ACR101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Social Forces, Embeddedness, Edwin Sutherland
ACR101 Week 7
White Collar Crime
Introduction
The term ‘white-collar’ crime was originally coined by Edwin Sutherland (1940) to question
the conventional focus of criminology on violent crimes such as murder, or publicly visible
street offending that consumes most police time, and tends to capture the public
imagination. What is known about the white-collar offender defies the conventional image
of the criminal as someone who is generally male, wears a balaclava and holds up a
convenience store (Lippert and Wilkinson, 2010), or the historical predecessor of the
nineteenth century “robber-barons” who charged a 'toll' on stage coaches (Sutherland,
1940, p. 2).
In recent decades, the institutions of justice and criminology more generally, have devoted
considerable attention to ‘crime in the suites’. Much of this attention relates back to key
themes discussed in Week 2 (What is Crime), which indicated that the potential scale and
breadth of harm caused by individuals within corporations or certain types of business crime
can significantly outstrip that caused by conventional definitions of ‘what is crime’ and ‘who
is the criminal’ (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007).
The area of white-collar crime is a unit of study in its own right. This topic navigates some of
the key issues relevant to understanding why this type of crime can occur, its impact on
individuals and society more broadly, while identifying several problems associated with
regulating this field through the criminal law. Given the complexity of the white-collar crime
field, this topic provides a brief introduction of these core themes, with a view to encourage
you to think about how this topic relates to other related issues emerging in previous topics
you have encountered so far in this unit.
Defining white-collar crime
This issue involves the scale and scope of harm caused by white-collar crime, which tends to
outweigh the level of harm caused by most types of behaviour we commonly label as
‘criminal’. In addition, criminological literature often indicates that white-collar criminals are
under-policed, or when they are brought before the criminal justice system, receive
disproportionately low punishments (Haines and Sutton, 2012, p. 192). The remainder of
this section then goes on to document some key elements of Edwin Sutherland’s pioneering
research into white-collar crime. When working through this reading, you should recognise
both the merits of Sutherland’s ‘discoveries’ about this otherwise hidden dimension of
criminal activity, as well as many problems or unanswered questions that have arisen in this
area.
Ambiguity or typology?
Your next reading suggests that white-collar crime is ambiguous, because it is often dealt
with outside of the formal criminal justice processes that apply to street crimes or violence.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
In recent decades, the institutions of justice and criminology more generally, have devoted considerable attention to crime in the suites". The area of white-collar crime is a unit of study in its own right. This topic navigates some of the key issues relevant to understanding why this type of crime can occur, its impact on individuals and society more broadly, while identifying several problems associated with regulating this field through the criminal law. This issue involves the scale and scope of harm caused by white-collar crime, which tends to outweigh the level of harm caused by most types of behaviour we commonly label as. In addition, criminological literature often indicates that white-collar criminals are under-policed, or when they are brought before the criminal justice system, receive disproportionately low punishments (haines and sutton, 2012, p. 192). The remainder of this section then goes on to document some key elements of edwin sutherland"s pioneering research into white-collar crime.
