A Theory of White Collar Crime

Toward an Integrated Theory of White-Collar Crime
James William Coleman

The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 93, No. 2. (Sep., 1987), pp. 406-439.
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Toward an Integrated Theory of

White-Collar crime1
James William Coleman
California Polytechnic State University-San
Luis Obispo
This paper attempts to integrate etiological research on white-collar

crime under the hypothesis that criminal behavior results from the
confluence of appropriate motivation and opportunity. The starting
point is the interactionist theory of motivation basic to most of the
social psychological research on white-collar crime. Interactionist
theory helps us understand white-collar crime in terms of the offenders' symbolic construction of their social worlds but ultimately
fails to explain its causes. I t is argued that the origins of symbolic
motivational patterns are to be found in the social structure of
industrial capitalism and the "culture of competition" to which it
gives rise. But no theory of motivation, however sophisticated, is
sufficient to explain the causes of white-collar crime, and the paper
therefore concludes with an analysis of the patterns of opportunities
presented to social actors in different structural positions in advanced capitalist nations.
Since Edwin Sutherland first introduced the concept of white-collar crime
in his 1939 presidential address to the American Sociological Society, it
has come to define a major field of sociological inquiry. When Sutherland
gave his famous speech, crime was seen as a problem of immigrants and
the urban poor, but, over the years, criminologists have slowly come to
accept his claims about the importance of the crimes of the powerful and
privileged. Despite its obvious success, a number of social scientists now
argue that Sutherland's conceptualization of white-collar crime has outlived its usefulness. Some critics charge that white-collar crime encompasses too many diverse and basically unrelated behaviors and should be
broken down into smaller, more discrete categories. Others point to the
failure of the law to prohibit many harmful elite activities and propose
broader conceptualizations based on deviance rather than criminality.
The author wishes to thank Harold Barnett, Marshall Clinard, and the anonymous
reviewers of AJS for their helpful comments and suggestions. Requests for reprints
should be sent to James William Coleman, Department of Social Sciences, California
Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California 93407.
O 1987 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

0002-9602/88/9302-0006$01.50
406
AJS Volume 93 Number 2 (September 1987): 406-39
White-Collar Crime
Elite deviance, official deviance, and corporate deviance have all been
used in recent works as alternatives to Sutherland's original formulation
(Simon and Eitzen 1982; Ermann and Lundman 1978, 1982; Douglas and
Johnson 1977). These concepts all have the virtue of breadth and flexibility, but they are limited by the inherent difficulties of defining what sort
of elite practices are actually deviant. Even though the criminal law
contains ample ambiguities of its own, a t least each geographic area is
covered by a delimited set of legal norms that can be changed only through
certain formal procedures. There are, in contrast, a vast number of
groups with their own unique norms defining what is and is not deviant.
Not only are many of those definitions contradictory, but, because most
groups have no direct knowledge of the elite activities that have come to
be labeled as deviant, their definitions are also subject to erratic changes
in response to vicissitudes of media coverage and public mood. Because
of the absence of clearly formulated public standards for elite behavior,
sociologists using the deviance approach must often rely on their own
values and prejudices to define the parameters of their work. In so doing,
they not only threaten the integrity of the research process but also undermine the credibility of the entire effort to bring the problem of whitecollar crime into the arena of public debate. Furthermore, the use of so
evanescent a concept to define this politically charged field of study risks
exacerbating the seemingly endless quarreling over definitional issues that
has already consumed so much scholarly attention in this field.
Narrower conceptualizations such as corporate crime, business crime,
political crime, and government crime (Clinard and Yeager 1980;
Roebuck and Weeber 1978; Conklin 1977) avoid these definitional problems and have an important place in contemporary criminology. The
distinction between organizational crimes committed with support from
an organization that is, a t least in part, furthering its own ends, and
occupational crimes committed for the benefit of individual criminals
without organizational support, provides an especially powerful way of
classifying different kinds of white-collar crime. But the utility of these
concepts does not mean that the overall category of white-collar crime is
composed of an accidental collection of unrelated offenses. The activities
included under the rubric of white-collar crime encompass a wide range
of behavior, but they share many important similarities and require treatment as a single phenomenon for many analytic purposes. All whitecollar crimes are, by definition, violations of the law committed in the
course of a legitimate occupation or financial pursuit by persons who hold
respected positions in their c o m m u n i t i e ~All
. ~ types of white-collar crimes
Sutherland (1983, p. 2) originally defined a white-collar crime as "a crime committed
by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation."
