White-Collar and Property Crimes

White-Collar and Property Crimes
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White-Collar and Property Crimes
White-collar crimes are nonviolent and financially motivated crimes that include money laundering, securities fraud, intellectual property theft, corporate fraud, or embezzlement. On the contrary, property crime might involve extortion, robbery, or threat of force to obtain property, money, or other benefits. Sociological perspectives enable people to understand crimes and the reasons why individuals engage in them. In particular, values refer to the collectively shared beliefs or criteria in which society determines whether something is wrong or right (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2019). Norms and values are what make society, and they exist since individuals agree that they should be there. However, when it comes to white-collar and property crimes, perpetrators engage in them to benefit financially or acquire property by force using their powers.
“Ex-Prosecutor is Accused of Soliciting Bribes From Defense Lawyers, Defrauding Man Who Had Coca-Cola Stock” by Debra Cassens Weiss shows how the former Florida prosecutor, Jeffrey Siegmeister, engaged in white-collar crime for defrauding an older adult and soliciting bribes to give favorable judgments for different cases. The 52-year-old former attorney served in the Third Judicial Circuit between 2013 and 2019 (Weiss, 2021). In one of the cases, Siegmeister delayed a case that was handled by a 41-year-old lawyer, Marion Michael O’Steen from Dixie County. O’Steen demanded $60,000 from that client. When Siegmeister was appointed as the guardian for an elderly man, Leonard Whitman Thomas, he defrauded him over $640,000 (Weiss, 2021). The media framed the offender as a criminal who benefited by misusing his power for financial gains. Siegmeister did not force clients to bribe him, but he extended cases for lawyers to ask for more fees from their clients. In other words, he was obstructing justice. The media used a photo showing money between the gavel and hardwood where the judge strikes after the final judgment.
Amber McGuckin’s “Winnipeg Man Charged After 15 Stores, Restaurants Robbed Since December” portrays how a 28-year-old man, Maverick Rock Woodhouse, was arrested and charged for 15 counts of robbery and three counts for possessing property from the proceeds of crime (McGuckin, 2021). Some of the crimes that Woodhouse committed include breaking into and stealing from pharmacies, restaurants, retail stores, and stealing vehicles. In this type of crime, the individual broke into business premises without knowing whether he will find owners inside and stole money from them. As such, if the criminal found a person inside these restaurants, pharmacies, or retail stores, he might have done something bad to them, particularly if the victims failed to obey his orders. The 28-year-old person was to remain in custody since he did not plead guilty to the crimes he committed (McGuckin, 2021). In McGuckin’s art...