Corporate Crime Essay -- Legal Issues, Fraud

conventional criminals. For example an individual that steals bread from a supermarket to feed his/her child if convicted would go to prison or have to pay a fine that they cannot afford. However on the other hand an individual that commits corporate fraud and cons people out of millions of pounds when convicted may have to pay a monetary fine. This is typically not a problem for them as they are not committing crimes due to being in the cycle of deprivation. Usually they commit offenses because of greed. One would question whether the policies and laws are fair when dealing with conventional crime versus corporate crimes? Again this brings us back to the question as why such crimes lightly prosecuted. The sophistication of these crimes makes them difficult and expensive to investigate and prosecute because they are time consuming, labour intensive and financially expensive. For example, if a police officer occupies his/her time on fraud their overall performance would be considered as being poor, in terms of costs and benefits. Thus usually resulting in these sorts of crimes being ignored and no one being prosecuted for the offence. Due to the general invisibility of fraud there is less politicians or media pressure for police officers to deal with these crimes. For this reason fraud is regarded as low priority in most police forces. Also White collar crimes and corporate crimes usually are lightly prosecuted because the politicians do not want to bring it to light therefore there is less media attention and thus seen as being less serious and as the price paid for capitalism. Pearce and Tombs (1993) in their explanation of the disastrous release of toxic gases from the carbide factory in Bhopal, India in 1984 claimed the p... ...w and also in comparison to conventional crime. As both crime surveys and victim’s surveys do not give a clear and full picture of the true extent of crime. Police officers have to develop and become trained computer experts to be one step ahead of corporate criminals in this era of technology and computers where illicit activities occur on a more grand scale (global) and not just in the local neighbourhood. It can be concluded that this debate of why white collar crimes and corporate crimes are lightly prosecuted in comparison to conventional crimes will not end here, however one feels that due to advancement in technologies white collar crimes and corporate crimes will be on the increase thus government need to make policies and create harsher punishment in order to prevent and deter any companies committing these offenses in the near future.