SOC208H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Oxymoron, Takers, Arthur Andersen
Document Summary
Sutherland"s approach of the offender being of respectability and high social status. Yale conducted a study discovering eight offenses in the criminal code that most would agree to be white-collar type crimes. The next step was to find the white-collar criminals. White-collar offenders are not like the people who are convicted of ordinary street crimes. White-collar offenders are older, more likely to be male, and more likely to be white. Also more likely to be married, to own their own homes, financially secure, and employed at the time of their offenses. Perpetrators of really big-time white-collar crimes possess an exaggerated sense of self-confidence and entitlement, and they may share some personality traits that are found among psychopaths. Characteristics such as insensitivity to the moral implications of their actions, narcissism, arrogance, shrewdness, extraverted personalities enabling them to fare well in the competition for high-level jobs where opportunities for white-collar crime are plentiful.
