White-Collar Criminality

TLDR

White‑c​ollar crime, largely committed by professionals such as lawyers, incurs costs several times greater than traditional street crimes and is frequently overlooked by business‑focused crime commissions, yet it remains a genuine violation of criminal law. The authors propose a genetic hypothesis that accounts for both white‑c​ollar and lower‑class criminality, aiming to explain why different social groups choose distinct criminal methods.

Abstract

This chapter describes crime in relation to business. The financial cost of white-collar crime is probably several times as great as the financial cost of all the crimes which are customarily regarded as the crime problem. In view of defects in the conventional theories, a hypothesis is needed that will explain both white-collar criminality and lower-class criminality. The inventive geniuses for the lower-class criminals are generally professional criminals, while the inventive geniuses for many kinds of white-collar crime are generally lawyers. The better business bureaus and crime commissions, composed of businessmen and professional men, attack burglary, robbery, and cheap swindles but overlook the crimes of their own members. They may explain the manner or method of crime—why lower-class criminals commit burglary or robbery rather than false pretenses. It is a genetic explanation both of white-collar criminals and lower-class criminality. White-collar criminality is real criminality, being in all cases in violation of the criminal law.