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Cole Takes
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1103
4/4/16

Is Punishment for White Collared Crimes too Lenient or too Severe?Do White Collared Crimes
Really Deserve Huge Sentences?
Joe is a real estate agent in his prime. He has become accustom to a lavish life style with
the booming housing market. All of a sudden in 2008, the market crashes and people arent
buying houses. Joe struggles to make ends meet and eventually resorts to mortgage fraud in order
to support the life style he and his family have been living. Joe is eventually caught and given
eighty years in prison because of the number of mortgage scams he pulled off, essentially a life
sentence at his age.
Joes scenario may not be one of those stories that hurts just to listen to but there is still
an issue here. While having your jet-ski repossessed may not be the saddest thing you have ever
heard, white collar sentences are out of line when compared to other types of crimes. You dont
get a life sentence for second degree murder, so why should you get a life sentence for
committing mortgage fraud?
According to Amanda Haury, author of the article Sentences for White-Collar
Criminals white collar crime is defined as a non-violent crime committed by a business or

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government official. Joes scenario may be hypothetical, the case of Sholam Weiss is not.
Sholam Weiss was convicted of seventy eight counts of racketeering, money laundering and wire
fraud. While this sounds like a very serious list of white collared crimes, he received an eight
hundred and forty five year sentence (Haury). Eight hundred and forty five years seems
excessive for any crime short of mass murder. It leads one to wonder the criteria a sentence like
this was based on. Sentences are based on the loss amount and the number of people affected by
the crime. The loss amount is just what it sounds like, which is the amount of money that one or
more people lost because of the crime. Trying to calculate the loss amount caused by a crime is
far from an exact science. As you can imagine when attempting to pull of an elaborate crime you
are not likely to keep a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet of all your transactions. The number of
things that are taken into account when attempting to calculate a loss amount is outrageous. A
prosecutor must account for not only the amount of money taken by an offender but also any
money lost as a consequence of this action. This is particularly troubling when dealing with a
public corporation. When an offenders actions cause a drop in stock price the offender is held
responsible for money lost by investors. This often causes a loss amount that overstates the
crime. However, the losses an offender is responsible for often doesnt stop there. In addition to
money lost by investors because of a drop in stock price, the offender can also be held
responsible for losses taken in the drop in stock price of a competitor if the prosecutor can prove
that the drop in price was due to the actions of the offender. Because of this, the loss amount can
often be substantially higher than the amount gained by the offender (Meiti). However,
sometimes the effects can be much greater than the loss amount. The loss amount sometimes
takes our attention from the whole principal of criminal punishment, learning a lesson.

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In 2009, the U.S. economy collapsed causing the whole country to go in panic. The
housing market crashed but it wasnt a coincidence. How could the housing market collapse?
Millions of people dont just stop paying their mortgages right? The housing market was
supposed to be the safest bet. The problem stems from a variety of white collar offenders. It all
started with the tech bubble as it is called, when millions of people obtained good paying jobs
because of the sudden boom in technology. This meant more people could buy houses, fueling
the housing bubble by allowing more people to afford houses. This was great for the housing
market until it wasnt. Eventually all these well payed people had houses, but the banks couldnt
stop giving loans, and this is where everyone starts to commit white collar crimes. The banks
start to give housing loans to any and everyone who applies for one in order to keep making
money. These loans are put in bonds called mortgage bonds. These mortgage bonds were
considered safe and extremely low risk. These were the kind of bonds put in peoples retirement
portfolios. They were a safe bet right up until the banks starting giving everyone loans. However,
the white collar crimes dont end at the bank. The rating agencies, who are responsible for
looking over bonds and giving them a letter grade were in on the fraud with the banks. They
gave A ratings to D quality bonds. As you can imagine this plan was sure to fail and it eventually
did causing the whole economy to collapse with banks going bankrupt, retirement account values
dropping significantly and people being laid off across all fields of work (Robinson). Surely the
people responsible will be punished for all the damage they have done to the economy and
peoples lives.
Unfortunately after all the damage done, only one man was punished for all the white
collar crimes committed that led to the collapse of the economy. Kareem Serageldin was
sentenced to thirty months in prison for his deception of how secure bonds are(Eisinger). In my

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opinion this sentence was fair but why would the government not take advantage of this
opportunity to crack down on white collar crime? This was their chance to put white collar
criminals in their place the right way. What should have happened was, many criminals should
have received sentences that are fair and just similar to Kareem Seragelins. Instead today high
profile cases are punished with harsh sentences to set an example. The government had its
chance when there were a lot of guilty white collar criminals responsible for the collapse of our
economy but unfortunately that opportunity for crackdown is gone but if an opppurtunity such as
the one I described above somehow happens again then prosecutors must be ready to put white
collar criminals in their place the just way. However, we still must sentence the criminals now
placed before us fairly and correctly.
When a dangerous violent criminal is sentenced to prison time, they often just become
more hardened criminals and never change their ways. A white collar criminal is not guilty of a
violent crime and is often terrified of prison. Jonathan Simon, a professor of law at the
University of California, Berkeley, says it best in an article for New York Times "In contrast,
white-collar workers are extraordinarily sensitive to threats since their whole socialization and
environment encourage calculation of future benefit and cost (Sorkin). Many argue that whether
you take money from your company by fixing the books or commit armed robbery you still stole
money and should have similar punishments. Again, it is important to keep the principal of
criminal punishment in mind that the system is designed to teach criminals a lesson and keep
society safe. Not only are white collar criminals much more likely to be terrified of jail but they
are also not a threat to society. When a violent criminal is released from jail he could easily have
access to gaining a gun. When a white collar criminal is released from jail he will almost surely
never be put in another executive position to abuse, not only because of his track record with a

