Filling the Gap in White-Collar Crime Detection Between Government and Governance: The Role of Investigative Journalists and Fraud Examiners

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-46
Author(s):  
Petter Gottschalk
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Economic Crime ◽  
Private Policing ◽  
Theory Of Crime ◽  
The Media ◽  
Crime Detection ◽  
White Collar Offenders

This article suggests that investigative journalists in the media and fraud examiners in private investigations have the potential of filling some of the detection gap. Based on the theory of crime signal detection, this article suggests that investigative journalists are in the position of detecting white-collar crime scandals as they rely on tips and whistleblowing. Empirical evidence from Norway documents that the media disclose a significant fraction of crime stories that later result in prosecution and conviction of white-collar offenders. Empirical evidence from Norway does not document any contribution from fraud examiners in private policing of economic crime, as they typically conclude with misconduct, but no crime, often to the satisfaction of their clients.

Crime in the Republic of Ireland: A Suitable Case for Social Analysis

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Paul O'Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Social Deprivation ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
White Collar ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Suitable Case

This article argues that there has been a lack of critical, theoretically-based analysis of Irish criminal justice. It focuses on three areas that require further theoretically grounded analysis: the relationship between social deprivation and crime, white-collar crime, and the role of the media with respect to crime. It concludes with a possible framework for future social science research on crime in Ireland.

Recidivism Among a White-Collar Sample: Does Personality Matter?

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Johnson Listwan ◽  
Nicole Leeper Piquero ◽  
Patricia Van Voorhis
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Tool ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Personality Type ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Jesness Inventory ◽  
White Collar Offenders

With the exception of correctional research, the role of personality has been understudied in criminology in general and in the study of white-collar crime in particular. The usefulness of personality has typically been restricted to use as a diagnostic tool in differentiating among offenders for correctional classification purposes. The current research focuses on a sample of white-collar offenders who were convicted in federal courts to explain what role personality plays in explaining their rates of recidivism. Using the Jesness Inventory as a measure of personality, findings reveal that personality type is a significant predictor of offender recidivism with neurotic personality type significantly predicting probability of rearrest.

White-Collar Crime, Legal Sanctions, and Social Control

1977 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Watkins
Keyword(s):  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
The Public ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
Theory Of Crime ◽  
Legal Sanctions ◽  
Unidimensional Theory ◽  
White Collar Offenders ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Crime Causation

Recent literature on the control of white-collar crime has often glossed over the sociolegal effect of the attitudes held by persons charged with the responsibility of determining criminal guilt. In many cases, the factually guilty white-collar offender is not regarded by trial jurors as an offender. Contemporary legal sanctions are utilized only in those cases in which the public senses a real threat to its collective security. The crime problem is seen essentially as consisting of violent interpersonal offenses; the criminal law, predictably, has reacted to this form of deviance with its commonplace sanctions. On the other hand, crimes subsumed under the white-collar heading are often only lightly sanctioned even when brought to the attention of prosecuting authorities. The reason for this state of affairs is largely a unidimensional theory of crime causation- that crimequa crime is a problem peculiar to the lower socio-economic strata of society. White-collar offenders, coming as they generally do from the more affluent sector, are not perceived as "criminals" in the classic sense by the triers of fact. The "received opinion" of most lay jurors militates against their using criminal sanctions for the white-collar offender. They perceive crime as directly associated with a societal stratum that does not include those individuals who commit the majority of white-collar offenses. Hence juries are reluctant to convict white-collar criminals even when the law has been clearly violated.

Class, Status, and the Punishment of White-Collar Criminals

1990 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Weisburd ◽  
Elin Waring ◽  
Stanton Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Federal District ◽  
White Collar ◽  
District Courts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Status ◽  
White Collar Offenders ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Federal District Courts

The treatment of white-collar offenders by the criminal justice system has been a central concern since the concept of white-collar crime was first introduced In general, it has been assumed that those higher up the social hierarchy have an advantage in every part of the legal process, including the punishment they receive as white-collar criminals. In a controversial study of white-collar crime sentencing in the federal district courts, Wheeler, Weisburd, and Bode contradicted this assumption when they found that those of higher status were more likely to be imprisoned and, when sentenced to prison, were likely to receive longer prison terms than comparable offenders of lower status. While they argued that results were consistent with “what those who do the sentencing often say about it,” their analyses failed to control for the role of social class in the sentencing process. In this article we reanalyze the Wheeler et al sentencing data, including both measures of socioeconomic status and class position. Our findings show that class position does have an independent influence on judicial sentencing behavior. But this effect does not demand revision in the major findings reported in the earlier study.

scholarly journals An assessment of sentencing approaches to persons convicted of white-collar crime in South Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-118
Author(s):  
CD Magobotiti
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Complex Task ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Research Task ◽  
The Media ◽  
White Collar Offenders ◽  
Principle Of Proportionality

Assessing court sentencing approaches to persons convicted of white-collar crime is a complex task. For the purposes of this article, this research task involved assessing the appropriateness of sentences imposed within the proportionality principle during the period 2016 to 2021 in South Africa. This further involved the empirical use of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, in order to determine how commercial courts – in this case, the Bellville Commercial (Regional) Court – impose a sentence on white-collar criminals. The article establishes that, in South Africa, categories of white-collar crime such as corruption, racketeering, fraud and money laundering are increasingly reported by the media, independent institutions and government. There is a public perception that courts are generally lenient in sentencing white-collar offenders. This article aims to determine the appropriateness of a sentence, within the principle of proportionality, for white-collar criminals, in order to deter this type of crime.

