Bernie Madoff's story is a very interesting tale of greed and deception. The actions of him and many of his associates present interesting questions about the occurrence of crime in financial industries. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the behavior of Madoff and his involvement in his ponzi scheme. This essay will also investigate some of the laws that exist to control white color crime and contrast those laws to street crimes. Finally this essay will examine how cultural norms with regard to white-collar crime has shifted in the last decade and the impacts of those shifts.
Madoff's Behavior
It is impossible to understand totally what Bernie Madoff was thinking as he conducted his scam. It appears that greed and the desire to appear successful and rich may have contributed to his behavior. The upper echelons of society are very competitive and many will do anything to win. This appears to be a sociopathic type of behavior. Madoff seems to not trust the value of money and the trust of other people.
In some aspects, Madoff may have felt justified in his swindle. Many people seemed to hand over their money too quickly without vetting his methods beforehand. Madoff probably believed that these "suckers" deserved to be separated from his money. The AP (2011) reported that Madoff insists that the entire is a ponzi scheme; "He said in the New York magazine interview the Securities and Exchange Commission "looks terrible in this thing," and he said the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme."
It is clear that Madoff is attempting to remove responsibility from his own actions. This is understandably human, but...
Madoff's $65 billion is merely less than one-half of the entire GDP and he is not as big as criminal as it may seem. He is also correct in the fact that under the Federal Reserve System of issuing American money is rooted in no real value other than the paper it is written on. Madoff may have been taking his cues from spheres of larger influence.
Attitudes Towards White Collar Crime
Madoff received a 150-year prison sentence for his actions in his business fraud. This appears that the court system is becoming tougher on crime. Kramer (2012) recently reported that "for years, white collar criminals routinely received a "slap on the wrist" -- sentences of probation, or at worst a prison term measured in months, not years. The current sentencing regime is a reaction to that, and to the damage that major fraudsters do to the economy." Although Madoff is being punished in this case, along with some others, this does not necessarily mean that society's attitudes are being best served.
In the Madoff story, the Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC) seems to have been complicit with Madoff due to their ignorant and inept investigations. Weisenthal (2009) suggested that "There are so many reasons to be blown away by the SEC's incompetence and failure to catch Madoff. It has been said that all the agency had to do was make one phone call or send one email to one of the banks where Madoff supposedly traded to confirm that none of the money was there." The SEC weakness suggests that this organization can almost protect these types of scams from public scrutiny.
White collar crime is…
