Social Deviance
Journal Entry 7
The survey focused on victimization, reporting behaviors, and the perceptions of crime seriousness in reference to white collar crimes such as Internet scams and identity theft. The survey was in reference to victimizations within the last year. About 24% of survey respondents reported that a member of the household had experienced a form of victimization, with the biggest group of 39.6% of those respondents reporting that they were victims of credit card fraud. Credit card fraud was followed by price misrepresentation and unnecessary repairs. Roughly 54.7% reported that they were victimized by a group or person such as a lawyer or credit card company. Although roughly half of the households reported the crimes, only 21/4% of those victimizations had a criminal investigation occur. The underreporting of these crimes will continue to lead to underestimating the occurrence of these crimes. White collar crimes were reported in a survey to be seen as more serious when compared to a traditional crime of car theft Crimes that result in physical harm are viewed as more serious than those that result in financial loss while crimes resulting in financial loss are viewed as more serious than traditional crimes. Roughly half (43%) of respondents believed that the government was not providing enough resources to fight white collar crime. A quarter of survey respondents reported that the government was doing enough and another quarter of survey respondent reported neither agreeing or disagreeing. The left-over group, around 8%, reported that they were unsure. Around 70% of these respondents reported that they believed that white collar crime contributed to the economic crisis. About 13% reported that they disagreed with this while another 13% reported that they did not agree or disagree. The 4% left reported that they were unsure.
I am unsure if the government is providing enough resources to combat white collar
crime. I remember watching a Vice video that involved their reporters discussing with defense attorneys the issues within the criminal justice system. The defense attorneys reported not having enough time between clients to discuss their case and the most efficient way to fight their case. They reported that they met their clients for the first time when they were in the court room and would have to push back the case so that they can have time to thoroughly look through their case. However, their case loads are so large that they are unable to do so. Based on this information, it would be fair to say that the criminal justice system is underfunded in general. If the government were to provide the criminal justice system more financial support, there is a chance that more individuals would be interested in studying to be a defense attorney and more defense attorneys would be motivated to stay. With this in mind, the criminal justice system would be able to process cases more efficiently and be capable to combat white collar crime.