By Stephanie Holmes Didwania

Fraud is one of the most prosecuted crimes in the United States, yet scholarly and journalistic discourse about fraud and other financial crimes tends to focus on the absence of so-called “white-collar” prosecutions against wealthy executives. This Article complicates that familiar narrative. It contains the first nationwide account of how the United States actually prosecutes financial crime. It shows—contrary to dominant academic and public discourse—that the government prosecutes an enormous number of people for financial crimes and that these prosecutions disproportionately involve the least advantaged U.S. residents accused of low-level offenses. This empirical account directly contradicts the aspiration advanced by the FBI and Department of Justice that federal prosecution ought to be reserved for only the most egregious and sophisticated financial crimes. This article argues, in other words, that the term “white-collar crime” is a misnomer.

To build this empirical foundation, the Article uses comprehensive data of the roughly two million federal criminal cases prosecuted over the last three decades matched to county-level population data from the U.S. Census. It demonstrates the history, geography, and inequality that characterize federal financial crime cases, which include myriad crimes such as identity theft, mail and wire fraud, public benefits fraud, and tax fraud, to name just a few. It shows that financial crime defendants are disproportionately low-income and Black, and that this overrepresentation is not only a nationwide pattern, but also a pattern in nearly every federal district in the United States. What’s more, the financial crimes prosecuted against these overrepresented defendants are on average the least serious. This Article ends by exploring how formal law and policy, structural incentives, and individual biases could easily create a prosecutorial regime for financial crime that reinforces inequality based on race, gender, and wealth.

Northwestern Law & Econ Research Paper Forthcoming, outhern California Law Review, Vol. 97, 2024, 54 pages

Edited by Chris Monaghan and Nicola Monaghan

The Fraud Act 2006 presented a wholesale reform of the pre-existing deception offences under the Theft Act 1968 and Theft Act 1978. This edited collection offers a critical evaluation of fraud legislation and provides a review of the Fraud Act 2006 within the context of measures introduced within the previous decade to combat financial crime, fraud and white-collar offences. The edited collection brings together contributors from a range of unique perspectives including academics, practitioners and a former member of the judiciary. It covers several related themes and provides the reader with a unique and original commentary on how the Fraud Act 2006 has been applied by the courts, the type of prosecutions that have taken place, the effectiveness of the Act, and other legislation which is used to prosecute financial crime and corporate misconduct. It covers procedural and evidential aspects relating to fraud trials, namely consideration of the composition of the tribunal of fact in complex fraud trials, and good character directions in fraud trials.

Abington, Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2018. 230p.

By Brent Fisse and John Braithwaite

This book explains why accountability for corporate crime is rarely imposed under the present law, and proposes solutions that would help to extend responsibility to a wide range of actors. The authors develop an Accountability Model under which the courts and corporations work together by having the law harness the internal disciplinary systems of organizations. In this way accountability would be achieved across a much broader front than would otherwise be possible.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 288p.

By Petter Gottschalk

This brief extends studies on how corporations respond to scandals by examining the evolution of the accounts that corporate agents develop after a scandal becomes public. Guided by the theory of accounts and a recently developed perspective on crisis management, its examines how the accounts developed by thirteen corporations caught up in highly publicized scandals changed from the time of initial exposure to the issuance of an investigative report. This brief continues the discussion of the broader managerial and social implications of the analysis of accounts, and analyses their effect on our understanding of the ability of corporations to weather serious scandals. It includes four case studies; from Switzerland, Moldova, Denmark, and Norway respectively.

Cham: Springer, 2020. 147p

Edited by Diane Vaughan, Henry N. Pontell and Gilbert Geis

Corporate crimes were once thought of as victimless offenses, but now—with billions of dollars and an increasingly global economy at stake—this is understood to be far from the truth.

The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime explores the complex interplay of factors involved when corporate cultures normalize lawbreaking, and when organizational behavior is pushed to unethical (and sometimes inhumane) limits. Featuring original contributions from a panel of experts representing North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia, this timely volume presents multidisciplinary views on recent corporate wrongdoing affecting economic and social conditions worldwide.

New York: Springer, 2007. 702p.

Edited by Lawrence M. Salinger

With more than 500 entries (including up-to-date information on such high profile cases as Martha Stewart and Enron), the <strong>Encyclopedia of White-Collar & Corporate Crime gathers history, definitions, examples, investigation, prosecution, assessments, challenges, and projections into one definitive reference work on the topic. This two-volume encyclopedia incorporates information about a variety of white-collar crimes, and provides examples of persons, statutes, companies, and convictions. Each entry offers a thorough and thoughtful summary of the topic. Rather than a simple definition, users are given a satisfying and sophisticated synopsis with references for further study.

London; Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2004p. 1016p.

Edited by John Minkes and Leonard Minkes

"This timely collection contains contemporary case studies and critical analyses by leading writers in the study of white collar corporate crime. It makes an invaluable contribution to the ′criminology of the corporation′."

London; Los Angeles, SAGE, 2008. 224p.

