White Collar Crime and Criminal Careers: Some Preliminary Findings

• NCJ Number: 154650
• Journal: Crime and Delinquency Volume: 36 Issue: 3 Dated: (July 1990) Pages: 342-355
• Date Published: 1990
• Author(s): D Weisburd; E F Chayet; E J Waring
• Length: 14 pages
• Grant Number(s): 88-IJ-CX-0046
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This article examines the extent to which the image of white collar criminals as "one-shot" offenders is reflected in the criminal records of defendants convicted under white collar crime statutes in the Federal court system.

Abstract

The sample was drawn from seven Federal judicial districts during fiscal years 1976-1978 with specific information about offenders coded from sentence investigation reports. A substantial proportion of white collar offenders in nearly every crime category, including securities fraud, tax law violations, bribery, credit fraud, false claims, mail fraud, and bank embezzlement, with the exception of antitrust violations, had prior convictions, from a low of 19 percent for bribery offenders to a high of 46 percent for those convicted of credit fraud. The frequency of reoffending among white collar criminals was still lower than that among other types of offenders. The findings show that white collar criminals begin their criminal careers at a later age than other criminals, but there is no evidence to suggest that they specialize in specific types of white collar crime. 5 tables, 12 notes, and 26 references