Crime and Theory
Over the last years, there has been a significant increase in criminal behavior and activities in the world. Crime affects a large proportion of people. Most people in the world have experienced or witnessed some sort of crime in their life. Due to this increase, the field of criminology as a science has also expanded to tackle this increase. Many experts have come up with various approaches and methods to try to explain criminal behavior and how to reduce or prevent crime. One example of a crime that has increased significantly is white-collar crimes. Because of globalization, private and public organizations have gained a lot of power and influence in the lives of people. The rational theory, a utilitarian approach, is one of the many paths that provide a framework for analyzing criminal behavior. This paper uses the Rational Choice theory to analyze white-collar crimes, motives, and how to control or prevent these crimes.
White-collar Crime
One of the most common and rampant types of crime in modern society are white-collar crimes. White-collar crime is a form of non-violent crimes that are mostly committed by corporate organizations and government professionals out of financial motivation. White-collar crimes are grouped into two categories, i.e., occupational and organizational crimes. Occupational crimes refer to crimes performed by individuals and professionals in their occupations for personal gain. Corporate crimes, on the other hand, refer to those crimes performed by a business/corporate entity or by persons acting on the authority of the organization. Some of the most significant financial crimes include fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, tax evasion, bribery, antitrust violations, insider trading, online fraud, and money laundering, among others. The effects of these crimes are costly, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimating that more than three hundred billion dollars got lost to white-collar crimes in the United States. These types of crime are particularly hard to prosecute as the criminals that commit them are smart people who use sophisticated methods to hide them through complex transactions. One of the approaches that aim to explore these types of crime to explain the motivations influencing the perpetrators and prevention techniques is the rational choice theory.
Rational Choice Theory
The Rational Choice theory dates as far back to the eighteenth century founded on the ideas of utilitarianism and deterrence as put forward by Beccaria Cesare and Bentham (Matsueda 385). However, the theory got popularized in criminology through the writings of Gary Becker in 1968, where he argued that the same arguments that explained the choices by firms should also explain the behavior of a criminal (Matsueda 390). The approach has gotten explored to analyze and explain concepts such as deterrence and prevention and control of situational crime. The theory proposes that human beings are rational entities driven by two fundamental motivations. The theory states that people are rational actors who gauge the means (cost) and the ends (benefits) to make a sensible choice. As such, it says that people make their choices based on the tenets of avoiding pain and maximizing pleasure. The theory’s application is most suitable for crimes such as drug use, theft and robbery, white-collar crime, and vandalism.
The rational choice theory adopts a micro-perspective to explaining the reasons that people decide to commit a crime (Myers, Chapter 3). According to the method, individuals choose to partake in criminal activity because of the expected rewards, the ease of committing the crime, and the satisfaction they get. Therefore, based on the above reasons, the theory proposes that rational human beings can get demotivated to commit crime through fear of punishment. However, the measure of the punishment ought to get restricted to actions that are necessary for deterring people from committing the crime. Based on the utilitarian notion of this theory, a criminal’s actions are their personal decision, arrived at after careful consideration of the cost and benefits of the crime (Matsueda 392). Costs that a criminal might consider when committing a crime include the risk of getting caught and the punishment issued after getting caught (Matsueda 393). They measure the costs against benefits such as the satisfaction and pleasure gained. Another advantage as well as is the financial or material profits earned from the crime. Consequently, if the perpetrators find the cost of the crime to be too steep compared to the expected benefits, then they might decide not to commit it. Therefore, to prevent crime, the government needs to ensure that the costs of any crime exceed any perceived benefits that the crime may offer to the criminal.
Application of the Rational-Choice Theory to White-Collar Crimes
The rational choice theory, when applied correctly, can influence the prevention of white-collar crimes. Based on the hypothesis, an individual that decides to commit a crime such as fraud or embezzlement, carefully analyzes the costs, such as getting caught and jailed and compares them to the expected benefits. For this application, we will use the example of a hedge fund manager that decides to steal money from his clients and hides the losses. The manager skims from his clients to cater for his luxurious lifestyle. According to the rational choice theory, the manager is a sensible being who considered the costs of getting caught or the risk of one of his clients finding out and harming him and decided that it was worthwhile. He gauged that the likelihood of him getting discovered was slim because the government affords specific freedoms and liberties to corporations. The cost of getting caught in the United States varies depending on the crime but may include a light imprisonment sentence, a fine, or restitution. The manager decided that the financial benefits he would realize from the crime outweighed the risks he faced. For example, Paul Manafort got recently sentenced to only forty-seven months in prison for a crime that cost the country’s Internal Revenue Service millions of dollars.
Based on the Rational Choice theory, the crime was preventable if the costs associated with it were high enough to discourage the criminals. For example, The United States might decide to increase the prison sentence and the fines that are given out to white-collar criminals. If the manager believed he would get a lengthy prison sentence in a maximum-security facility, he might have decided not to commit the crime. Additionally, if there was a high risk of getting caught, he might have decided otherwise. Therefore, rational choice theory is a suitable option for preventing white-collar crime. The basic principles of rationality and the cost and benefit analysis apply to the hedge fund manager who rationally decided to commit the crime after analyzing the risk and pleasure of the crime.
Works cited
Matsueda, Ross L. “Rational Choice Research in Criminology: A Multi-Level Framework.” The Handbook of Rational Choice Social Research, edited by Rafael Wittek, Tom A. Snijders, and Victor Nee, Stanford UP, 2013, pp. 385-458.
Myers, Nicole. “Chapter 3: Rational Choice And Routine Activities Theory.” Ontario Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services, Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 6 May 2016, www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/professionals/oyap/roots/volume5/chapter03_rational_choice.aspx. Accessed 21 June 2020.