Was Sutherland Right? An Analysis of Cryptocurrency Offenders

• In Event: Identity Theft & (Tele)Fraud

Abstract

In a 1939 meeting of the American Sociological Society, Edwin Sutherland coined the term white-collar criminal. While controversial today, his definition focused on the nature of the sociodemographic features of the criminal. These were not the street criminals being studied by criminologists of the time – instead, they were higher-status, white men who committed financial crimes. Empirical data on white-collar criminals is mixed. Our study examines a newer form of white-collar crime, cryptocurrency pump-and-dump schemes (a type of financial fraud). Using national survey data, we find that self-disclosed offenders were more likely to be male, have higher income, and lower age than the general population. In addition, we found that typical theories such as strain, self-control, and social learning were not correlated with this type of crime.

Authors

• Thomas E. Dearden, Virginia Tech

• James Hawdon, Virginia Tech

• Katalin Parti, Virginia Tech