American Journal of Sociology

are rational calculating crimes, not crimes of passion. The goal of the vast
majority of white-collar criminals is economic gain or occupational success that may lead to economic gain. Although white-collar crime causes
far more deaths and injuries than other types of crime (Coleman 1985a,
pp. 5-7), this violence is always a by-product of the offense not the
immediate goal, as it is in assault or murder. Even though organizational
crime is generally treated more leniently than occupational crime, the
justice system shows greater leniency to all types of white-collar offenders
than to those who have committed common crimes of equal severity.
Yet, despite all these similarities, the usefulness of white-collar crime
as a coherent analytic construct is not a t all obvious from the existing
body of research. Taken as a whole, the literature on the etiology and
development of white-collar crime is a hodgepodge of studies looking a t
different crimes from different levels of analysis. This work can be
roughly divided between research on the motivation of individual whitecollar offenders and a larger body of case studies and correlational research focusing on higher-level variables. Most of the motivational research follows the interactionist paradigm, while the macrolevel studies
draw on many different sets of assumptions and theoretical orientations.
My aim in this paper is to bring a greater measure of coherence to the
study of white-collar crime by pulling these contributions together under
a single theoretical framework. Particular attention is therefore given to
the integration of the social-psychological and structural research on the
causes of white-collar crime in order to avoid the fragmented understanding characteristic of so much traditional criminological thought (see Taylor, Walton, and Young 1973, pp. 268-82).
The theory of white-collar crime presented here is based on the hypothesis that criminal behavior results from a coincidence of appropriate
motivation and opportunity (Cantor and Land 1985; Vaughan 1983; Cloward and Ohlin 1960). The concept of motivation has been defined in
many different ways, but this paper follows the definition most used in
This definition has served criminology well over the years, but it has also been subject
to a great deal of justified and unjustified criticism (see Geis 1962; Edelhertz 1970).
Although Sutherland's definition is a broad one, it can usefully be expanded to explicitly include three additional areas: offenses that can be attributed only to groups and
not to any single individual, financial crimes involving such things as tax evasion that
are not a direct part of the offender's occupation, and crimes committed by middleclass persons who are not of "high social status." T o include these areas, I have defined
white-collar crime elsewhere as "a violation of the law committed by a person or group
of persons in the course of an otherwise respected and legitimate occupation or
financial activity" (Coleman 198Sa, p. 5). Some would hold that those violations must
be against the criminal law and that offenses that involve only civil penalties should
not be included. But, as Blum-West and Carter (1983) point out, the differences
between civil and criminal law are far fewer than is usually believed, and my
definition includes both types of violations.
White-Collar Crime
research on white-collar crime in holding motivation to consist of a set of
symbolic constructions defining certain kinds of goals and activities as
appropriate and desirable and others as lacking those qualities. An opportunity is defined as a potential course of action, made possible by a
particular set of social conditions, which has been symbolically incorporated into an actor's repertoire of behavioral possibilities. Thus, a potential course of action becomes an opportunity only when someone is aware
of it. In popular speech, the use of the word opportunity is generally
restricted only to those things an individual actually wants to do. We
speak of the opportunity to double an investment not the opportunity to
have cancer surgery, but the definition given above would accept any
possible course of action as an opportunity. An opportunity can, nonetheless, be characterized as attractive or unattractive from the standpoint of
a particular individual. One opportunity may also be said to be more
attractive than another, in a general sense, if it is more appealing to the
majority of the individuals to whom it is available.
Because social structure becomes a reality only through its effects on
the behavior of individual persons (Collins 1981), my analysis will begin
with an examination of the motivational patterns of white-collar offenders. I will then consider the ways social structure influences motivation
and determines the patterns of opportunities available to the occupants of
different social statuses.
