NCJ Number
80067
Journal
Australian Accountant Volume: 47 Issue: 1 Dated: (December 1977) Pages: 689-690,693-696
Date Published
1977
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This Australian article examines economists' and criminologists' differing approaches to problems concerning individual choice and focuses on the inability of governments to combat white-collar crime.
Abstract
Economists emphasize the freedom of individual choice as influenced by economic and political motives in explaining events. Criminologists, however, have favored the deterministic approach which evaluates behavior in terms of social factors -- low income, bad housing, family disruption, discrimination, and labeling. This different psychological orientation is at least one cause of the mutual exclusiveness of the two disciplines. For example, economic models always assume an artificial person acting solely for his own advantage while government planners ignore the potential for program abuse. Moreover, criminologists often ignore the economic motivations of offenders. The two disciplines have been brought closer together by recent revelations of widespread malpractice in corporate and bureaucratic affairs. The tiny trickle of offenders going through the justice system are from the lower strata of society, but a single case of corporate crime can cost the taxpayer more than all the burglaries committed in a year. Examples of international price-fixing cases demonstrate the difficulty of identifying who is really responsible for such crimes. Legal machinery is grossly inadequate to handle white-collar crime, and the present criminal justice system does not have the resources to try these complicated cases efficiently. The police and correctional services also are not geared for white-collar offenders. Finally, high ethical standards in the accounting profession have been shown to aid prevention, detection, and prosecution of white-collar crime. Footnotes are given.