White-collar crime is a sub-group of illegal activity that happens in professional settings. It’s a category that’s often challenging to understand – so much so that it may be easier to commit than it is to fully understand the legal definitions or their consequences.
These types of crimes are financially motivated with the goal to either obtain property, money, services – or avoid losing them. Sometimes, white-collar crimes may involve an individual securing a professional advantage for themselves.
The first recorded use of the term dates back to 1939, and it encompasses a broad range of fraudulent acts that government professionals and businesses may commit. Some of the most defining characteristics of these types of crimes include violation of trust, deceit, and concealment. It’s important to bear in mind that white-collar crimes do not depend on violence or physical force to have been applied or threatened.
When violence is involved
Within this sub-group of business-related crime, the various types of criminal activity are broken down into even more specific categories. Red-collar crimes are among the most well-known, which is a relatively new classification for white-collar crimes involving violence. This term was coined by a team of legal analysts in response to the rising wave of these types of crimes, which has since become a major point of interest for criminal researchers across the country.
Anonymous reporting is the best remedy
Criminal acts that involve suicide, murder, and general violence are some of the most serious crimes as they endanger people’s lives in the most immediate way possible. Having a process in place for anonymous reporting of any type of white-collar crime has shown to be instrumental time and time again in reducing these criminal acts from happening in the first place.
Crimes that happen in the world of professional business are known as white-collar crimes, a special classification for financially motivated criminal behavior. It’s wise to be aware of how people end up falling into these crimes to learn how to avoid them in your own career path.