Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 1,7, University of Siegen, language: English, abstract: “Lying, cheating, and stealing. That’s white-collar crime in a nutshell.” This headline will appear if you enter the website of the FBI, searching for information concerning white-collar crime. What started when people began to trade thousands of years ago and tried to betray their commercial partner, continued by the use of manipulated measuring units in the Middle Ages, a development was triggered, where juggling the company's accounts or illegal stock transactions are daily businesses. Even though, this development has been actively fought since the beginning of the 20th century, white-collar crime is still an acute problem affecting all of society. In the following paper it should be figured out, how the offenders should be punished, what role a prison sentence serves and if it is the best way to punish white-collar criminals.