White collar crimes are a special category of crimes that are specifically defined by financial motivation and nonviolence. Its main perpetrators are either governmental institutions or, well-established businesses or corporations. According to Sutherland, it is a crime committed by a very respectable person, that holds a high moral standard within his line of occupation (Friedrichs, 2009) . One of these crimes is the environment-related crimes. Also known as the environmental law violations, they involve the desecration of the basic environmental laws, that are laid down to conserve and protect the environment and at the same time protect the human health. When these laws are violated by large established corporations are government related institutions, in their bid to cut on their production costs, then the crime graduates to a white collar environmental crime. Using an example, this essay will demonstrate on the impacts of these corporate crimes to the environment and the surrounding community.
One of the most prominent environmental laws known in the business world relates to the proper treatment of hazardous waste products. This environmental law is specifically geared towards protecting the environment from deliberate contamination and destruction, when hazardous waste products from manufacturing firms, are carelessly dumped into the environment. However, the process of treating waste is an expensive process, and more especially to business organizations that are always focused towards increasing profit margins by reducing the costs of production. And the costs of treating the wastes is part of the operational costs, hence a liability to the company. Normally it is very alluring for most organizations to ignore, the treatment, and safe deposition of their hazardous wastes. More often than not, especially in the hush economic times, the firms find themselves knowingly violating the environmental laws to cut on their production costs. Now at this point, the crime qualifies to be referred to as a white collar environmental crime (Benson, 2009, p. 177) . The crime holds a financial motive behind the act, that is, the firm is trying to adjust on its profit margins by adjusting cutting off on its costs, especially costs that do not have a direct contribution the their profit margins, and to top it all it is a business corporation that has violated the laws.
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As an example, Walmart, one of the biggest franchise store in the world, was found guilty of white collar federal environmental crimes. The company failed to observe the laws that were laid protect water quality and to ensure proper handling of hazardous pesticides. In six of the company’s stores, the staffs were not properly trained, as required, on how to handle hazardous materials. Instead, the staffs dumped all the hazardous storage chemicals together with other ordinary wastes in the municipal trash cans. In this case, the company staffs working at the storage fertility failed to dump the wastes according to the set rules of handling hazardous chemicals wastes. This crime was handled by the federal government under the white collar division which is from the federal bureau of investigation. Defaulting to observe the environmental protection and conservation laws, may not have direct effects on the business institutions that channel hazardous materials into the surrounding, but their effects surely felt by not only the environment in its self but also the surrounding community. These two parties will always have the first-hand impact on these white collar environmental crimes.
When untreated chemical wastes are released into the surrounding, they contaminate the environmental activities, in the end, causing an imbalance in the ecosystem. For instance, when factories that engage in intense heating of materials, does not treat its chimneys, by fixing standard cartridges. Pollutants fumes will be released into the environment. The pollutant air will first contaminate the surrounding air, air pollution has life-threatening disorders such as lung cancer, and breathing difficulties. The contaminated air then interacts with rain water within the atmosphere and form acid rain that eventually affects the general soil fertility within the surrounding areas affected. In the end, the lives of the plants and trees in the surrounding environment will become detriment slowly, completely changing the environmental landscape of the areas affected.
To the communities living in the affected surrounding environments, they are always among the first-hand victims of these environmental crimes. They suffer health complications that result from them being exposed to untreated hazardous materials. With regards to the Walmart case, hazardous liquid wastes from the storage facilities were discarded into the municipal bins, the municipal on the other hand, will not handle the waste with at most precaution they should have, due to their lack of information. This oblivion exposes the municipal staff to hazardous materials that could be detrimental to their health. Compared to another kind of crime such as the blue collar crimes, in my own opinion, it is the deadliest line of crime. This is owed to the fact that the victims may never be aware of the injustice done to them until it is too late. Either some or all of the staffs handling the chemicals unaware or the surrounding community developing lung complications. It may not have involved violence, but it will strike much harder that a violent gang attack.
In conclusion, white collar environmental crimes should be handled efficiently and comprehensively. This is because the aftermath of these crimes is not felt instantly. They are felt long after the crime had already been committed; this calls for the white collar policing division to be thorough in their analysis because, their success is dependent of pre-discoveries, and correcting the measured before the actual crime is committed. More importantly, it is clear that likelihood of the perpetrators experiencing the aftermath of their actions is very minimal, they may not easily give in to the agony of the community. Therefore this should present its self as a motivating factor that will make sure that the perpetrators do not get away with the crime.
References
Benson, M. L. (2009). White-collar crime from an opportunity perspective. In The criminology of white-collar crime , 175-193.
Friedrichs, D. O. (2009). Trusted criminals: White collar crime in contemporary society. NY: Cengage Learning.
