is clear in the 12th page of his book when he stated that After more than 20 years of telling us that crime was growing out of control and proposing more cops and tougher laws and more prisons, crime rates are now coming down and politicians are jumping to claim credit for the reductions" (Reiman ,p. 12).The book is a well written text that effectively examines the various harmful acts that are committed by the rich in our society. These harmful acts include bribery, medical crimes, and embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as environmental crimes such as unsafe workplaces as well as pollution among many others. Reiman's book, in its thorough analysis of the various harmful acts noted that there is a particular bias against the poor people within the American criminal justice system.He demonstrated that acts like murder, assault and theft that are committed by the poor people are treated by the criminal justice system as very serious crimes while on the other hand, other harmful acts like bribery, medical crimes, embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as

White-collar crime poses a vexing problem for the criminal justice system (CJS). It is an

The pervasive existence of upscale criminal behavior throughout U.S. society reaches from the boardroom to the courtroom. Such perversity does not stop at the steps to state capital just because a hallowed quotation hangs over the portico. In addition, regardless of an “infotainment” culture’s fixation on street crimes, the devastating impact of “white collar” corruption deteriorates the very core of the American political and economic system. While violent crimes are serious, the institutional destructives of corruptive collusions remains callously counterproductive in extraordinary ways. It threatens the demise of the republic and hastens human regression toward eventual extinction.

White-collar crime is currently an important part of the landscape of unlawful activities, where individuals and organizations commit acts to obtain money, property, or services to avoid the payment or loss of money or services or to secure personal or business advantage. In my own words white collar criminals can be found everywhere, they are like zombies taking advantage of the criminal justice system but instead of feeding on flesh, these lawless criminal “Zombies” feed of the poor, therefore “producing social disorganization on a large scale” (p.293). This would follow by social cost, mistrust, unemployment, injuries and possible death for the hard working people of America. Sutherland unique studies of white-collar crime had a lot of controversial

Today there remains no universally accepted definition of white-collar crime, and so long as inclusion of the offender continues this will not change. Discussion of white-collar crime is flawed and biased due to an age-old definition derived in a time before cell phones. High social status and respectability does not waver consequences for serious crimes. It is time to treat white-collar crime as any other crime and remove the concept of the handsome banker in suit and tie from the equation. Why include the offender at all? White-collar crimes are committed irrespective of social factors, causing significant difficulty when attempting to define white-collar crime based on offender characteristics. Are we, by including offender characteristics limiting the scope of the crime itself to that defined nearly a century ago, and, are we, by introducing class specifications creating an institutionalised bias that allows these criminals to walk free? Should white-collar crime be defined according to offender or offence? The answer is

The term is used to describe crimes committed by individuals of high status and social reputation during the course of their occupation (Sutherland 1940, 2). Since no discrete group of offences can be readily recognised as a ‘white-collar crime’, there is a difficulty in identifying the subject matter of this crime (Freiberg 2000, 2), producing ambiguity in the understanding of the crime and its representation in the media. This form of crime has remained a complex phenomenon for social scientists seeking to understand the reasoning behind one’s deviant behaviour (Stephenson-Burton 1995, 133), as the crime is often driven by financial greed instead of desperation. Additionally, compared to common law crimes, the area of criminal law regulating white-collar offenders is a new phenomenon that requires progressive developments as legislators respond to new threats to public safety and economic security (Moohr 2015, 120-121), hence people are less likely to be familiar of this realm of crime. The examples of white-collar offences range from embezzlement, fraud, forgery, violations against securities law and money laundering (Freiberg 2000, 2). For the purpose of this essay’s analysis, the examples are narrowed down to focus on offences such as fraud and business

Majority of convictions are witnessed in the lower classes of society involving as theft, robbery, joyriding and burglary (Muncie & McLaughlin, 2001). However, white collar crime is viewed by the society as a middle and upper classes crime. The middle and upper classes have a higher access to exploitation of health and safety laws and commit fraud but with lower conviction rate. Therefore, the society victimizes the lower classes and derives an unmerited representation of

White collar crimes are offenses that are committed by those who in positions of power in the workplace (Sullivan). These offenses can include anything from creating a monopoly to tax evasion. These crimes are typically not considered violent and, therefore, are not prosecuted as harshly. This may be due to the fact that those with wealth are able to “create their own rules”, as they have enormous amounts of influence in politics. While lawmakers create legislature to define what is criminal, police officers decide whom they can arrest, and judges decide on sentencing, those in power help to sway public elections to candidates for these positions that hold their own values in mind (Reiman). The poor, on the other hand, do not have this luxury. Those of lower socioeconomic status, especially minorities, are more likely to be arrested, more likely to serve jail time, and more likely to have longer sentences

Crime can occur on various platforms such as the streets of a neighborhood or at a corporation on Wall Street. As a result, crime and criminal behaviour can be explained using a broad set of theories presented by scholars with the focus ranging from the individual offender to the offender’s environment and external influences. White-collar crime coined by Edwin Sutherland, for example, is a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation (Tatham, 2016).

White collar crime has been discussed more frequently in the last few years. The news has made society aware that white collar crime occurs almost as often as other criminal activity. In fact, white collar crime is one of the most costly crimes. It is a billion dollar criminal industry. White collar criminals seem to continue to engage in the criminal practices because there is no set standard in the penalties given to those that are caught. A look into the public’s perception on whether the penalties given is harsh enough for white collar criminals since most types of crimes have a set of standard penalties for those convicted. A standard set of penalties needs to be looked at for white collar crimes to help in eliminating