How Are Organized Crime and White Collar Crime Alike?

Money as Motivator

• Money as a motivator could be called a necessary but insufficient definition of both organized and white collar crime. What this means is that virtually all white collar and organized crime are committed for money, but a crime that is committed for money is not necessarily the result of white collar or organized crime. Crimes of violence, sexual crimes and other infractions of the law occur in these realms, but they are not generally a part of the nature of organized crime, but rather individual events occurring for specific reasons.
  
  

Institutionalized Nature

• Both white collar and organized crime have connections within more legitimate realms, including business, government and law enforcement. Their criminal acts tend to be ongoing and formalized, rather than spur of the moment events. When organized and white collar crime become rampant, the line between these groups and the groups they infiltrate can begin to blur or disappear entirely, resulting in such phenomena as "rogue states" and illegal corporations.
  
  

Legitimate Means Used Illegitimately

• A defining characteristic of both white collar and organized crime is the misuse of legitimate means. Whereas less formalized means of theft, such as a mugging, can be seen as patently illegal (i.e., there is no legitimate way to smash someone over the head and take their money), organized crime uses means such as computerized money transfers, embezzlement, money laundering, insider trading, forgery and fraud. These techniques can, at times, vary in quite subtle ways from other techniques that are legal, which is why it is often difficult to uphold a conviction for an act such as insider trading.
  
  

Corruption

• Unlike more pedestrian criminals, people who are involved in organized and white collar crime are often able to continue with their crimes through collusion with the justice system. Over time, crime syndicates have realized that it is easier and more effective to bring certain key people within the fields of law enforcement and the justice system over to their side rather than to expend time and energy trying not to get caught. These connections can take the form of bribery, blackmail or actual membership in the organization by people on the inside of legitimate institutions.
  
  

Connections

• Most white collar criminals, and all organized crime syndicates, work through connections. Whereas a street criminal or burglar can work alone, complicated scams, frauds and other forms of long-term and organized crime nearly always require the participation, sometimes intentional and sometimes unwitting, of other people.