As the author is establishing background for the story, which took place from 2004-2008, he writes "'White collar crime', and the attention that it receives today, did not exist."
I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was being facetious. I suggest that he reword that phrase.
Considering the time frame for WorldCom, Tyco, and Enron it was especially surprising, but the author states he was 20.
As for the focus on terrorist funding, notably Paul O'Neill credibly claimed to have achieved some of the most important early victories against Al Qaeda through Treasury Department investigations into their funding. In fact, pushing this approach in contrast to the preferred brute force methods of others in the administration lead to him being fired at the end of 2002.
The point was not to establish whether "white collar crime" existed already but rather to emphasize how little attention was being paid to it at that point in time.
For example, since then inter-agency task forces have been established, media has begun covering the topics, books have been written and movies produced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(film)
The general awareness is much higher (despite little action taken).
Embezzlement is 'white collar crime' and has happened for a long time (and been the focus of movies). Cheque fraud is also 'white collar crime' and Catch Me If You Can came out in 2002. You're just associating more public scrutiny (and therefore more government focus) on banks / investing / Wall Street with a greater focus on "white collar crime."
There has always been awareness of white collar crime, especially by those who worked on Wall Street.
Look at the Google ngram that I linked to. In 1997, when you were 13 or so (you mentioned that you were 20 in 2004), the phrase "white collar crime" was at a relative low. Since then, the phrase "white collar crime" has grown in popularity in tandem with your maturation, which would account for your perception that the media is become more aware of it. However, the latest data available show that it is still not as popular is it was in 1996.
It may be the case that people are using the term "white collar crime" increasingly to refer to phenomenon which they used to just call "fraud". Another Google ngram search [1] shows that "fraud" is orders of magnitude more popular than "white collar crime".
There are plenty of other subjects where the popularity of equivalent nouns varies. For example, what do you call the people who fight wars? Soldiers? Troops? Warriors? [2].
ADM's lysine fixing in the 1990s. The savings and loan debacle of the 1980s and 1990s. Hunt&Hunt's silver manipulation in the 1970s. The Towers Financial Corporation Ponzi scheme of the 1990s. Robert Emmet Brennan's First Jersey Securities pump-and-dump fraud in the mid-1990s.
Political white collar crimes from the 1970s include Watergate and Koreagate.
And as for movies: "Trading Places" was a 1980s movie ending with a foiled white collar crime attempt. "Wall Street" is a 1987 film where Gordon Gecko is convicted of multiple securities violations. "The Insider" is a 1999 film based on a 60 Minutes segment about a tobacco industry whistle blower. John Braithwaite wrote "Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry" in 1984.
That you don't know about them doesn't mean they didn't exist or that people didn't know about it.
Comments
As the author is establishing background for the story, which took place from 2004-2008, he writes "'White collar crime', and the attention that it receives today, did not exist."
I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was being facetious. I suggest that he reword that phrase.
Google ngram of the phrase "white collar crime" http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=white+collar+cr...
The OED lists uses of the phrase "white collar" from 1919 onwards.
Considering the time frame for WorldCom, Tyco, and Enron it was especially surprising, but the author states he was 20.
As for the focus on terrorist funding, notably Paul O'Neill credibly claimed to have achieved some of the most important early victories against Al Qaeda through Treasury Department investigations into their funding. In fact, pushing this approach in contrast to the preferred brute force methods of others in the administration lead to him being fired at the end of 2002.
The point was not to establish whether "white collar crime" existed already but rather to emphasize how little attention was being paid to it at that point in time.
For example, since then inter-agency task forces have been established, media has begun covering the topics, books have been written and movies produced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(film)
The general awareness is much higher (despite little action taken).
Embezzlement is 'white collar crime' and has happened for a long time (and been the focus of movies). Cheque fraud is also 'white collar crime' and Catch Me If You Can came out in 2002. You're just associating more public scrutiny (and therefore more government focus) on banks / investing / Wall Street with a greater focus on "white collar crime."
There has always been awareness of white collar crime, especially by those who worked on Wall Street.
Look at the Google ngram that I linked to. In 1997, when you were 13 or so (you mentioned that you were 20 in 2004), the phrase "white collar crime" was at a relative low. Since then, the phrase "white collar crime" has grown in popularity in tandem with your maturation, which would account for your perception that the media is become more aware of it. However, the latest data available show that it is still not as popular is it was in 1996.
It may be the case that people are using the term "white collar crime" increasingly to refer to phenomenon which they used to just call "fraud". Another Google ngram search [1] shows that "fraud" is orders of magnitude more popular than "white collar crime".
There are plenty of other subjects where the popularity of equivalent nouns varies. For example, what do you call the people who fight wars? Soldiers? Troops? Warriors? [2].
[1] http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=white+collar+cr...
[2] http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=soldiers%2Ctroo...
ADM's lysine fixing in the 1990s. The savings and loan debacle of the 1980s and 1990s. Hunt&Hunt's silver manipulation in the 1970s. The Towers Financial Corporation Ponzi scheme of the 1990s. Robert Emmet Brennan's First Jersey Securities pump-and-dump fraud in the mid-1990s.
Political white collar crimes from the 1970s include Watergate and Koreagate.
And as for movies: "Trading Places" was a 1980s movie ending with a foiled white collar crime attempt. "Wall Street" is a 1987 film where Gordon Gecko is convicted of multiple securities violations. "The Insider" is a 1999 film based on a 60 Minutes segment about a tobacco industry whistle blower. John Braithwaite wrote "Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry" in 1984.
That you don't know about them doesn't mean they didn't exist or that people didn't know about it.
Might not hurt to feed your information to the websites Bronte Capital and White Collar Fraud (http://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/).