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WILL THE REAL CRIMI AL
and pcrjury go unnoticed. unre–
ported. and usuall y un punished
when committed within the family.
White Collar " Cri minaloids"
When the average breadwinner
moves from home to office. another
kind of unreported crime takes
place. Such discree t gray-flan nel fel–
onies are often called "white collar
crime:' These offenscs include tax
evasion, false corporate auditing, se–
cret s tock deal s, forgeries, mail
fra ud , political influence peddling.
secre t gifts a nd bribes. wire tapping,
and price-fixing. Fra ud a nd em–
bezzlement a lone cos t the U. S.
economy about fi ve times as much
a s a ll Bonnie-and-C iyde-sty le bank:
robberi es. but embezzlement i
often settled discreetl y out of the
court. Opcn bank robbe ry, on the
o th er hand, earns a s tiff prison term.
Bcyond crime in the home and
o ffi ce, everyone is guilty o f numer–
ous crimes o f omission. the art of
do ing
nothing
when you should do
something.
This includes do ing per–
sona l business (or nothing) on com-
PLAIN TRUTH
January
1975
[JJ[~ill~~
~ummrn
[D[JJ~
by
Gary Alexander
and Charles Vinson
pany time, or failure to meet hea lth
standards. building standards, or
true weights and measures. This
a lso includes failure to help those
who are obviously in need. or ac–
cepting bribes to turn your eyes
away from illegal practices.
Hopefully, by now we can say
with Pogo, "We have met the enemy
and he is us." Naturally, most of us
aren' t vicious crimina ls in black hats
- in
fact , most of us bristle a t the
suggestion we might be
ANY
form of
criminal - but the bu lk of humanity
certa inly is "crim inaloid," a term
coined 68 yea rs ago by sociologist
Edward A. Ross.
He explai ned that a criminaloid
was different from a n actual crimi–
nal in a t least fi ve ways: ( 1) The
dominant characteristic ofthe crimi–
naloid is moral insensitivity: he con–
sistently fo llows a double sta nd ard
which justifies his illega l behav ior.
(2) The crimina loid is no t antisocial
by nature. as are many ha rdened
felons. In fact. the criminaloid is
usua lly civ ic-minded a nd hospi–
table.
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