The Behavior of Law in College Athletics: Examining the Quantity and Variability of NCAA Sanctions

• In Event: Roundtable: White Collar and Corporate Crime

Abstract

Our research explores variations over time in the quantity and style of social control within the context of college athletics. Inspired by Black’s (1976) classic work on The Behavior of Law, this study uses data from The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) major infractions database to document temporal trends in punishments imposed upon academic institutions by the NCAA from 1953 to 2015. We also explore whether the application of “law” (i.e., NCAA punishments) varies according to four characteristics of the offense or offender: (1) whether the offense poses a threat to the legitimacy of the athletic or academic component of the “student athlete” archetype (e.g., recruiting violations vs. academic fraud); (2) the athletic or academic social status of the punished institution (Division I vs. Divisions II or III; Carnegie classification level); (3) the social status of the offending sports teams involved (revenue vs. non-revenue; men’s vs. women’s); and (4) whether the institution committed and received punishment for prior violations. Overall, this paper aims to contribute to recent criminological research on NCAA rule violations (see Cullen, Latessa, and Jonson, 2012) and to broader scholarship on institutional sanctions and the application of social control.

Authors

• Jacob C. Day, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

• Jonathan R. Brauer, Indiana University