Collared crime and the many shades of grey: Why keeping sight of justice is key

Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman faces charges for alleged shoplifting. Photo / Dean Purcell

OPINION

As newly resigned MP Golriz Ghahraman faces charges for alleged shoplifting at high-end clothing stores in Auckland and Wellington, the court of public opinion has lost sight of the basic principle of “innocent until proven guilty”.

Even so, while the rules may be clear and people are entitled to equal protection of the law without discrimination, we know equality and equity aren’t the same thing. In other words, jurisprudence - or the philosophy of law - dictates the rules tend to benefit some more than others.

Victoria University research in 2013 found tax evaders had an 18 per cent chance of going to prison, whereas it was 70 per cent for those convicted of welfare fraud, for example.

Victoria University research has also found tax debtors are likely to receive more lenient debt repayment obligations, whereas welfare fraud offenders will repay their debts in full.

In 2016/2017, the Ministry of Social Development estimated welfare benefit fraud was $24 million while Inland Revenue estimated white collar crime was 50 times that at $1.2
billion. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

White-collar v blue-collar crime

“Blue-collar crime” describes offending such as theft, drug offences, sexual violence and driving under the influence of alcohol for example. Traditionally, perpetrators might come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and the acts might be driven by passion, impulse or circumstance.

“White collar crime” in contrast is often more calculated. It was first recognised in the 1940s by US sociologist Edwin Sutherland, who said it was a “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation”.

In other words, white-collar crimes of money laundering, corporate fraud, mortgage fraud, bribery (extortion), embezzlement, mass marketing fraud and fraud against the Government are money-driven.

White-collar crime is calculated, harder to detect and if it’s done in the name of a company, it’s harder to establish culpability as companies can’t murder people, in theory.

Red, green, and pink-collared crime

People might not know there’s a suite of collared crimes that loosely fit within white-collar offending.

“Red-collar crime” will involve acts of violence - often murder - by white-collar criminals to hide the original offending. Coined by Frank Perri in 2015, acts of violence are often used as a means to silence those who are in a position to detect or disclose fraudulent activities.

Moving on to “green collar crime”, which Michael J Lynch described as behaviours of corporations that break laws that protect the environment: this could include illegal deforestation, dumping waste, or fracking in no-go zones. The work of Erin Brockovich (popularised by the movie starring Julia Roberts in the noughties) comes to mind.

While corporates and men would typically fit the bill for white-, green- and red-collar crimes, “pink-collar crime” was popularised by Kathleen Daly in the late eighties to describe the growing number of women involved in embezzlement offences.

Here, you might see women or people working in female-dominated areas who might be privy to personal information or have limited career advancement opportunities - thanks to the glass ceiling - who embezzle money from their employers.

Shades of grey

While shoplifting tends to transcend gender, age and most socio-demographic data, it’s widespread, with 92 per cent of retailers losing $1b a year to it. Although not classified in a “collar” sense, a 2008 paper in the US found people with incomes of US$70,000 ($114,500) shoplifted 30 per cent more than those earning US$20,000. The same study found 77 per cent of those were white and 60 per cent were men.

It’s often described as “nonsensical shoplifting”, which could be driven by trauma, stressors or to fuel impulse control issues, as opposed to need or desire.

With any alleged offence, there’s a person and their context who has a lot to lose and here it’s easy to lose sight of the work of the former lawyer who staunchly advocated for advancing human rights and improving access to justice issues.

It’s easy to forget that in what may appear to be a black-and-white situation, as we’ve seen in colour variations of collared crime, it’s rather a sea of grey.