THE INTERACTIONIST THEORY OF MOTIVATION
There is a strong tendency among the general public and even many
psychologists and criminologists to see the criminal as an abnormal individual with significant biological or psychological differences from other
people. Yet, despite the popularity of such theories, they have seldom
been applied to white-collar offenders. There have been virtually no
scientific attempts to uncover a hereditary component in white-collar
criminality or to attribute it to a biological condition of some other origin.
Nor has there been a significant effort to link white-collar crime to family
background or abnormalities in early socialization. While somewhat
greater attention has been given to the psychological makeup of whitecollar offenders, this line of investigation has proved no more rewarding.
Sutherland ([I9491 1983; Cohen, Lindesmith, and Schuessler 1956) argued strongly for the psychological normality of white-collar criminals,
and studies of different groups of white-collar offenders by Blum (1972,
pp. 145-57), Bromberg (1965, pp. 377-400), Spelling (1944), and Spencer
(1965) support this conclusion. Although those four researchers do posit
some common psychological characteristics as causal factors in their subjects' criminal involvement, there is far too little consistency in their

findings to conclude that such personality theories have much explanatory value.
Because there seems to be nothing unusual in the biological makeup or
socialization of most white-collar criminals, researchers have had to look
elsewhere to explain the motivation for their offenses. Although there are
many social-psychological paradigms that might be applied to this problem, the interactionist approach has proved to be the best suited and has
been used in the vast majority of the research on this question. Unlike
psychiatric perspectives, which see motivation as the product of biological urges or unconscious desires, interactionists see motivation as a symbolic construct. The meaning that individuals attribute to a particular
situation and to social reality in general structures their experience and
makes certain courses of action seem appropriate while others are excluded or ignored. But socially created symbolic constructs not only
define reality, they also allow individuals to anticipate the kinds of responses their behavior is likely to bring and adjust their actions accordingly. Thus, individual motivation is seen to include a general symbolic
construction of reality, definitions of various individual situations, construction of some ends as valuable and others as undesirable, and a set of
expectations about the kinds of responses different behaviors can be expected to evoke (Mead 1934; Mills 1940; Foote 1951; Cressey 1969; Coleman 1978).
Because behavior is evaluated in terms of the actor's symbolic construction of the responses anticipated from others, the expectations of
significant others and the generalized expectations of society as a whole
are critical elements in individual motivation (Mead 1934, pp. 152-63).
But the fact that the generalized other is held to be a central element in
thought and behavior poses a problem for an interactionist theory of
white-collar crime because most criminal activities are likely to violate
the societal expectations it embodies. Although Sutherland was the first
to apply interactionist theory to the analysis of white-collar crime, he
never explicitly recognized this contradiction. It was Cressey's ([I9531
1971) work on the way embezzlers "adjust" the symbolic construction of
their behavior to conform to generalized social expectations that first
came to grips with this problem. In his interviews with institutionalized
embezzlers, Cressey found that his subjects used a number of common
"techniques of neutralization" (Sykes and Matza 1957) to allow themselves to maintain a nondeviant self-image while still engaging in criminal
activities. Most of the embezzlers interviewed by Cressejr adjusted their
construction of their criminal behavior by telling themselves that they
were just borrowing the money and would soon return it. As one subject
put it, "I figured that if you could use something and help yourself and
replace it and not hurt anybody, it was all right" (Cressey [I9531 1971,
White-Collar Crime
p. 101). Cressey's respondents also reported using several other justifications, but the claim that they were just borrowing the money was by far
the most common, probably because it is so well suited to neutralizing the
definition of embezzlement as deviant behavior.
Such symbolic constructions are often referred to as rationalizations by
interactionist theorists, but the term carries a different connotation in this
context than it does in everyday speech. T o interactionists, a rationalization is not an after-the-fact excuse that someone invents to justify his or
her behavior but an integral part of the actor's motivation for the act (see
Cressey 1969). Most of Cressey's embezzlers, for example, would not
have committed their offenses if they had defined such activities as simple
theft instead of as borrowing.
