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But She Doesn't Look Like A Criminal

© Su Epstein

I’ve asked many students to picture a criminal or name a crime … almost always I get similar images: male figures dressed head to toe in black committing some act of theft or violence. But there is a lot more diversity to criminal behavior than most people realize. There are 8 clear categories of adult crime and a criminal can be anyone.

Most often when asked to think about crime, people think of Street crime. Street crimes are acts of violence, destruction or theft against individuals or their property. It includes burglary, auto theft, arson, assaults, rape, homicide, you know, all those dirty, scary behaviors we think of as CRIME and often occur on the street, hence its name. But although street crime gets a great deal of attention and publicity, it is only one of many kinds of crime.

Curtsey of the entertainment media, the second kind of crime people often think of is organized crime. Organized crime is a business that engages in illegal goods or services. Often organized crime operates just as any other known business, but what makes it criminal is the products or services offered.

Most people don’t realize that legitimate business can also engage in criminal behavior. A third category of crime is Corporate crime. Corporate crimes are when a legitimate business while engaging in legal goods or services breaks the law. This includes behaviors such as fraud, knowingly marketing faulty products or price fixing. In the case of corporate crimes, it is the business practices that are illegal.

Related to corporate crime is a fourth category, White Collar crime. White collar crime is when an individual in an organizational setting commits a crime during the course of his or her daily activities. The distinction between Corporate crime and White Collar crime is often based on how many people were involved. If the illegal behavior is committed by one person acting alone in a business or organization, then it is white collar crime. White collar crimes are actually the category of crime that is most frequent. Almost everyone has committed a white collar crime at some point. This category of crime includes things ranging from something as small as taking home company goods without permission, such as office supplies or making long distance telephone calls on an organization’s telephones to larger issues such as embezzlement, insider trading, tax or credit card fraud.

A fifth category of crime, also related to Corporate crimes, is Environmental crime. As it sounds, these are illegal behaviors that specifically harm the environment, such as toxic dumping, pollution, clear cutting forest areas, and harming endangered wildlife.