White Collar Crimes Cost to Society essay
The development of modern society, based on the use of a huge number of the most diverse information, is inconceivable without a broad implementation of computer technology to the management process and many other areas. It serves not only for the storage and processing of relevant information at the level of state authorities and local self-government or commercial organizations, and is used as a means of communication between citizens, but it is also considered to be one of the most important elements in ensuring internal and external security of the state. Everything of this causes the development of legal regulations for the regulation of social relations that are associated with the use of computer technology (in the first place – to protect the data stored with it). Thus, the main aim of the assignment is to explain the cost to society of white collar and computer crimes.
In a dynamic environment of our century, society is constantly faced to various problems, which are often caused by a product of society’s desire to create a more advanced and efficient models of its existence. The above mentioned can be fully applied to a specific area of electronic engineering and information technology. We have to admit that the process of informatization of society (especially its fast computerization) increases the number of computer crimes, their share in the total number of crimes. So, a high social danger of the crime committed in the area of computer information, a large number of victims, established and concealed significant material damage, make the struggle against this negative phenomenon relevant as the fact that crime in the sphere of computer information is increasingly being used in the context of organized crime and especially the activities of terrorist organizations, which are increasingly starting to use the latest information technology and computer technology in their illegal activities.
According to the adopted theoretical approach presented by Croall (2001), the main problem of “white-collar” crime is in obscurity of the question of “who, what, when and how was able to steal, and how it was possible to do it”. Study of this phenomenon suggests that “white-collar” people rarely consider themselves as criminals, they are also partly accused by public opinion because white-collar crime is usually not associated with violence and, as a rule, there are no individual victims; moreover, the opportunity to bring the case to court and punish the criminals is rather rare. Among the most serious consequences of white-collar crimes are loss of shareholders, bankruptcy of companies, as well as negative impact on the state of workers and consumers.
Considering the global, national, state, and local implications of such crime, it becomes obvious that the problem of computer and white-collar crime in all countries, irrespective of their geographical location, is in the need for increased powers of law enforcement agencies to combat these types of crime. Koller (2012) mentioned that this issue is not only the problem of law enforcement officials, but also it impacts on the employees of special services, security services, professionals and experts in the field of computer science, representatives of educational and research institutions, including experts on computer viruses, computer hardware and software.
In the global scale, the facts of making international computer and white-collar crimes are becoming more common. Computer fraud is the problem of a particular concern because the use of computer technology in the “laundering” of criminally acquired assets, distribution of computer viruses, and hackers’ penetration in the international information systems and information theft may cause a chaos in many spheres. This problem necessitates the development of international procedures to assist the investigation of such crimes in the future and the creation of a coordinating body within Interpol.
Observing the cost to society of the above mentioned crimes, Choi (2010) mentioned that with the development of electronic payments and network workflow, every encroachment upon the information is primarily an attack on the material or spiritual values - the basis of public safety. Breach of the exchange in information may simply paralyze the entire corporations, banks and government agencies, while everything of these may lead to tangible material losses in the entire industry.
In national, state, and local scale, many countries consider the computer network as a vital component of their economic, social and political infrastructure. For instance, without paying a serious attention to the guaranteed protection of the processed information from unauthorized access, the polls and election results forecasting system can have a serious impact on the course of the election campaign. Moreover, it can lead to the fact that elections may be rigged and determined not by those who vote, but by those who would like to influence the outcome of voting in favor of a corporate group. To add, there is seen a serious trend towards the use of computer technology by organized criminal groups, terrorist organizations, which leads to the spread of computer and white-collar crimes on interstate level.
Thus, security of the interests of all countries demands increase in safety of the use of computer systems in the interests of social development and consolidation of the international community; it also demands to improve the system of conservation of computer information, which forms the basis of information resources of each country; to develop and improve the security of information systems of the federal authorities, financial and banking spheres, the sphere of economic activity, as well as means of information systems and weapons and military equipment, systems of command and control over weapons, environmentally hazardous and technologically important enterprises.
In conclusion, we have explored the cost to society of white-collar and computer crimes and demonstrated that these kinds of crime as a threat to national and international security really manifest themselves in many areas of society nowadays. These crimes present a threat to the constitutional rights and freedoms of man and citizen in the spiritual life and personal activities; these crimes also threaten individual, group and social consciousness; information support of public policies; development of national information industry; security of information and telecommunication systems and facilities. Moreover, threats to information and technological backwardness, weakness of cultural values’ impact on mass consciousness, information blockade (censorship), the possibility of information warfare, and information terrorism raise issues of blackmail, information blockade, espionage, and other methods of computer pressure at the global, national, state, and local levels. All of these may lead the society and international community to serious consequences and losses, and have the negative impacts on the political, economic and social spheres.
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