Government crimes are very common throughout the world. These crimes are committed by well known politicians and other members of the parliament. Most of the times the members of the parliament tend to use the money towards their personal use, which causes problems for the party as well as the tax payers. There are a lot of money laundering and tax scandals that happen in the government. The article that I have chosen for this week’s media paper was an article about Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne being charged for fraud. He was kicked out of the Liberal caucus over allegations that he misused office funds for personal gains. On 2007 he faced criminal charges in the affair. Also there were some allegations of misconduct about Lavigne, his staff were cutting down trees on other people’s property. During the investigation regarding this crime, the RCMP found that Lavigne had ordered the staffer to carry out personal business unrelated to Senate duties, and that Lavigne himself had misappropriated Senate funds for his own use. Lavigne was money laundering tax payer’s money was using it for his personal use. This article is a good example of a government corporate crime.
The type of crime that is being discussed in this article is clearly a government corporate crime. These types of crimes are very common, liberals have money laundered tax payers money many times. Even though there are many evidences against these crimes, it is very hard for the RCMP and other investigators to prosecute them. The reason being, many offenders are members of the parliament and they have access to the police. This crime is very harmful to the government as well as to the citizens of the country. Citizens in Canada pay a high rate of tax and a large amount of this tax money falls in to the hands of money launders inside the parliament. Depending on the severity of the crime the dignity and the reputation of the Liberals will also be affected. Due to these crimes people’s perception of Liberals will eventually change and they will have less trust in the Liberals.
The harmfulness of the crime is being addressed by giving the readers an idea of how much has been stolen and the severity of the crime. The article also states that the Senator used the office funds for personal gains.
The start of the article itself is very appealing, stated “who was kicked out of the Liberal caucus last year over allegations that he misused office funds for personal gain”. This clearly outlines what the article is going to be about and the central problem. There were many specific words and phrases that stood out in this article, “he misused office funds for personal gain, is now facing criminal charges in the affair”. This phrase is very appealing because it shows the member of the parliament is taking the office funds and misusing it for his personal use. This is very disturbing to the tax payers and people who work hard and pay their taxes. Another phrase that was very appealing was “The 61-year-old Lavigne, a native Montrealer, was elected three times to the House of Commons and served a total of nine years in that chamber”. He was selected three times as a member of the parliament and a total of nine years. During this time he could have stolen a large amount of office funds, also he could have been involved in many other conspiracies.
There are many personal and cultural problems that can arise from this crime. Politicians are elected with trust to use their power to help the system. However if they do the opposite, people’s perception of the government will be negative. It will cause negative impacts in cultures, people will have less trust in the government to make new policies, tax payers will be afraid that their money will be misused for personal use. People will have less faith in the current policies that the government has and would rebel against the government if these crimes constantly happen. To stop these crimes, the government should manage their staff properly and make sure that the funds are being used reasonably.
