Social Change and the Democratization of Middle Class Crime

• In Event: Etiology and Correlates of White-Collar Crime

Abstract

Race and ethnicity influence access to occupational positions and opportunities in America. Since the 1970s, as a result of civil rights legislation and greater access to educational opportunities both African-Americans and people of Hispanic origin have had steadily increasing rates of participation in white-collar type jobs, such as executives, managers, professionals, and office workers. While these social advances are welcome steps along the road toward establishing a truly discrimination-free meritocracy in American society, they may also have unintended criminological implications, because white-collar jobs provide opportunities to commit what have been called “crimes of the middle classes.” Using data drawn from the U. S. Sentencing Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U. S. Census Bureau, we conduct a pooled time series analysis of trends in the 50 American states from 2002 to 2015 to investigate whether African-American and Hispanic involvement in a set of middle class crimes has increased and whether this increase can be attributed to their greater access to white-collar type jobs.

Authors

• Michael L. Benson, University of Cincinnati

• Ben Feldmeyer, University of Cincinnati

• Hei Lam Chio, University of Cincinnati