The borrowing rationalization so common among embezzlers is much
less appropriate for most other kinds of white-collar crime. There are,
however, ample data from both sociological research and the public statements of convicted offenders to construct a typology of the techniques of
neutralization used by white-collar criminals. One of the most common of
these techniques is the denial of harm. When convicted white-collar offenders are asked to explain their behavior, they frequently claim that
their actions did not harm anyone, and they have therefore done nothing
wrong. A Westinghouse executive who was one of the defendants in the
1961 heavy electrical equipment price-fixing trials expressed this
justification when he was asked if he thought his behavior was illegal. He
responded: "Illegal? Yes, but not criminal. . . . I assumed that a criminal
action meant hurting someone, and we did not do that" (Geis 1977,
p. 122). Similar justifications were expressed in Zeitlin's (1971) study of
workers discharged for stealing from their employers. As one of his subjects put it: "It's not really hurting anybody-the store can afford it"
(p. 22). Moreover, survey data show the public to be more tolerant of
theft from large businesses and government than from smaller, more
vulnerable organizations, probably because theft from a larger organization is perceived as less damaging to the victim (Smigel 1956).
Individuals involved in organizational crimes frequently justify their
behavior by claiming that the laws they are violating are unnecessary or
even unjust. Complaints about "government interference" in the free
market are, of course, common in the business community, and business
leaders often use the ideology of laissez-faire capitalism to criticize laws
and regulations that they consider inappropriate. Because laissez-faire
ideology holds many of the regulatory laws to be more harmful to the
public than the business practices they prohibit, it can be used to justify a
host of business crimes. Clinard (1952, p. 69), for example, concluded
that gasoline dealers' belief that the wartime rationing of gasoline was
unnecessary was a "rationalization for the violations which were occur-

ring," and similar attitudes certainly play a role in many violations of
worker safety, environmental, and antitrust legislation. However,
ideological considerations are probably less important among smallbusiness people than the perception of the fairness of the regulations in
their individual cases. Ball's (1960) study of rent control in Honolulu
found no significant difference in violation rates between landlords who
felt that controls were necessary and those who felt they were not. But
there were significantly higher rates among landlords who believed that
the rent ceiling applied to their property was less than its "fair" value.
Another common rationalization holds that certain types of criminal
behaviors are necessary to achieve vital economic goals or just to survive.
Chibnall and Saunders (1977) cite the case of a former city councilman in
Britain who justified his part in a corruption scandal in these words: "I
am by nature a wheeler-dealer. How else can you be a successful politician . . .?" The same Westinghouse executive quoted earlier also used the
appeal to necessity to justify his participation in the price-fixing conspiracy: "I thought we were more or less working on a survival basis in order
to try to make enough to keep our plant and our employees" (Geis 1977,
p. 122). The sales manager of a competing company made the same point:
". . . the spirit of the [price-fixing] meetings only appeared to be correcting
a horrible price level situation. . . . There was not personal gain in it for
me [sic]. The company did not seem actually to be defrauding [anyone].
Corporate statements can evidence the fact that there have been poor
profits during all these years" (Geis 1977, p. 123).
This appeal to necessity is especially common among those who participate in illegal activities because their employer expects it. Sutherland
cites the case of an idealistic young college graduate who reported losing
two previous jobs because he refused to become involved in unethical
activities. After finding that his third employer had the same expectations, he said, "I sometimes felt disgusted and wanted to quit, but I
argued that I did not have much chance to find a legitimate firm. I knew
the game was rotten, but it has to be played-the law of the jungle and
that sort of thing" (Sutherland [I9491 1983, pp. 241-42). Employees in
large corporate organizations may find the pressure to become involved in
illegal activities particularly difficult to resist. A corporate manager's
chances of finding another position with comparable pay and benefits
depends on his or her record of success with previous employers, and the
threat of dismissal is a powerful one. But fear of losing an important
assignment or being passed over for promotion is nearly as strong a threat
to achievement-oriented executives as outright dismissal. Another of the
managers involved in the heavy electrical equipment price-fixing case
justified his criminal activities by claiming: "If I didn't do it, I felt someone else would. I would be removed and s w e b o d y else would do it" (Geis
White-Collar Crime
1977, p. 124). Moreover, there is ample evidence that such fears are often
justified. A report to the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning Lockheed's involvement in foreign bribery states that "the Committee
was told by several witnesses that employees who questioned foreign
marketing practices damaged their claims for career advancement"
(Clinard and Yeager 1980, p. 65).
