According to the DOJ, there are on average about 5,000 white-collar and corporate criminal cases prosecuted at the federal level annually. The DOJ does not track white-collar cases prosecuted at the state level, but collectively, these crimes result in billions of dollars of financial loss to corporations and individual victims. For the past ten years, Lisa Lawler, founder of the White-Collar Wives Project, has had a front row seat behind the scenes of over two hundred white-collar criminal and civil cases, many of which have made headline news. Through this unique lens, the data collected has revealed a new population of victims of white-collar crime which are the innocent family members of the perps. Families are left in both financial and emotional ruin as a result of this egregious financial and familial betrayal, and must must also endure the public’s miscalculated guilt by association that is routinely placed upon them.

Due to joint ownership of marital assets, the white-collar innocent spouse is forced to endure civil asset seizure and forfeiture of their untainted portion of marital assets. At the time of the seizure, the government asserts itself as joint owner of a suspected perp’s assets and places the innocent spouse into third party status. This legal convenience places the innocent spouse in the position of not only being their husband’s victim, but is now also a victim of the court stripping her rights to her own legal, untainted assets. Legally, only assets owned by the perp are eligible for seizure/restitution and forfeiture, but the law bends to the point of breaking when it comes to the legal asset ownership of white-collar innocent spouses. Too many courts do not consider innocent spouses as victims, but rather as “collateral damage.” Meaning, too bad, so sad.

The WCWP has highly specialized knowledge of what takes place behind the scenes of white-collar crimes. This bird’s eye view has resulted in the creation of a new approach to anti-fraud programming which is both highly informative and human centered. A New Perspective on Deterrence is a six-module course that reveals the hidden risks of white-collar crime which until now, have not been widely publicized.

The culpability of any white-collar crime lies squarely on the shoulders of the bad actors who commit them, but organizations that lack constructive internal controls and omit effective anti-fraud and ethics programming, also play a role in the commission of these crimes. A New Perspective on Deterrence takes a deep and engaging dive into the dark corners of white-collar crime.

Five-thousand white-collar criminal prosecutions per year points to the indisputable fact that traditional compliance and deterrence efforts continue to fall short. Part of the problem is that too many companies either don’t have anti-fraud and ethics programming built into their compliance training, don’t have any compliance programming at all, or are relying too heavily upon software as a sole means of conveying their compliance programming. Technology is the cornerstone of most businesses today, but the compliance problem cannot be solved by technology alone because tech does not have free will nor can it emulate human ethics and agendas.

Collectively, companies spend billions of dollars on compliance programming despite the fact that most employees are risk averse. The fact that billions of dollars are continuing to be lost to occupational crimes points to the fact that current remedial compliance programming is not wholly effective. Occupational crimes are committed by high risk tolerant workers and anti-fraud programming must be targeted directly at that population. A New Perspective on Deterrence was created specifically for high risk tolerant workers and goes far beyond the norms of general and specific deterrence theories and other proforma antifraud applications. Compliance programs that do not address the full spectrum of risks associated with occupational crime, do not have a fully functional or effective compliance program, but rather, an illusory veil of a perception of deterrence.

Enhanced Deterrence Theory (EDT) was created by Lisa Lawler and is at the core of this new approach to anti-fraud programming. Derived from a ten-year study of white-collar perps, this course shines a light on the extraordinarily high personal and professional costs occupational crime brings to those who perpetrate them. EDT also makes the case that employee’s family members are indeed frontline compliance stakeholders.

Enhanced Deterrence Theory (EDT) goes far beyond a bad actor’s “capture and punishment” and immerses workers into the real-life consequences of occupational crime that is widely unknown. Where traditional anti-fraud programming pushes employees toward compliance to promote deterrence, EDT pushes employees toward deterrence to pull them into compliance. It takes more than checking a box, a signature on a line, or the threat of incarceration to keep bad actors on the right side of the law. One bad apple can cost an organization millions of dollars. The WCWP’s A New Perspective on Deterrence course makes compliance personal, and making compliance personal is the answer to the compliance problem.

If you don’t think the WCWP has a place in your anti-fraud programming, you’re not utilizing the most powerful tool in your compliance toolkit.