Women and White-Collar Crime

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Dodge
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Insider Trading ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
The Public ◽  
Female Crime ◽  
Corporate Executives ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
White Collar Offenders

Women and white-collar crime is a topic that has, overall, received little attention in the literature. Initially, women were omitted from discussion and research because of their lack of participation, though some early commentary focused on victimization. When Edwin Sutherland first drew public and academic attention to white-collar crimes, few women were employed in positions that were conducive to commit elite crimes related to occupations or professions. According to Sutherland, white-collar crime involved professional men in positions of trust. From 1939 until the 1970s, work on white-collar offenders and offenses was male-centric, which included both scholarly researchers who were exploring the topic and males committing the majority of crimes. Corporations and respected professionals, not women, were presented with a multitude of opportunities to engage in white-collar crimes with little or no serious consequences. Primarily male corporate executives, politicians, and medical professionals committed white-collar crimes that included, for example, activities such as price fixing, insider trading, bribery, insurance fraud, and Ponzi schemes. Women, who lacked opportunity outside the private sphere of the home, were less involved in crime overall and certainly were in no position to commit white-collar offenses. In the 1940s and 1950s, female crime was typically viewed as promiscuous, aberrant, and male-like behavior. Eventually, in the mid-1970s as more women moved into the public sphere seeking employment, early predictions by female scholars suggested that an increased involvement in white-collar crime was inevitable. The types of crimes committed by women, as noted by pioneering female scholars, were likely to expand beyond prostitution, check kiting, and shoplifting to white-collar offenses as opportunities became increasingly available in the public sphere. Gender inequality in most criminal endeavors continues to exist and more recent debates continue about the role of women in white-collar crime.

scholarly journals From the Avalanche to the Game: White-Collar Offenders on Crime, Bonds and Morality

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-431
Author(s):  
Joost H. R. van Onna
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Life Course Criminology ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
White Collar Offenders

Abstract In order to understand the mechanisms that underlie involvement in white-collar crime on a personal level, 26 offenders convicted of a white-collar offence were interviewed. Building on theory and research from white-collar criminology, life-course criminology and moral psychology, findings show that a combination of criminogenic circumstances, weakened social bonds and adjusted moral ideas lead offenders down different pathways into white-collar offending. Although the process of crime involvement seems highly context-dependent in some instances, the interviews indicate that crime involvement is more commonly part of a long-running process, in which social bonds have weakened or moral ideas have been adjusted, which in turn influenced the decision to engage in the white-collar offence. Along with the limitations of the study and the directions for future research, the paper discusses the implications of the findings for white-collar crime research, in particular the complex role of morality in white-collar crime involvement.

The Social Construction of Corporate Violence: Media Coverage of the Imperial Food Products Fire

1995 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Wright ◽  
Francis T. Cullen ◽  
Michael B. Blankenship
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Food Products ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Processing Plant ◽  
Criminal Convictions ◽  
Safety Regulations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media

Although investigative reports have contributed to the social movement against white-collar crime, few studies assess the extent to which the media socially construct corporate violence as a “crime.” We examine this issue through a content analysis of newspaper coverage of the fire-related deaths of 25 workers at the Imperial Food Products chicken-processing plant, which resulted in the company's owner pleading guilty to manslaughter. The analysis revealed that newspaper reports largely attributed the deaths to the lax enforcement of safety regulations but did not initially construct the deaths as a crime or subsequently publicize the criminal convictions.

White-Collar Crime Detection

2018 ◽  
pp. 111-134
Author(s):  
Petter Gottschalk ◽  
Lars Gunnesdal
Keyword(s):  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Crime Detection

scholarly journals White-collar crime

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petter Gottschalk
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Deterrent Effect ◽  
Financial Crime ◽  
Delinquent Behaviour ◽  
Neutralization Techniques

Policing religious organizations presents challenging situations. When there is suspicion of financial crime by white-collar criminals, secrecy and trust represent obstacles to law enforcement. This article discusses the lack of detection and neutralization techniques often applied in religious organizations. There may be too much trust, too much freedom, too much individual authority, too little scepticism, too much loyalty and too little control of the financial side in religious organizations. There may be no empirical evidence for the proposition that religion has a deterrent effect on crime, although sociologists and criminologists have long recognized potential links between religious belief and delinquent behaviour.

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