A closely related technique of neutralization involves transfer of responsibility from the offender to a large and often vaguely defined group
to which he or she belongs. When asked to explain their criminal activities, admitted offenders repeatedly claim that 'everybody else is doing it
too.' As one embezzler put it: "In the real estate business you have to
paint a pretty picture in order to sell the property. We did a little juggling
and moving around, but everyone in the real estate business has to do
that. We didn't do anything that they all don't do" (Cressey [I9531 1971,
p. 137). One of the major themes of the 'everybody's doing it' rationalization is that it is unfair to condemn one violator unless all other violators
are condemned as well. The following statement of a defendant in a
British corruption case is typical in this regard: "I will never believe I
have done anything criminally wrong. I did what is business. If I bent the
rules, who doesn't? If you are going to punish me, sweep away the system. If I am guilty, there are many others who should be by my side in the
dock" (Chibnall and Saunders 1977, p. 142).
Such justifications imply that criminal behavior must be some sort of
individual choice and that a person is not responsible for his or her
behavior when merely conforming to the expectations of others. Thus,
corrupt employees often claim that they have not done anything wrong
because their actions were considered acceptable behavior by their peers
(see Geis 1977, p. 142). These justifications are very important ones, for
opinion polls indicate that business people not only believe that their
peers are willing to commit unethical acts but that they are actually doing
so. A study by the Haruard Business Review found that four out of five
executives felt that some of the generally accepted practices in their industry were unethical and that four out of seven believed that other executives would violate a code of ethics if they felt they would not be caught
(Baumhart 1961). A 1975 survey of top officials in America's 57 largest
corporations found that they believed unethical behavior to be widespread in industry and that it had to be accepted as a part of everyday
business activities (Silk and Vogel 1976). Another study concluded that:
"Most managers believed that their peers would not refuse an order to
market off-standard and possibly dangerous products (although a majority said they would personally reject such orders), and a majority thought
young managers automatically go along with superiors to show loyalty"
(Madden 197 7).

Finally, occupational criminals commonly justify their offenses on the
grounds that they deserve the money. Research shows this to be a particularly common rationalization for employee theft. Gerald Mars's (1974,
p. 224) study of dockworkers found many types of pilferage were defined
as a "morally justified addition to wages" or an "entitlement due from
exploiting employers." Zeitlin (1971) found similar attitudes among employees who stole from retail stores. One of his subjects felt that the "store
owed it to me," while another said, "I felt I deserved to get something
additional for my work since I wasn't getting paid enough" (p. 22). Government workers also use these same rationalizations, especially since
they often feel they are underpaid in comparison with their counterparts
in private industry. One former city councilman gave the following account of his reasons for becoming involved in corruption: "People like me
are expected to work full-time without salaries, without staff, or even
postage stamps. I for one couldn't afford such a situation. And that is
where Poulson [a businessman seeking special favors] filled the gap. . . . I
came to the conclusion that I was missing out, that I could combine my
real desire to give public service with what they call a piece of the action"
(Chibnall and Saunders 1977, p. 143). Of course, many other justifications are also used by white-collar criminals, but the six rationalizations
just discussed are by far the most commonly mentioned both in the public
statements of accused offenders and in confidential replies to sociological
investigators.
THE CULTURE OF COMPETITION
Although the existing body of interactionist research presents a convincing account of the motivations of white-collar offenders and the ways in
which they neutralize the symbolic constraints on their behavior, it fails
to explain the origins of the motivations it describes. Consequently, its
attempt to explain the origins of white-collar crime fails as well. The
answer to this question must ultimately be found on the structural, not
the social-psychological, level, and the failure of interactionist theorists
lies precisely in their failure to root their analysis in the political economy
of industrial capitalism.