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position of power but also, just like a violent criminal, he is a felon and I dont think the
difficulty of finding a job with a felony needs to be explained.. Not to mention the offender will
be flagged by the government and the government will watch their accounts and legal documents
closely. It is a little harder to track violent crimes. The bottom line is teaching criminals a lesson
and keeping society safe. The courts have clearly decided the best way to teach offenders a
lesson is by giving the cases that do have substantial evidence overly harsh sentences. In
Sorkins article How Long to Jail White-Collar Criminals?, Professor Simon proposes an
alternative for how to better teach white collar criminals a lesson "it would be far more effective
to impose a lot of short sentences on a wider group of offenders rather than the example model of
harshly punishing a few celebrity cases while most potential offenders know that they are
unlikely ever to be caught and punished (Sorkin).
The Supreme Court has payed a lot of attention to revising the guidelines for sentencing
white collared criminals. Revisions of the guidelines for sentencing white collared criminals
started in 1984. At this time white collar crime is was a rather new concept and is was first really
brought to Americas attention in the Watergate scandal of 1970s which led to President Richard
Nixons resignation. In 1984, it was believed that white collar criminals were getting off too
easy. In 1984, the 1984 act was passed and drew a tremendous amount of controversy. Some
argue that the laws give very little discretion to the judge and force them to stick to a very strict
set of sentencing guidelines which forces them to sentence the crime and not the criminal. Others
argued that the guidelines called for too harsh of sentencing which created a problem exactly the
opposite of the one that led to the laws in the first place. From 2000 to 2005 the Supreme Court
made different rulings revising the guidelines in its decisions over Apprendi vs New Jersey,
Blakely vs. Washington and U.S. vs Booker (Meiti). It is clear that the Supreme Court takes

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sentencing of white collar crime very seriously and sentencing become much more consistent
and harsher through these revisions. The revisions still have not touched on calculating loss and
the belief that the punishments are too severe is growing. On April 9th, 2015 new guidelines for
sentencing white collar criminals were approved which brought good and bad changes. The new
guidelines now give a greater weight to a criminals role and intent. This is a step in the right
direction as Mary Price from general counsel for Families against Mandatory Minimums, asked,
Do we just count drugs, or do we look at harm people really intended? How much harm did
they cause? Are they the courier or the mastermind?. Also under the new guidelines, since it
accounts for a criminals role, a secretary who is aware crimes are being committed will not
receive the same sentence as the mastermind behind the job. Finally, the new guidelines take into
account what the guidelines call intended losses, meaning a criminal will take less punishment
for the amount of money lose unintentionally, such as a drop in stock price because of the
offenders actions (Liebelson). The new guidelines certainly hit many key points and although the
calculation of losses was revised in order to account for intended losses, there are still revisions
to be made.
The calculations of losses now take into account intended losses which was a major
problem up until recently but punishments still are not just. Mark Holden a senior vice president
and general counsel for Koch Industries shares this opinion when he describes the recent
revisions as a positive development and consistent with the Bill of Rights and later describing
them saying they are an effort to make the punishment fit the crime, but that more needs to be
done on criminal justice reform overall (Liebelson). The problem remains that still under the
calculation of loss a white collar criminal can be sentenced to hundreds of years in prison. Unless
guidelines for crimes such as murder and rape plan on being revised then this just cannot be

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justified. Various judges and professors of law have different takes on the issue but they all seem
to agree that the guidelines still need changing. Frank Bowman, a professor at the University Of
Missouri School Of Law expresses his problem with the consistency of the guidelines All we
want to do is make guidelines such that a federal prosecutor can actually look a federal judge in
the face and say, Impose these guidelines as written (Liebelson). The problem is that the
guidelines may take into account a lot of these things previously mentioned but they are so broad
that it is as if they are not addressed. However, while being a specific set of guidelines they must
also leave room for the judges discretion, as any good guidelines should. There is no easy fix to
making punishment for white collar crime fair and although punishment is currently too harsh, as
mentioned earlier it was once considered too lenient and it is the Supreme Courts job to find that
balance. Even if and when the guidelines are not too harsh they will always need revision. This is
because of the changing nature of the crime.
Setting sentencing guidelines for white collar crimes and then never revising them would
be like trying to follow the Bibles teachings exactly. The concepts may still be relevant but
times have changed dramatically. I mentioned that when white-collar crime first drew a lot of
attention it was concerning President Nixon in the Whitehouse in the 1970s. The world is
changing so much that the laws must change to. Fortunately, unlike the Bible, the laws can
change and as I have mentioned earlier in this essay they have been revised several times and
this is what is required. What would laws regarding white collar crimes do if crimes caused on
computers were not accounted for? because of the changing nature of white collar crimes.

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Works Cited
Formatted: Left

Nytimes, 4 May 2014. Web. 3 May 2016.

Haury, Amanda C. "Sentences For White-Collar Criminals: Too Harsh Or Too Lenient?"
Investopedia. Investopedia.com., 17 May 2012. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
Liebelson, Dana. "Why Nobody Is Really Happy With New Guidelines For Punishing WhiteCollar Criminals." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Apr. 15. Web. 16
Mar. 2016.
Meiti, P.J. (2006)Fiercer Than a Tiger-White Collar Offenders Face Harsh Sentencing in PostBooker World, American University Criminal Law Brief: Vol. 1:ISS.1, Article 1, 22 Jan.
06. Web. 16 Mar. 2016
SORKIN, ANDREW R. "How Long to Jail White-Collar Criminals?" Nytimes. NYTimes.com.,
16 Sept. 2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
Robinson, Peter. "What Caused The Crisis." Forbes.com. Forbes Media, 13 Feb. 2009. Web. 3
May 2016.

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