Many people ask what is a white-collar crime. Well in sociology its definition is any crime committed by respectable and high-status people. These crimes are basically committed in the course of one occupation. Crimes, which are considered "white-collar", include embezzling, price-fixing, insider buying, fraud, falsification of expense accounts, and theft of materials. These crimes are extremely harmful to society. So if these crimes are so dangerous why are these perpetrators treated more leniently than other criminals. There are many theories behind the dramatic difference in how society responds to "white-collar crimes" and "regular" crimes. These theories range from money, the type of perpetrator, and most of all how the court of law looks at the criminal when the sentencing process takes place.
The last theory to why white-collar criminals are treated more leniently than common criminals is the way the court of law looks at criminal during the sentencing process. When sentencing the criminal justice system are harder on common criminals than on white-collar offenders despite the fact that sentencing practices are resulting from alleged fair legal values for example, the seriousness of the crime, the guilt of the offender, and the effects of the sentence on the offenders and others. These principles are, however, biased in the ways that tend to work against common criminals. For white-collar criminals, judges tend to stress the seriousness of the offense while in sentencing common criminals; judges put more importance on the offender's background and criminal record. The result is that white-collar criminals are less likely to be incarcerated and
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