This is not to imply that current interactionist theory has no explanation of the origins of these motivational structures, for it clearly does. The
problem is that the explanation it offers focuses so heavily on the socialpsychological level that it breaks down when followed to its logical conclusion. Simply stated, the interactionist position is that the symbolic
constructs that motivate criminal behavior are learned from association
with others. Sutherland provides the most comprehensive statement of
this idea in his theory of differential association: "The hypothesis of dif-
White-Collar Crime
ferential association is that criminal behavior is learned in association
with those who define such behavior favorably and in isolation from those
who define it unfavorably, and that a person in an appropriate situation
engages in such criminal behavior if, and only if, the weight of favorable
definitions exceeds the weight of unfavorable definitions" (Sutherland
[I9491 1983, p. 240). In one sense, Sutherland denies the possibility of true
deviance. He argues that individuals automatically conform to the expectations and definitions of their associates and that criminal behavior does
not occur without such social support-certainly
not a position Mead
would have a ~ c e p t e d The
. ~ theory of differential association thus transforms crime from a problem of deviant individuals to a problem of deviant groups, but, in so doing, it still fails to answer the question of the
origins of criminal motivation. Even if it could be shown that all criminal
behavior is learned from association with others, we still must ask why
certain groups foster criminal motivations and others do not. Current
interactionist theory supplies no a n ~ w e r . ~
In order to back out of this dead end, we need to reexamine how the
construction of the motivational patterns of white-collar offenders is handled in the interactionist literature. The taxonomy of rationalizations
presented above provides a great deal of information about the way
offenders justify their criminal behavior but tells us little about why that
behavior is attractive in the first place. There is, however, no question in
the public's mind about the attraction of white-collar crime. The respondents in Lane's (1954) sample of business and government leaders clearly
reflected the consensus of the public when they claimed that whitecollar criminals were simply out to make a "fast buck," and, for once,
there is little reason to doubt the conventional wisdom. The desire for
financial gain is indeed an obvious part of the motivation of most offendMead (1934) felt that the self contains two different components: the "I" and the
"me." The me is a passive reflection of the responses a n individual's behavior produces
in others, but the I is the spontaneous, creative side of individual behavior that is
capable of free action, independent of external pressure.
Sutherland himself clearly recognized the role of structural variables in the etiology
of criminal behavior, but he failed to integrate them into his explanation of whitecollar crime. The theoretical conclusions presented in chap. 15 of White Collar Crime
(1983, pp. 240-57) place heavy stress on the importance of differential association. He
also included a brief discussion of two facets of social disorganization that encourage
white-collar crime-the anomie created by the transition from laissez-faire policies to a
more regulated economic system and the conflicts between the business community,
which is strongly organized for criminal activities, and the government, which is much
more weakly organized to prevent them. But he did not seem as convinced of the value
of the disorganization approach as he was in his earlier work on the origins of crime
(see, e.g., Sutherland 1934, pp. 63-74). H e concluded that the explanation of crime in
general in terms of social disorganization . . . has not proved to be a very useful
hypothesis up to the present time" (1983, p. 257).

ers. Perhaps too obvious, for interactionist theorists seem to have accepted the importance of financial self-interest as a motivation for whitecollar crime with little critical analysis, and it is precisely such an analysis
that provides the necessary link between structural and social-psychological variables.
The idea that wealth and success are central goals of human endeavor
is part of a larger complex of beliefs that may be termed the "culture of
competition." The foundations of this worldview can be traced at least as
far back as the 17th century. Its reflections can be seen in the work of
Hobbes, Locke, and other social thinkers of that era who formulated
what MacPherson (1962) has termed the theory of possessive individualism. Reaching its peak in the 19th century, this vision of human
nature is still deeply embedded in contemporary culture and supplies
many of the key assumptions of the culture of competition (Lukes 1973).
