Specific Deterrence in a Sample of Offenders Convicted of White Collar Crimes* (original) (raw)
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Do perceptions of punishment vary between white-collar and street crimes?
Journal of Criminal Justice, 2007
Much has been learned about the relationship between sanction threat perceptions and criminal activity, yet little remains known about the factors that are associated with sanction threat perceptions. Moreover, because most researchers had studied deterrence within the context of street crime, even less is known about the factors that relate to sanction threat perceptions for white-collar crime. This study used data from a national probability sample to examine whether the determinants of perceived sanction certainty and severity for street crime were different from white-collar crime. Using robbery and fraud as two exemplars, the findings indicated that while public perceptions of sanction certainty and severity suggested that street criminals were more likely to be caught and be sentenced to more severe sanctions than white-collar criminals, respondent's perceptions of which type of crime should be more severely punished indicated that both robbery and fraud were equally likely to be perceived 'on par.' Additional results indicated that the correlates of certainty and severity were more similar than different, but that the results differed according to whether respondents were asked about the punishment that white-collar offenders were likely to receive as opposed to what they should receive.
White Collar Crime & criminal careers
Criminologists have turned their attention to the origins and paths of the criminal career for what this approach reveals about the causes, manifestations, and prevention of crime. Studies of the criminal career to date have focused on common criminals and street crime; criminologists have overlooked the careers of white-collar offenders. David Weisburd and Elin Waring offer here the first detailed examination of the criminal careers of people convicted of white-collar crimes. Who are repeat white-collar criminals, and how do their careers differ from those of offenders found in more traditional crime samples? Weisburd and Waring uncover some surprising findings, which upset some long-held common wisdom about white-collar criminals. Most scholars, for example, have assumed that whitecollar criminals, unlike other types of offenders, are unlikely to have multiple or long criminal records. As Weisburd and Waring demonstrate, a significant number of white-collar criminals have multiple contacts with the criminal justice system and like other criminals, they are often led by situational forces such as financial or family crises to commit crimes. White-collar criminals share a number of similarities in their social and economic circumstances with other types of criminals. Weisburd and Waring are led to a portrait of crimes and criminals that is very different from that which has traditionally dominated criminal career studies. It focuses less on the categorical distinctions between criminals and noncriminals and more on the importance of the immediate context of crime and its role in leading otherwise conventional people to violate the law. David Weisburd is Professor of Criminology at The Cambridge Studies in Criminology aims to publish the highest quality research on criminology and criminal justice topics. Typical volumes report major quantitative, qualitative, and ethnographic research, or make a substantial theoretical contribution. There is a particular emphasis on research monographs, but edited collections may also be published if they make an unusually distinctive offering to the literature. All relevant areas of criminology and criminal justice are to be included, for example, the causes of offending, juvenile justice, the development of offenders, measurement and analysis of crime, victimization research, policing, crime prevention, sentencing, imprisonment, probation, and parole. The series is global in outlook, with an emphasis on work that is comparative or holds significant implications for theory or policy.
White Collar Criminals: The State of Knowledge
White collar crime is the least studied and the least understood crime type in comparison to traditional crime types. This review highlights the recent developments in the state of knowledge over the white collar criminals. The review concerns the topics of demography, motivation for offending and career criminality among white collar criminals. It compiles the international results (mainly West-European) so far in the three topics. The review ends with a request on further research that needs to be done in four aspects: what is the main demographic difference between white collar offenders and confirmative non-offenders? How can we explain the difference in the age-crime relationship between street criminals and white collar criminals? Why do we still have the gender divergences by white collar criminals, despite the fact that women increase their participation into the labor market? And why do we know so little about the criminal motivation among white collar criminals?
Comparing Criminal Careers of Organized Crime Offenders and General Offenders
European Journal of Criminology, 2010
Organized crime differs substantially from high-volume crime, at least theoretically. But do offenders differ as well? This study makes an extensive comparison between offenders who engage in organized crime at a particular moment in their lives and general offenders, based on various dimensions of their criminal careers. Many organized crime offenders do not have judicial contacts before adulthood. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case for the comparison group as well. However, organized crime offenders do more often have previous judicial contacts, and those previous contacts are also far more serious. These general findings are robust; they also hold when the comparisons are restricted to organized crime offenders and general offenders who have engaged in drug crimes and fraud cases.
Jobs and Punishment: Public Opinion on Leniency for White-Collar Crime
Governments routinely offer deals to companies accused of white-collar crimes, allowing them to escape criminal charges in exchange for fines or penalties. This lets prosecutors avoid costly litigation and protects companies’ right to bid on lucrative public contracts, which can reduce the likelihood of bankruptcies or layoffs. Striking deals with white-collar criminals can be risky for governments because it could affect the perceived legitimacy of the legal system. This article explores the conditions under which the general public supports leniency agreements. Building on theoretical intuitions from the literature, we identify three characteristics that could affect mass attitudes: home bias, economic incentives, and retribution. We conduct a survey experiment in the United States and find moderate support for leniency agreements. Whether the crime occurs on US soil or abroad does not affect public opinion, and the number of jobs that would be jeopardized by criminal prosecution ...
