From the Avalanche to the Game: White-Collar Offenders on Crime, Bonds and Morality

Joost H R Van Onna

doi:10.1007/s10611-020-09899-x

Abstract

In order to understand the mechanisms that underlie involvement in white-collar crime on a personal level, 26 offenders convicted of a white-collar offence were interviewed. Building on theory and research from white-collar criminology, life-course criminology and moral psychology, findings show that a combination of criminogenic circumstances, weakened social bonds and adjusted moral ideas lead offenders down different pathways into white-collar offending. Although the process of crime involvement seems highly context-dependent in some instances, the interviews indicate that crime involvement is more commonly part of a long-running process, in which social bonds have weakened or moral ideas have been adjusted, which in turn influenced the decision to engage in the white-collar offence. Along with the limitations of the study and the directions for future research, the paper discusses the implications of the findings for white-collar crime research, in particular the complex role of morality in white-collar crime involvement.

Highlights

IntroductionThe role of personal experiences and moral views of those who become involved in white-collar crimes, such as tax evasion, insider trading or embezzlement, remains poorly understood. Do individuals become criminally active in response to a specificAsset Confiscation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands van Onna J.H.R.situation, or is their crime involvement part of a long-running process? And what are the social and moral mechanisms that account for this process? In white-collar crime literature, the involvement in white-collar crime is typically conceptualized as the outcome of differential exposure to criminogenic situational forces, such as corporate cultural values and businesses’ practices (e.g. [3,4,5]), organizational opportunity structures (e.g. [6]) or economic strains (e.g. [7])
Asset Confiscation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands van Onna J.H.R. Situation, or is their crime involvement part of a long-running process? And what are the social and moral mechanisms that account for this process? In white-collar crime literature, the involvement in white-collar crime is typically conceptualized as the outcome of differential exposure to criminogenic situational forces, such as corporate cultural values and businesses’ practices (e.g. [3,4,5]), organizational opportunity structures (e.g. [6]) or economic strains (e.g. [7])
The analysis illustrates how change, pressure and opportunity, weakened bonds and adjusted morality may contribute to white-collar crime involvement

Summary

Introduction

The role of personal experiences and moral views of those who become involved in white-collar crimes, such as tax evasion, insider trading or embezzlement, remains poorly understood. Do individuals become criminally active in response to a specificAsset Confiscation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands van Onna J.H.R.situation, or is their crime involvement part of a long-running process? And what are the social and moral mechanisms that account for this process? In white-collar crime literature, the involvement in white-collar crime is typically conceptualized as the outcome of differential exposure to criminogenic situational forces, such as corporate cultural values and businesses’ practices (e.g. [3,4,5]), organizational opportunity structures (e.g. [6]) or economic strains (e.g. [7]). While these situational forces are highly important for understanding crime involvement, white-collar scholars stress that without taking offenders’ background and cognitions into account we cannot fully understand how offenders react to or perceive criminogenic environments, why individuals become attracted to criminogenic environments in the first place, and how and why persons eventually fold under pressure or take advantage of criminal opportunities [2, 10]) In this perspective, crime involvement of offenders is conceptualized as a developmental pattern across the life span [11]. For other offenders changes in their personal or professional life, such as events, social interactions or socialization processes in adulthood can become turning points and lead to crime involvement The few white-collar crime studies that have taken a life-course perspective show that for most white-collar offenders the process of crime involvement starts in adulthood and appears to be highly dependent on business-related circumstances, while a minority of white-collar offenders has engaged in crime since early stages of life [2, 14, 15].2

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