From this perspective, each person is seen as an autonomous individual
with the powers of reason and free choice, who is, in large measure,
responsible for his or her own condition. The pursuit of economic selfinterest and the effort to surpass their fellows in the accumulation of
wealth and status are of critical importance to these autonomous individual actors. As Wuthnow (1976, p. 105) puts it: "Becoming successful was
more than simply one path a person could choose. It was in a very real
sense a badge of one's intrinsic worth." In contrast to traditional values,
the competitive struggle for personal gain is defined as a positive, not a
selfish or harmful, activity. Competition is thus a builder of character, a
test of personal worth, and a powerful stimulus to individual achievement that ultimately produces the maximum economic value for society
as a whole. The competitive economic struggle typical of life in capitalist
society is seen as a battlefield on which the most capable and the hardestworking individuals emerge victorious. Over the years, these beliefs have
become a fundamental legitimation for social inequality because they
imply that the poor deserve their inferior position because of laziness,
incompetence, or some other personal failing (Feagin 1975). In contrast to
the stigmatization of the poor, "winners" are admired for the ability and
drive that made them successful.
One element of the culture of competition that the theorists of individualism have seldom discussed is the pervasive sense of insecurity that has
always been a powerful undercurrent in the culture of industrial capitalism. This fear of failure permeates every stratum of contemporary
society from the corporate leaders to the underclass. The following description of the subculture of lower-class street hustlers would, for example, apply equally well to the world of achievement-oriented business
executives or to the culture of competition in general: "Full-time hustlers
never can relax. . . . As is the case in any jungle, the hustler's every
White-Collar Crime
waking hour is lived with both the practical and subconscious knowledge
that if he ever relaxes, if he ever slows down, the other hungry, restless
foxes, ferrets, wolves, and vultures out there with him won't hesitate to
make him their prey . . ." (Malcolm X 1965, p. 109). This same fear of
failure in the competitive struggle for wealth and success is just as clearly
reflected in the middle-class world of American television: "Television's
world is relentlessly upbeat, clean, and materialistic . . . with few exceptions prime time gives us people preoccupied with personal ambition. If
not utterly consumed by ambition and the fear of ending up as losers,
these characters take both the ambition and the fear for granted" (Gitlin
1983, pp. 268-69). This fear of failure is the inevitable correlate of the
demand for success, and together they provide a set of powerful symbolic
structures that are central to the motivation of economic behavior.
This undercurrent of fear is nothing new to the culture of competition,
and contemporary consumer culture is undoubtedly as materialistic and
success oriented as any in history. But a number of social theorists argue
that the growth of huge, impersonal bureaucracies and the increasing
influence of the social sciences, which view individuals as partially or
wholly determined by their social environment, have weakened the
"rugged individualism" of the 19th century (Mills 195 1; Riesman 1950;
Whyte 1957; Wuthnow 1976). There is little doubt, for example, that
some persons become involved in organizational crimes because of their
identification with the interests of their employer and not because of their
desires for personal success. But, any weakening in the individualistic
orientation of contemporary culture must be seen in the perspective of its
original strength. The primary motivation of the vast majority of organizational criminals is still the personal rewards they expect from their
employer, not an altruistic desire to help their organization. Moreover,
the key components of the culture of competition in motivating the whitecollar criminal-the desire for wealth and success and the fear of failure-have, if anything, grown stronger in the 20th century.
Yet human motivation is never a simple phenomenon, and those two
desires cannot account for the motivation of all white-collar criminals.
Some crimes result from the effort to live up to the expectations of friends
and associates in the offender's occupational world or from an unreflective acceptance of a set of definitions that make certain criminal activities
seem to be a normal part of the occupational routine. Examples include
the bureaucratic functionaries who obediently carry out their superiors'
orders with little or no thought about the consequences and members of
occupational subcultures who participate in an pattern of illegal activities
in order to win the acceptance and support of their peers. However, when
analysis is extended beyond single individuals to encompass the entire
group that sustains such criminogenic attitudes, the influence of the cul-

ture of competition reappears. While some of the lower-level functionaries involved in organizational crimes may be acting from a sense of
conformity or obedience, executives usually make the decision to violate
the law because of their desires for wealth and success. Similarly, individual members of a deviant occupational subculture may merely be going
along with the expectations of their peers, but a collective desire for
financial gain is the primary force creating and sustaining such expectations.
