Chapter 1 Introduction and Overview of White Collar Crime Introduction What is White Collar Crime o A category of crimes occurs in all work environment Example Deaths associated w an earthquake would appear to be unrelated to WCC But what if it is a consequence of greedy development paying off corrupt governmental inspectors to evade proper building codes How do we define WCC 3 factors o 1 White Collar Crimes are committed during the course of one s job o 2 The offenders occupational role plays a central feature in the perpetuation of the crime o 3 The offenders occupation is viewed as legitimate by society WCC is an crime committed by either fraud deception or collusion o Economic What are 6 reasons to why we should study WCC o 1 WCC is a serious problem in our society and costs far more in damage than property crimes o 2 WCC affects everyone large of victims o 3 By studying WCC offending we learn more about all types of crime o 4 Effective prevention and intervention systems and policies to be developed o 5 To provide info about potential careers related to WCC o 6 Insight into current culture and subculture WCC is involves large numerous in different complicated carried out over long periods of o Complex o Involves large organizations o Numerous individuals in different positions o Complicated a transaction carried out over long periods of time Because this field of study is complex one must understand o Economics o Management o Law o Sociology o Psychology Researching WCC Name 5 ways to research WCC o Surveys o Field Research o Experiments o Case studies o Archival Research o Surveys What are some survey methods Survey Method On Site Administration What is one of the more common research strategies used to study WCC o On site administration surveys face to face interviews telephone interviews mail surveys Strengths surveys occur in one setting large sample is possible does not take long to gather convenient Weaknesses Difficult to give surveys on site to both offenders and victims No database of white collar offenders Educational differences make it hard to use the same surveys for Face to Face Interviews Telephone Interviews Mail Surveys Can watch respondent s reactions Probing is an option Rapport is easier to develop Most comprehensive studies have been conducted using telephone interviews respondents seem more open answering questions over the phone Less costly Able to survey large number of respondents everyone Hard for some to recall incidents Gaining entrance and trust of victims hard More time consuming More expensive Difficulty in finding participants and place to conduct interviews Trust and rapport are important Must gain access and permission of businesses People without home phones are excluded from the study Some do not answer their phones due to increase in telemarketing May not fully understand the questions No opportunity to develop rapport Takes time to develop a comprehensive list of residents Certain subjects are excluded from mailing list The aim of surveys is what topic under consideration Who is surveyed o Gather information from a group of individuals and use that information to paint a picture of the o Criminal justice officials members of the public victims of WCC white collar offenders What are 2 issues that arise when survey WCC victims o The ability to identify a sample of WCC victims o Victims may be reluctant to discuss their experiences What are problems evident across each of the survey types that question the validity and reliability of WCC surveys o The field of criminology has not yet developed comprehensive measures difficult to compare results across studies and generalize findings to various occupational settings o Difficulty developing representative samples random sample of WCC victims offenders o Questions about WCC on surveys are influenced by other items findings might actually reflect methodological influences as opposed to actual patterns o Scarcity of certain types of WCC surveys more difficult to develop conduct them What is a weakness of surveys What is a strength o Legitimacy anonymity Archival Research and WCC refers to studies that use some form of record as a database in the study o Archival research What are types of archives commonly used in WCC o Case records o Pre sentence Reports o Media Reports o Case descriptions of specific WCC o Case records What is a problem in using case records are official records that are housed in an agency that has formal social control duties o Locating the certain type of sample that would be labeled as white collar offenders are developed by probation officers and include a wealth of information about offenders their life histories their criminal careers and the sentences they received Researchers have also used to study WCC by using news articles press reports and television depictions o Pre sentence reports of WCC o Media reports Media reports can help researchers demonstrate what kind of members of the public are likely to receive about WCC and uncover possible guiding white collar offenses that may not be studied through other means o Information patterns What are some advantages with the use of case records for WCC research o Provides WCC researchers access to a large group of subjects that they would not be able to otherwise access o Explore changes over long periods of time o The research subject white collar offender victim will not react to being studied simply b c there are no interactions What are some limitations when using archives to study WCC o you get what you get case files are inflexible unable to probe as w interviews o The way that records are coded may change over time o Cases only represent those that have come to the attention of the authorities Field Research Experiments involves strategies where researchers enter a particular setting and gather data through their observations in those settings o Field Research Field Research is and conducted much less than other white collar crime studies o Time consuming frequently are studies where the researchers examine how the presence of one variable the causal independent variable produces an outcome Dependent Variable o Experiments The classic experimental design entails using what two groups o Experimental group and control group o Subjects randomly selected and assigned to one of the groups Members of the receive the independent variable treatment and members of the control group do not o Experimental group Why do very