Punishment of Traditional Crimes v. White Collar Crime:

an essay that considers the criminal process from arrest through sentencing and appeal.
Identify and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the process along each step in the process. In your evaluation, discuss how these weaknesses might be corrected. What factors push against their correction?
Assess how factors external to the criminal justice system such as budgetary and political realities impact the identified strengths and weaknesses.
This assignment will require you to analyze both white collar crime and more traditional “street” crimes such as robbery, burglary, and sex crimes. The types of harms resulting from traditional street crimes are easy for most people to comprehend. However, understanding the harms resulting from white-collar criminal activity may be harder to identify. Perhaps for that reason, generally speaking, white collar crimes are punished less severely than traditional street crimes. Often when white-collar criminal activity is detected and exposed, the perpetrators are not sentenced to prison even though millions of dollars may have been stolen and the lives of many pThis paper has two main purposes: to analyze both white collar crime and more traditional “street” crimes in an effort to explore why public policy in the United States drives criminal law to punish the former less severely than the latter. to provide policy alternatives that may result in white collar crimes being punished in a manner that more accurately reflects the harms they cause. Instructions: The final paper should be in APA format and will be approximately 8 to 10 pages (typed, double-spaced), with one section identifying the problem, one section discussing the relevant theories, and one section outlining a proposed policy to address the issue. The paper should contain at least 3 to 5 sources (the textbook, books, and scholarly journal articles).profoundly affected.
OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUE (Here you might wish to discuss a current or past white collar criminal case or cases where punishments were light but both victim impacts and the amounts stolen by perpetrators were relatively high You may also wish to compare sentences in those white collar cases to relatively small cases involving “street” crimes like robbery or burglary. DISCUSS THE NATURE OF THE ISSUE (What harms, if any, have resulted from the prevalence of relatively light white-collar sentences? Explain the economic impact of white-collar crime.) DISCUSS THE REASONS FOR THIS GENERAL POLICY (You must locate and read academic journal articles discussing white collar crime to gain an understanding of the policy reasons for treating white-collar criminals less harshly.) JUSTIFY THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS ISSUE—why must this issue be addressed? PART II. RELEVANT THEORIES– Identify several theories (from sociology, criminology, etc.) you feel best explain current public policy and explain why. (You also need to provide an overview of each theory you discuss). PART III. PROPOSED POLICY—Overarching policy regarding treatment (prosecutorial, sentencing/punishment) of white-collar crime in relationship to prosecution and punishment of traditional street crimes. PROVIDE AN OVERVIEW OF YOUR POLICY-Your policy should address fundamentally how you would treat sentencing for white collar crimes. Some of the things you might consider in constructing an appropriate punishment policy for these crimes are the amount of money at issue as well as the nature and continuing impact of the harm caused to victims. PROVIDE A RATIONALE FOR YOUR POLICY IDENTIFY THE TARGETED AUDIENCE IDENTIFY WHAT LAWS, IF ANY, WILL NEED TO BE PASSED TO SUPPORT THE POLICY. DISCUSS THE IMPACT OF THE POLICY ON THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. PROVIDE A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS—how do the anticipated benefits of the policy outweigh the associated costs? (e.g., this might include a discussion of the astronomical economic costs of white collar crime versus the costs of putting mechanisms in place to prevent it and to mitigate its disastrous effects when it occurs.)
CONCLUSION—This is the section of the paper where you should reflect on your research and perhaps assess where the policies you proposed might lead to in the future.
Use Arial 12-point font with 1 inch margins, double spaced with proper APA format