Blue-collar crime is not a formal legal classification of crime. The informal term is used to describe certain types of crimes. Blue-collar crimes are those that are most commonly committed by people who are from a lower social class, such as blue-collar workers (do you remember and have a picture in mind of the typical dress working in a dusty operation?) Blue-collar workers may not have access to the same resources (e.g. financials, hierarchy, power!) as the white-collar workers. Therefore, they tend to commit crimes that are immediate and personal in nature, such as robbery, rather than crimes that involve elaborate planning.
This is not to say that white-collar workers don’t commit blue-collar crimes at all. Due to the nature of their work, blue-collar workers generally don’t have the access or opportunity to commit crimes within the work organization, such as securities fraud or embezzlement. These crimes require a certain amount of status and power within the organization that can only be gained by white-collar workers, like being a business manager or a chief executive office of a corporation. Here is where the big money is going to be destroyed.
Forms of white-collar crime include: Financial Statement Fraud, Stock fraud, Bribery & Corruption, Work health and safety violations, Income tax evasion and most of the non-compliance as well as “forgetting” about ethics and integrity.
In times of digitalization, decades later than the terms were established. Think about the recent cyberattacks. White- or Blue-Collar? Combination? Yes!
More information on compliance, white collar risk and how best to protect yourself, I send you regularly in our Structuul Newsletter. Register directly here: https://structuul.ch/de/.