Full Description
Nearly six decades have passed since the concept of white-collar crime was introduced and systematic scholarly investigation of it began. Although it has proven to be one of the most challenging and controversial topics in sociology, the concept has taken firm root in lay and scholarly lexicons where it is widely understand and used to denote a type of crime that differs fundamentally from street crime. One way it is different is the backgrounds and characteristics of it perpetrators; the poor and disreputable fodder routinely encountered in police stations and in studies of street crime are seldom in evidence here. Most if not all white-collar offenders by contrast are distinguished by lives of privilege, much of it with origins in class inequality. This reader begins together under a unifying theoretical approach the current state of knowledge about and debate over white-collar crime. Editors' introductions preface each of the six chapters in the book, and each of the thirty-one carefully chosen selections -- both classic and contemporary - has been significantly edited for readability and suitability for the college student.
The readings address conceptual conflicts as well as empirical studies of the strucutre of opportunities, the characteristics of white-collar offenders and their decision making, and the various approaches to controlling white-collar offering. Additionally, the book includes twenty-one specially designed panels that call-out particular issues from the readings by offering case examples taken from local and regional newspapers. Together, the readings and the panels offer the student both analysis and examples of white-collar crime.
Contents
Preface ; 1. Conceptual Issues and Skirmishes ; Introduction ; White-Collar Criminality ; Is "White-Collar Crime" Crime? ; Collaring the Crime, Not the Criminal: Reconsidering the Concept of White-Collar Crime ; Organizational Crime ; Crime and Capitalist Business Corporations ; 2. Victims and Costs ; Introduction ; The Neglected Victims and Unexamined Costs of White-Collar Crime ; Personal Fraud and Its Victims ; White-Collar Crime Victimization ; Consequences of Victimization by White-Collar Crime ; Victims of Fraud: Comparing Victims of White-Collar and Violent Crime ; 3. White-Collar Criminal Opportunities ; Introduction ; "Heads I WIn, Tails You Lose": Deregulation, Crime, and Crisis in the Savings and Loan Industry ; From Fiddle Factors to Networks of Collusion: Charting the Waters of Small Business Crime ; Transaction Systems and Unlawful Organizational Behavior ; Opportunity and Crime in the Medical Profession ; Fire in Hamlet: A Case Study of a State-Corporate Crime ; 4. Decision Making ; Introduction ; Poverty of Theory in Corporate Crime Research ; A Rational Choice Theory of Corporate Crime ; Organizational Culture and Organizational Crime ; Profits, Pressure, and Corporate Law-Breaking ; Rational Choice, Situated Action, and the Social Control of Organizations ; 5. Sources and Characteristics of White-Collar Offenders ; Introduciton ; Who Is the White-Collar Criminal? ; Gender and Varieties of White-Collar Crime ; Corporate Control, Crime, and Compensation: An Examination of Large Corporations ; Toward Understanding Unlawful Organizational Behavior ; Characteristics and Sources of White-Collar Crime ; Competition and Motivation to White-Collar Crime ; 6. Controlling White-Collar Crime? ; Introduction ; On Theory and Action for Corporate Crime Control ; Prosecuting Corporate Crime: Problems and Contraints ; Corporate Crime and Criminal Justice System Capacity: Government Response to Financial Institution Fraud ; An Evolving Compliance Model for Tax Enforcement ; Cooperative Models and Corporate Crime: Panacea or Cop-Out?
