Vol. 1 No. 7 (September, 1991) pp. 99-101
CRIMES OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES: WHITE COLLAR OFFENDERS IN THE
FEDERAL COURTS by David Weisburd, Stanton Wheeler, Elin Waring,
and Nancy Bode. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. 211 pp.
Cloth $24.00.
Reviewed by Stuart A. Scheingold, Department of Political Sci-
ence, The University of Washington.
For those of us whose work has focused primarily on street crime,
this books provides an instructive look at the world of white
collar crime. Its findings feed directly into common assumptions
about the differences between the two criminological worlds.
These assumptions are capsulized in the title of the Jeffrey
Reiman's persuasive polemic which claims that "the rich get
richer and the poor get prison." Without putting too fine a
point on it, that is pretty much what Weisburd and his asso-
ciate's systematic empirical research uncovers. But the reach of
this study extends considerably further towards a reinterpre-
tation of the concept of white-collar crime. At the heart of the
matter is the discovery that the bulk of white collar crime is
not, as we are inclined to believe, committed by the affluent and
the influential but by rather "ordinary people." I will
return to the implications of this finding at the conclusion of
the review.
CRIMES OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES is based on U.S. federal court data
concerning offenders convicted of committing eight white-collar
crimes (e.g.: antitrust, mail fraud, embezzlement) and two
"common" crimes (postal theft and forgery). Of course,
postal theft and forgery are hardly the typical common crimes.
Had more typical street crimes, like robbery, burglary, and
assault been included, the differentiation between the worlds of
common and white collar crime would probably have been still
sharper. Research in the federal courts does not, however, permit
analysis of street crimes, which are dealt with almost
exclusively in state systems. Still, the separation between the
worlds of white collar and street crime is striking and it has to
do with the kinds of people who commit the crimes and the sen-
tences they receive from the criminal justice system.
White collar criminals have much more stable employment records,
are better educated, have significant assets, and are twice as
likely to be white. They are much less likely than common
criminals to have a prior criminal record, although "these
white collar criminals evidence prior criminality to a much
greater extent than most practitioners and scholars would have
expected." (p. 66). While thus in many ways normal
middle-class Americans, "the most interesting fact about the
white-collar offenders' aggregate financial status . . . is the
extent of their liabilities. Many of our offenders . . . may
barely be holding their financial selves together." (p. 65)
In other words, these white collar offenders are middle-class
Americans at risk. This finding is of potentially great
significance to students of white collar as I shall indicate
below.
Page 100 follows:
The sentencing data reveal that the criminal justice system is
harder on common criminals than on white collar offenders despite
the fact that sentencing practices are derived from ostensibly
equitable legal principles--i.e., the seriousness of the crime,
the blameworthiness of the offender, and the effects of the
sentence on the offender and others. (p. 133) These principles
are, however, weighted in ways that tend to work against common
criminals. For white collar criminals, judges tend to emphasize
the seriousness of the offense while in sen- tencing common
criminals, judges put more emphasis on the offender's background
and criminal record. The result is that white collar criminals
are less likely to be incarcerated and more likely to escape with
fines or probation. Moreover, fines tend be lenient--not just for
offenders of moderate means but for many wealthy offenders as
well.
This research also raises serious questions about the
justification commonly given for more lenient sentencing of white
collar criminals. They are said to suffer more than common
criminals from simply undergoing prosecution. For them, the
process truly is supposed to be the punishment, as Malcolm Feeley
put it in a different context. But this is not necessarily true,
according to Weisburd et al. Common criminals were more likely to
lose their jobs or to suffer a loss in social standing and were
just about as likely to have health problems following their
convictions. The authors acknowledge that these findings are
"exploratory at best" (pp. 125-26) and one wonders
whether a more typical panel of common criminals would yield the
same results. Still, these are the only findings that I know of
that shed any empirical light on what has become conventional
criminological wisdom.
In focusing as I have on the distinctions between common and
white collar crime, I have appropriated this research for my own
purposes. In its own terms the fundamental objective of the book
is to rethink the sources and meaning of white collar crime. The
first step in this direction is the discovery that white collar
crime is predominately committed by average middle class Ameri-
cans. "We believe that ordinary people are committing white
collar crime in increasing numbers. One reason is that ordinary
people have greater access to the white-collar world of paper
fraud." (p. 183)
Page 101 follows:
This is important because it redirects the focus of white collar
crime from the life styles of the rich and famous to average
problems and pathologies.
The clear inferences is that white collar crime is intrinsic to
our emerging service economy where incentive and opportunity
intersect. The nation's obsession with achievement and affluence
goes back a long way, but these days achievement and affluence
are inextricably linked to such things as formal credentials,
benefit programs, electronic money transfers, and the availabili-
ty of easy credit -- all vulnerable to "paper fraud."
According- ly, the major policy lesson drawn by the authors is
that the most promising way to decrease white collar crime is to
reduce tempta- tion by making it more difficult to accumulate
debt thereby reducing "some of the felt pressure that gets
converted into criminal fraud." (p. 191) The broader meaning
of this recommen- dation is the importance of moving away from
socio-economic norms that encourage spending and immediate
material gratification. Whatever the practical obstacles to
moving in this direction, the understanding of white collar crime
significantly broadens the criminological frame of reference.
Copyright 1991