White Collar's Crimes as Viewed by Imam Ali (AS.)

One of the classifications of criminals, which is of importance in specifying reactions against them, is classifying them into rich people who are of high social status (called white collars) and weak and poor criminals (blue collars). To confront crimes committed by the former ones, who have capability of committing more dangerous crimes, special solutions should be found. To confront such criminals, we need a comparative penal policy, both in terms of form and content. The present article discusses reactions which should be adopted against the former group according to Imām ‘Ali. According to him, after taking fundamental, social, and cultural measures as well as making control and inspection, reactions against crimes committed by white collars should be serious, severe, and decisive. In Imām Ali’s words, this classification has been made by making uses of terms such as mustakbar and mustad‘af, powerful and weak, the ruling class and peasants, aristocrats and lower social class. One the benefits of such a classification is that not only crimes committed by the weak and nonsignificant crimes but also crimes committed by white collars and those who are of high social status can be prosecuted without negligence.