By Colin King and Nicholas Lord

This book argues that there is a strong normative argument for using the criminal law as a primary response to corporate crime. In practice, however, corporate crimes are rarely dealt with through criminal sanctioning mechanisms. Rather, the preference – for both prosecutors and corporates – appears to be on negotiating out of the criminal process. Reflecting this emphasis on negotiation, this book examines the use of Civil Recovery Orders and Deferred Prosecution Agreements as responses to corporate crime, and discusses a variety of UK case studies. Drawing upon legal and criminological backgrounds, and with an emphasis on the conceptual frameworks of ‘negotiated justice’ and ‘legitimacy’, the authors examine the law, policy and practice of these enforcement responses. They offer an original, theoretically-informed analysis which is accessible to practitioners and researchers.

Cham: Springer, 2018. 167p.

By Greg Barak

Why are crimes of the suite punished more leniently than crimes of the street? When police killings of citizens go unpunished, political torture is sanctioned by the state, and the financial frauds of Wall Street traders remain unprosecuted, nothing succeeds with such regularity as the active failures of national states to obstruct the crimes of the powerful.

Written from the perspective of global sustainability and as an unflinching and unforgiving exposé of the full range of the crimes of the powerful, Unchecked Corporate Power reveals how legalized authorities and political institutions charged with the duty of protecting citizens from law-breaking and injurious activities have increasingly become enablers and colluders with the very enterprises they are obliged to regulate. Here, Gregg Barak explains why the United States and other countries are duplicitous in their harsh reactions to street crimes in comparison to the significantly more harmful and far-reaching crimes of the powerful, and why the crimes of the powerful are treated as beyond incrimination.

London; New York: Routledge, 2017. 213p.

By Chris Mathers

In Crime School: Money Laundering, a twenty-year law enforcement veteran of financial crime explains this felony in simple terms. Written anecdotally, the book describes what money laundering is and how the crimes behind it fit together.

Organized criminals operating both domestically and internationally corrupt bankers and subvert national economies through the use of drug money.

This book examines the history of money laundering from ancient times to the cocaine craze of the 1970s to the sophisticated, brutal techniques employed by today's terrorists and organized crime.

Lively and detailed, this book chronicles the stark realities and deadly dynamics of the lynchpin between organized crime and modern terrorism. It's a rare and fascinating look at a deadly world few have ever witnessed and lived to tell the story.

Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books, 2004. 244p.

By Petter Gottschalk

This book introduces 'convenience' as the key concept to explain financial crime by white-collar criminals. Based on a number of fraud examination- reports from the United States and Norway, the book documents empirical evidence of convenience among white-collar criminals. It advances our understanding of white-collar crime by drawing attention to private investigation reports by fraud examiners and financial crime specialists, who are in the growing business of fraud investigations. Reports of investigations have never before been researched in terms of white-collar criminals nor crime convenience. Reports of investigations by auditing and law firms represent a valuable empirical basis – in addition to court documents and other sources of information about financial crime.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 134p.

Edited by Nic Ryder

This edited collection provides an innovative and detailed analysis of the relationship between the financial crisis, risk and corruption. A large majority of the published research has concentrated on identifying the traditional factors that contributed towards the largest financial crisis since the Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression. This original volume contests this, and provides the alternative view that white collar crime was also an underappreciated, and important factor.

Divided into five parts: bribery and corruption; financial crime; market manipulation; technology and white collar crime; and the financial crisis, and based on contributions by a wide range of experts in the field, this book will be of great interest to policy makers and practitioners, researchers and students alike.

London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 377p.

By Harold Winter

Since Gary Becker’s seminal article in the late sixties, the economic analysis of crime has blossomed, from an interesting side field within law and economics, into a mature stand-alone sub-discipline that has been embraced by many well-respected academic economists. Wide ranging and accessible, this is the most up-to-date textbook in this area, taking current economic research and making it accessible to undergraduates and other interested readers. Without use of graphs or mathematical equations, Winter combines theory and empirical evidence with controversial examples from the news media.

London; Routledge, 2008. 146p.

By Harald Haelterman

This book positions script analysis as a useful and pragmatic tool, which can guide the selection and implementation of preventive measures in business environments. It illustrates how the concept aligns with the crime-specific orientation found in environmental criminology, and particularly explores the theoretical foundations of situational crime prevention, the approach to which it is deemed most relevant and supportive.

The volume provides clear guidance on how to apply script analysis in daily practice, covering its main building blocks and key features. These are illustrated by a series of case studies into various crime types. Moving beyond the use of script analysis with the intent to disrupt the crime-commission process, the author further explores the wider benefits of the approach to both academics and practitioners. He identifies what is needed most if we want to embrace the full potential of script analysis for preventive purposes.

London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 262p.

By Michael J. Lynch.

A revised and extended edition of the popular Crimes Against Health and Safety, this classic dissects the popular myths promoted by traditional criminology, uncovers who the real criminals are, and the extent of their dreadful crimes. The authors have written a new Introduction specially for this Kindle edition. CONTENTS: 1.Quiet Violence. 2.Corporate Crime: Definition and History. 3.Calling a Crime a Crime. 4.Conventional Laws for Unconventional Crimes. 5.Regulating Health and Safety. 6.Green Criminology: Corporate Violence and the Environment. 7.Explaining Corporate Violence. 9.Restructuring Risk Decision-making.References.

RECOMMENDED: If you're fed up with white collar crime, corporate arrogance and greed, then this book is for you. Makes a provocative text for upper division undergraduate courses on the Nature of Crime and its Control. Never fails to stimulate animated discussion in graduate classes.

NY. Harrow and Heston Publishers. 2014. 212p.