White Collar offenders

The theory that would best describe my view on white collar offenders would be the greed or fear theory. It is in everyone's nature to succeed at everything they do. When a person becomes successful they are looked at differently and it opens more doors into a higher level of a social circle and they feel that they need to achieve more. After a person is let into the higher social circle, then it becomes a competition. This is all part of the human ego. They want to have the best of everything so people will continue to accept them. For example if someone has a weekend condo in Hawaii, then someone might feel that they need to have a beach house just to fit in. They become greedy and want to outdo everyone else so they can live in other peoples envy.

I can also understand the fear part of this theory. This is when someone has made themselves very successful and they are afraid of losing it. Business competition could be a reason for this fear. If you have run a successful business and then another store opens and you notice that your profits are starting to drop, then a state of fear comes into play and you realize that you could lose all of your material possessions, and your place in the social circle. They abide by the law when they can maintain the lifestyle they are accustomed to but once that life style is threatened, they may feel the only way to maintain that lifestyle is to break the law because that's the only option that they see to survive. So the drive for success, fear of failure, and their place in a social status can motivate a person to engage themselves in white collar crimes.