Vol. 9 No. 10 (October 1999) pp. 428-430.

FRAUD: ORGANIZATION, MOTIVATION AND CONTROL by Michael Levi (Editor), 2 volumes. Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1999. Volume I, 579 pp. Volume II, 417 pp. Cloth $ 323.95.

Reviewed by David Schultz, Graduate School of Public Administration and Management, Hamline University, and University of Minnesota School of Law.

White-collar crime is an enigma. What it is, whether it is different in kind from street crime, who commits it, the frequency and cost of such crimes, and the motives for it remain controversial and the subject of enduring debate within the criminal justice field. Michael Levi's FRAUD provides a wide-range of articles that address these questions and challenges many assumptions held regarding white-collar crime.

The touchstone work defining the subject of white-collar crime was Edwin Sutherland's WHITE-COLLAR CRIME (1949). According to Sutherland, white-collar crime is a crime is different from street crime in many ways. It is committed by those of high status and power, it often involves a violation by a trusted person in professions such as medicine, law, accounting, banking, and business, and it is committed by individuals who do not see themselves as criminals. White-collar crime is perpetrated by large as opposed to small businesses, and the general assumption is that prosecutors and judges are more lenient on white-collar as opposed to street level criminals. Finally, many question whether white-collar crime is as harmful as street crime, although Sutherland himself contended that the two are not connected and the harm of the former resides in how it undermines the legitimacy of social institutions. Overall, Sutherland's book set the tone both for perceptions on white-collar crime and subsequent research on the topic, including the studies in these two volumes.

Levi's book is an anthology of almost everything one would want to know about fraud as a form of white-collar crime. It brings together an international collection of research on fraud drawn from dozens of journals. Volume I describes how fraud is committed in almost a "how to" fashion and it also addresses why people commit this crime. Volume II examines social perceptions of fraud and the enforcement of laws against this white-collar crime. Between the two volumes there are 44 articles ostensibly on fraud, but in total, they test many of the assumptions and claims of Sutherland's, yielding a surprising and informative picture of what white-collar crime is, who commits it, why, and how they are punished. What do these studies say about what fraud and white-collar crime are?

First, defining white-collar crime is problematic. Johnson and Leo's "The Yale White-Collar Crime Project: A Review and Critique" (vol. II, p. 63) offers an excellent conceptualization of white-collar crime. They suggest a fourfold typology premised

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upon the focus and scope of the crime. Some scholars classify white-collar crime based upon the individual who commits the crime or the type of offense committed versus whether the crime is harmful (mala in se) or merely a legal wrong (mala prohibita). For example, Sutherland classified white-collar crime based upon the offender and the harmfulness of the offense, but others have looked to the offense, describing white-collar crime as including fraud, embezzlement, and tax evasion, while still others classify the crime as harmless whether perpetuated by a specific offender or precipitated by a specific offense. The point of this article, as with many other essays in the two volumes, is that there is much conceptual disagreement over what constitutes white-collar crime and how one classifies it.

Numerous essays in the two volumes challenge assumptions about who commits white-collar crime. Braithwaite's "Crime and the Average American (vol. II, p. 3) reviews some of the literature on white-collar crime and lists securities fraud, antitrust, bribery, bank embezzlement, postal and wire fraud, fraud claims and statements, credit and lending institution fraud, and tax fraud as the basic eight forms of white-collar crime. Based upon this classification and reporting data of seven district courts, female offenders are the minority, except for bank embezzlement. Blacks and other racial minorities, as well as Jews are under represented. This study seems to confirm stereotypes of white-collar crime as a rich white male crime and, therefore, of a different demographic from street crime, but other studies cited in this article contest that claim. Moreover, more than 40% of the offenders in this study had prior arrest records and 35% had prior convictions, dispelling thenotion that white-collar criminals are not habitual offenders. Finally, Sutton and Wild's "Small Business: White-collar Villains or Victim's (vol. I, p. 151) challenges the Sutherland notion that white-collar crime is a disease of large businesses, finding that many medium sizes firms, partnerships, and single owner proprietors commit white-collar crime.

White-collar crime is not motivated solely by financial gain. Examinations of the motives and reasons for committing white-collar crime also report interesting results. Stotland's "White-collar Criminals" (vol. II, p. 21) lists desire for money, threat of loss, sense of superiority, ego, power, group forces, and benefits to the victim as motives for white-collar crime. Benson and Moore's "Are White-Collar and Common Offenders the Same?" (vol. I, p. 496) lists three paths to white-collar crime: Those with low self control who commit crime when the opportunity arises, those who do it for ego gratification, and those who commit crimes depending on personal situations in their lives. Levi's "Motivations and Criminal Careers of Long-Firm Fraudsters" (vol. I, p. 307 sees fraudsters as those who either plan their activity or those who slide into it.

White-collar crime is not always a calculated activity. For many who commit fraud, they do not have any prior convictions and they do not plan to commit fraud. Only a few offenders fit into a habitual and calculating category of white-collar criminals who view crime as a cost/benefit calculation in classic Benthamite terms. This suggests that many white-collar criminals would not be deterred by changes in sentencing policy, thus challenging a myth that this is the type of calculative crime that punishments would be considered in the process of contemplating the crime. Along with this revelation, Geis' "The Heavy Electrical Equipment Antitrust Cases of 1961" (vol. I, p. 251) and Benson's

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"Denying the Guilty Mind: Accounting for Involvement in White-Collar Crime" (vol. I, p. 355) suggest that white-collar criminals do not view their actions as criminal and themselves as criminals and that the reasons for committing the crime were to further the best interests of the company. Hence, changing the punishment does not appear to be a factor influencing deterrence. In fact, the Weisburd, Waring, and Chayet "Specific Deterrence in A Sample of Offenders Convicted of White-Collar Crimes (vol. I, p. 587) note that prison sentences did not appear to have an impact upon deterring white-collar crime.

More surprisingly, the sentencing and punishment of white-collar crime defies stereotypes. Shapiro's "The Road Not Taken: The Elusive Path to Criminal prosecution for White-Collar Offenders"(vol. II, p. 253) examines SEC prosecution and finds that while only 6% of stock swindlers appear before a criminal court, but given the option of administrative and civil action, a very high percentage of these individuals are subjected to some type of punishment. Hagan and Palloni's "Club Fed and the Sentencing of White-Collar Offenders Before and After Watergate (vol. II, p. 305) finds that after Watergate white-collar criminals were more likely to face prison but the amount of time incarcerated was less than before Watergate. Other studies in the two volumes indicate strong public intolerance and disapproval towards white-collar crime and some evidence that white-collar crime causes street crime.

Overall, this book is a powerful review of the literature on white-collar crime research. The volume is not generally what one sits down to read from cover-to-cover unless either an expert in the field or reviewing the book. As far as criticisms, there are few. First, the introduction is weak. Levi could have performed a valuable service in presenting an introduction that really is a summary and review of the state-of-the-art in the research on the field, including direction for new studies. Second, the two volumes could have covered RICO violations but did not, and perhaps they should have also included more research on the intersection on white-collar and street crime to explore how the two contrast. Finally, the two volumes were shy on political science research on the subject. However, this may say more about the field's lack of attention to the subject than Levi's editorial choices.

Many of Sutherland's claims regarding white-collar crime thus remain valid in light of research over the last 50 years, yet the research here challenges many others. Levi's collection is an invaluable asset to those desiring more information on what is known about white-collar crime.

REFERENCE

Sutherland, Edwin H. 1949. WHITE COLLAR CRIME. New York: Dryden Press.