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Punishment for Economic Crimes

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Submitted By mariavelarde15
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the punishment for economic crimes

The history of economic/financial crimes is nearly as old as wealth itself. A white-collar crime is now synonymous with the full range of frauds committed by a business and/or government professionals in which the offender’s principal motive is economic gain. Fraud it’s not a victimless crime; a single scam or fraud can destroy a company, devastate families by wiping out their life savings, or cost investors billions of dollars. To combat white-collar crime, the U.S. Congress passed a wave of laws and statutes in the 1970s and 80s. The Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) included things like embezzlement from union funds, bribery and mail fraud. RICO made it easier to prosecute corrupt organizations and seize assets related to corruption. When Enron and similar scandals broke out in the early 2000s, Congress took action. It passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002 to reduce unethical corporate behavior and decrease the likelihood of future corporate scandals (Kimmel, Weygandt & Kieso 2011). As a result of SOX, penalties for fraudulent financial activity are much more severe and now face longer sentences with less opportunity for early release (Podgor).
In my opinion for the financial system to work properly, individuals that are privileged to manage hundreds of millions of dollars of other peoples' money must be held to a higher level of accountability that is proportionate to the magnitude of their crime. We should return to individualizing the sentencing process. I’m a firm believer that the time should fit the crime; therefore not all crimes and not all criminals are alike.

References
Federal Burea of Invesigation (n.d.). Retrieved from website: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/whitecollarcrime
Kimmel, P., Weygandt, J., & Kieso, D. (2011).

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