Understanding White Collar Crime
§ 1.01 Defining “White Collar Crime”
Criminologist and sociologist Edwin Sutherland first popularized the term “white collar crime” in 1939, defining such a crime as one “committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” Sutherland also included crimes committed by corporations and other legal entities within his definition. Sutherland’s study of white collar crime was prompted by the view that criminology had incorrectly focused on social and economic determinants of crime, such as family background and level of wealth. According to Sutherland’s view, crime is committed at all levels of society and by persons of widely divergent socio-economic backgrounds. In particular, according to Sutherland, crime is often committed by persons operating through large and powerful organizations. White collar crime, Sutherland concluded, has a greatly-underestimated impact upon our society. Sutherland’s definition is now somewhat outdated for students of the criminal law. As white collar crime began to capture the attention of prosecutors and the public in the mid-1970s,..