Intermediate Sanctions: A Comparative Analysis of the Probability and Severity of Recidivism
Sociological Inquiry, 2001
Social scientists have a longstanding concern with the relationship between criminal sanctions and offenders’future behavior. This paper uses data from a sample of 528 adult felony offenders to compare the relative probability of rearrest, the severity of rearrest, and the likelihood of probation revocation for offenders with a sentence of incarceration, work release, house arrest, and traditional probation—or a combination of these sentences. Consistent with previous research, prior record, gender, offense type, and education were significantly related to the probability and severity of rearrest. Furthermore, no matter which other sanction it was paired with, house arrest was associated with reduced chances of rearrest and lower rearrest severity. The influence of one of these sanction combinations was gender-specific: incarceration followed by house arrest was associated with reduced odds of rearrest for women but not for men. However, house arrest was associated with the considerably increased likelihood of probation revocation. In addition, these effects remain after controlling for potential selection bias stemming from the sentencing decision. This paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and correctional implications of these findings and directions for future research.
Criminology, 1987
Can a sentencing policy of "selective incapacitation"1 reduce both crime rates and prison populations? Moreover, can these reductions be calculated? Research findings and methodological innovations over the past 15 years have raised this possibility. In 1972, Wolfgang and his colleagues (Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin, 1972) showed empirically that a small fraction of arrested adolescents contributed disproportionately to the total arrest rate of adolescents of the same age and, presumably, the underlying crime rate of these persons. In the language of the volume under review, the "criminal careers" of this fraction-the frequency with which they committed crimes-differed from the others in their birth cohort. Perhaps it was true more generally that a relatively small group of criminals accounted for a relatively large proportion of the crime rate. The next year, Shinnar and Shinnar (1975) presented a new concept, the average yearly crime rate of those who commit crimes, which they named "lambda." They went on to show how through certain assumptions (for example, that the average rate was a certain number, that each would continue to commit crimes at this average rate while in the community) and further calculations (for example, taking account of the periods criminals are not in the community but incarcerated) this concept could facilitate estimates of the crimes prevented in the community by imprisonment. Their estimates suggested considerable crime savings through appropriate sentencing policies. Still later, Blumstein and Cohen (1979) showed how the underlying crime rates of arrested individuals might be estimated from their arrest records. 1. We have recently become aware that this phrase is not as well understood, even among legal functionaries, as some of us may think. In current criminological jargon, "incapacitation" refers to the practice of rendering convicted criminals incapable of committing crimes in the community through a term of imprisonment. "Selective" incapacitation refers to giving longer terms to those believed most likely to commit serious crimes frequently in the future.
Club Fed" and the Sentencing of White-Collar Offenders Before and After Watergate
Criminology, 1986
This paper counterposes the common assumption that criminal justice systems are resistant to reform with the widespread belief that the sentencing of white-collar offenders became more severe after Watergate. It is argued that readjustments may be more more common than actual reforms in criminal justice systems. This paper provides an example of how such processes of readjustment can be explored in the context of sentencing decisions made before and after the unique historical experience of Watergate. It is shown with data from one of America's most prominent federal district courts that changes did occur in sentences imposed before (in 1973) and after (197.5) Watergate, but with offsetting results: after Watergate, persons convicted of white-collar crimes were more likely to be sentenced to prison, but for shorter periods of time, than less-educated persons convicted of common crimes. Using a technique that corrects for sample selection processes, these effects are shown to cancel one another out. Examples are provided of the token kinds of prison sentences assigned after Watergate to white-collar offenders in several highly publicized cases and areas of enforcement. 1. United States v.
Short- and long-term effects of imprisonment on future felony convictions and prison admissions
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017
A substantial contributor to prison admissions is the return of individuals recently released from prison, which has come to be known as prison's "revolving door." However, it is unclear whether being sentenced to prison itself has a causal effect on the probability of a subsequent return to prison or on criminal behavior. To examine the causal effect of being sentenced to prison on subsequent offending and reimprisonment, we leverage a natural experiment using the random assignment of judges with different propensities for sentencing offenders to prison. Drawing on data on all individuals sentenced for a felony in Michigan between 2003 and 2006, we compare individuals sentenced to prison to those sentenced to probation, taking into account sentence lengths and stratifying our analysis by race. Results show that being sentenced to prison rather than probation increases the probability of imprisonment in the first 3 years after release from prison by 18 percentage point...