White Collar Criminality By Edwin Sutherland

Crime, a violation of the law, has been around for centuries and dates back to the colonial days. Crime is also known as a form of deviance which is a word used to describe breaking social norms. If someone violates the laws they have to face some sort of consequence that can range from a minor consequence such as a ticket up to a major consequence such as the death penalty. The punishment someone receives always fits the crime that they have committed, right? In some cases yes but in others no. Two people could commit the same exact crime but one could receive a harsher punishment than the other one based on his or her social status. Crime is inevitable and has and always will be around however over the decades and centuries crime hasn’t
The article White-Collar Criminality written by Edwin Sutherland in 1940 is a great article to read for a better comprehension on the differences in punishment received for a crime between upper-class and lower-class people. You may be thinking this article isn’t really accurate because of how old it is but if you dig a little deeper you’ll see that the article is still really similar to society and the world today. The article mentions many things such as the harmful effects of upper-class crimes in comparison to the lower-class crimes, criminal statistics, and the differences of the punishment a upper-class individual receives compared to a lower-class individual. The textbook used in class is way more modern than what the article is but still both of the writings discuss and analyze many of the same topics. In both the article and the textbook white-collar crime/elite crime is mentioned. They are the same thing and the crime is usually committed by a high-status person based on their occupation. These crimes tend to go “unnoticed” or paid little to no attention to by authorities in
Have you ever heard the saying “Watch who you hang around”? That saying is implying that you become more like the people you’re around on a daily basis so try to surround yourself with good folks. Other things such as the media also influence criminal behavior, “today, we would need to add the fact that criminal behavior can also be learned through television, songs, and especially the internet” (193). The textbook is saying that you don’t need to have personal relationships with future criminals due to all the influence through the media today. This is a difference between the article but it is one out of a limited number of differences. Sutherland also talks about explanations of criminal behavior and statistics and he goes on to mention that they are inadequate due to the fact that the samples that were used were biased. “Criminal behavior of persons not in the lower class” (2) is not included in the samples which makes them biased. The article and the textbook have a few differences but overall Sutherland’s article in 1940 is still really relevant to the modern world's