White-Collar Crime: An Exploratory Typology

• In Event: Criminological Perspectives on White-Collar Crime

Abstract

White-collar crime substantially exceeds the tangible financial costs of traditional crime. Further, numerous other negative intangible and long term consequences result from white-collar crime victimization. Nonetheless, and despite the large scale and numerous tangible and intangible societal and victim consequences of white-collar crime, our empirical and theoretical understanding remains largely fragmented, discontinuous, and inconclusive. Specifically, the limitations of incomplete empirical data, definitional inconsistencies, and theoretical ambiguity and overlap characterize the prior research literature. This paper assesses white-collar crime’s prior research literature over the past decade toward the end of developing a typology of white-collar crime capable of effectively confronting the empirical, definitional, and theoretical issues that characterize the prior literature. The 3-part typology is proposed as a way to better clarify the definitions, theoretical overlap, and narrow empirical understanding of white-collar crime, in part, by facilitating more focused study of specific white-collar crime areas. The paper concludes with discussion of the research and policy implications that can be drawn from the proposed typology of white-collar crime.

Author

• Darinka Milojevic, Florida State University