White-Collar Crime -- Group Discussion Issues: (all from Barkan Ch. 13 unless otherwise noted)
Occupational Crime Vs. Organizational / Corporate Crime—What’s the difference?
Occupational Crime: Savings & Loan Embezzlement– How much & how did they do it?
Healthcare Fraud – How widespread & costly ? Deaths?
Financial Fraud – “insider trading” Madoff example: What did he do and cost?
Organizational / Corporate Crime
Corporate Financial Crime: Fraud, Cheating & Corruption
· How common / frequent is white-collar crime? (summarize various studies in Barkan)
· What is accounting fraud & how common is it and what are its costs? What did Enron do?
· Defense Industry -- How common is fraud and what types of things?
· What type of misconduct did Big Wall St. Banks & Ratings Agencies engage in re: investors and mortgages? What did it do to economy? What were fines for this? Enough to stop in future? (Sorkin et al web rdg.)
· What types of sales & accounting fraud did Lehman Bros. investment banks engage in, respectively ? Related to economic crisis? (Sorkin et al web rdg.).)
· What misconduct US banks done for Drug Cartels? How much $? Why so little oversight? (Smith)
Price Fixing & Gouging & False Advertising
What is Cost overall, & per family per year in US ?
Pharmaceutical marketing? General Electric case (fines vs. profits).
How did banks & even fantasy football companies restrain trade, fix prices, manipulate market? Are penalties enough to prevent recurrence, remove profit? (McLaughlin et al web rdg.)
Corporate Violence
How can white-collar crime be violent? Pollution & health; Products & workplace death & injury
· Ex. of drug companies & deception & health probs.
· How is Bank Money Laundering related to violence in drug trade? (Smith et al web rdg.)
· What safety violations and mistakes at Big Branch Coal Mine in WV and Texas Fertilizer plant explosion in April 2013? How many people died? (Zillman et al web rdg.)
Cost-benefit decision making & white-collar crime: Ford Pinto case
Cost of White-Collar Vs. Cost of Street Crime.
How does White-collar crime compare to Street crime in terms of $ and lives lost?
Explanations for White-collar crime
Corporate Culture of Greed + Lenient treatment & weak punishment + weak regulations + hard to prove / complexity + lack media coverage
Does White-Collar Crime pay? (benefits vs. risks/costs) How to reduce White-Collar Crime
What sorts of fines & prosecutions have banks and coal & fertilizer companies faced? Enough to change behavior? Are banks too big to jail? If so, what should be done to them? (McLauglin et al, Zillman et al. Smith et al., and Sorkin et al. web rdgs?)
Fraud (ch. 12 , p. 308-312)
Costs of check fraud, credit card fraud, and ID theft Welfare Tax Fraud,
Insurance Fraud (how big a problem?) Types of computer crime?