By Nisha Rajoo

White collar crimes are more renowned as being corporate or commercial crimes, with fraud, bribery and embezzlement the more common acts of deviance that continue to make the headlines (Bernie Madoff, anyone?). However, Edwin Sutherland, the American sociologist who first coined the term ‘white-collar crime’, defined it in rather broad terms as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation”. Under the umbrella of such crimes lie political deviance, in the form of politicians and governmental officials who have gained notoriety for their highly publicised involvement in corruption scandals and the like. These range from election improprieties regarding campaign financing efforts to abusive management of public funds in order to further personal gains. The more illustrious examples in recent history that highlight the gravity of such acts include the Iran-Contra conspiracy, and perhaps more notoriously, the Watergate scandal, just to name a few. Yet, great disparities exist in terms of how white-collar criminals are treated by the law from street criminals, highlighting a considerably unjust double standard.

The infamous Watergate scandal was perhaps one of the most pertinent political scandals to rock the United States in the 1970s. The scandal led to President Nixon’s subsequent resignation from office – the first for an U.S. President. The scandal erupted with a break-in by five men at the Watergate hotel and office complexes, who were trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in the aftermath of the Pentagon Papers that were published in the New York Times after it was reportedly leaked. FBI agents later established that the burglary stemmed from a campaign of political spying and sabotage helmed by the Nixon re-election effort. Suspicions ran high after two of Nixon’s former aides were convicted on charges of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping. This was followed by the resignation of several of Nixon’s top officials and the White House, and the firing of the White House counsel. It was then disclosed that since 1971, Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices, subsequently dubbed the ‘Nixon tapes’, which were purported to have contained vital conversations pertaining to the alleged cover-up over the Watergate break-in and Nixon’s involvement in the whole scandal.

The tangled web of secrecy, lies and deception in the murky realm of politics and government continued to be weaved with the Iran Contra affair, which arose in the late 1980s. This occurred during the Reagan administration, where senior U.S. officials facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, reportedly to improve diplomatic relations between the countries. This arrangement subsequently deteriorated into something far more sinister; weapons were being sold in exchange for American hostages who were being held by the Hezbollah. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council then devised a scheme to divert a portion of the profits from the weapon sales to fund the guerrilla activities of anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, the Contras, in Nicaragua.

After the weapon dealings were revealed, President Reagan appeared on national television to confirm that while weapons were indeed sold to Iran, an arms-for-hostage swap did not occur, despite the allegations. The investigations into the conspiracy then took a turn for the worse when official government documents relating to the scandal were destroyed by several Reagan administration officials, which without a doubt roused further suspicions as to the true nature of the affair. The entire affair reached a far-less exciting conclusion however, with fourteen administration officials being indicted, but they were later pardoned by President George W. Bush.

Closer to home, the names Marcos, Suharto and Sukarno have become synonymous with political corruption. Thailand’s ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was an addition to the list in 2006, where he was forced into exile after being ousted by a military coup, amidst corruption charges. Corruption among politicians is “the way of life”, as one attorney noted, and it appears that these politicians live in a sort of ethics-free zone, where their power enables them to continue in their avaricious, self-serving acts of deviance where more often than not, they manage to escape the clutches of the law. The immense political power of such political figures greatly influence legal decisions, and one cannot be blamed for believing then that justice is hardly served in the realm of government and political crimes, since most of these ‘criminals’ hardly ever have to face trial or imprisonment for their grave misdeeds.

President Nixon received a full pardon for his part in planning the Watergate burglary as well as its cover-up, and former US Vice President Spiro Agnew was never even sentenced for bribery and tax evasion charges during his term. Corruption among political figures and governmental crimes continue to persist in most nations the world over, yet white-collar criminals in general continue to experience much leniency from the legal system. Available statistics further highlight this peculiarity in that the average dollar loss that results from street crime is far less than that experienced from white-collar crime. In Florida for example, street crime amounted to an average of $35 per crime while the loss to white-collar crimes amounted to a whopping $621,000 on average. This judicial double standard is not something to be scoffed at, but is something that needs to be borne with serious consideration. Especially in the case of political white-collar criminals, the law is in most instances turned in their favour, and ironically enough, these white-collar criminals are sometimes the same individuals who are in a position to ensure that their crimes are not defined too negatively.

The law should therefore not be conned into adhering to such double standards, as it unduly dilutes the merit and integrity of a fair judicial system for all and not just the powerful, political elite.