Thus far, we have traced the motivation for white-collar crime back to
the culture of competition, but it is necessary to take this analysis a step
further and examine the origins of this competitive ethos. Whatever one
makes of the claim that human beings are endowed with some "acquisitive instinct" or are inherently egocentric, it is clear from the wide range
of variations among different human societies that most such behavior is
learned. Anthropological studies of hunting and gathering societies have
found little of the acquisitive materialism so typical of industrial societies.
The values of hunting and gathering societies are strongly egalitarian,
and the formal status hierarchy and the system of social classes and ranks
that make the struggle for success possible simply do not exist.
It was no coincidence that the first written expressions of possessive
individualism come from the 17th century, the same period in which the
modern capitalist economy was developing. As MacPherson (1962, p. 4)
put it, those assumptions "correspond substantially to the actual relations
of a market society." Of course, some elements of the culture of competition were present in agricultural societies, because they generally had a
well-defined class system and a certain amount of surplus wealth for
which to compete. But, given the low level of social mobility and the
traditional restrictions on economic life, the culture of competition and its
criminogenic motivations were a far weaker cultural force in agricultural
societies and were virtually unknown in most hunting and gathering
societies.
The reason for the extreme differences between hunting and gathering
societies and industrial ones can be traced back to their environmental
and economic foundations. An important share of the cooperative,
egalitarian ethos of most hunting and gathering societies can be attributed
to the fact that such societies produce little surplus wealth. They cannot
support a system of status competition based on the accumulation of
wealth because they lack the vast store of material goods that are the
object of competition in industrial societies. In a work originally published in 1905, Willem Bonger (1969, p. 37) argued that:
As soon as productivity has increased to such an extent that the producer
can regularly produce more than he needs, and the division of labor puts
White-Collar Crime
him in a position to exchange the surplus for things that he could not
produce himself, at this moment there arises in man the notion of no longer
giving to his comrades what they need, but of keeping for himself the
surplus of what his labor produces, and exchanging it. Then it is that the
mode of production begins to run counter to the social instincts of man
instead of favoring it as heretofore.
Bonger couches his analysis of the effects of this growing economic surplus in rather moralistic terms, arguing that it produces a growth of
egoistic rather than altruistic motivation, but his work nonetheless points
up the important role of surplus wealth and market exchange in the
formulation of motivational patterns typical of industrial societies.
Many ethnographic studies since Bonger's time have shown that exchange relationships in hunting and gathering societies are indeed based
on sharing and reciprocity. Lee (1979) found that the bands of !Kung
bushmen he studied in the Kalahari Desert shared all the available food
equally. Most of the !Kung's food is gathered by small groups of foragers.
When food is brought back to the camp, it is divided among all members
of the band. It makes no difference whether an individual has been
foraging, hunting, or just sleeping; everyone receives the same share.
Dentan (1968) found a similar pattern of distribution among the Semai of
Central Malaya. Animal meat is highly prized among these people, but
even when a hunter succeeds in killing a large animal, he still has no more
claim on its meat than any other member of the band. When the animal is
brought back to camp, it is cut up into equal portions and distributed to
all who are hungry. No special status or reward is given the hunter. He is
not even thanked by the other members of the group, for, as Dentan
(1968, p. 49) puts it, ". . . saying thank you is very rude, for it suggests
first that one has calculated the amount of a gift, and second that one did
not expect the donor to be so generous." Significantly, the Indians living
along what is now the northwest coast of the United States and Canada,
whose fishing activities generated a more substantial surplus, were less
egalitarian and more competitive than other hunting and gathering peoples (Benedict 1934; Harris 1980, pp. 233-37).
The displacement of the open sharing of reciprocal exchange by the
calculated self-interest of market exchange creates very different attitudes
among those involved in economic transactions and, ultimately, in society
as a whole (see Bonger [I9051 1969, pp. 37-38; Engels [I8841 1972;
Leacock 1978). Market exchange is inevitably tied to ideas of profit and
loss, and often the greater the gain of one trading partner, the lower the
profit of the other. Thus, as production for market replaces production
for immediate consumption, competition and the quest for personal gain
tend to displace the cooperative sentiments fostered in reciprocal exchange. Of course, reciprocal exchange is still common among relatives

and friends in even the most capitalistic industrial societies, but it is
market exchange that predominates.
In addition to the accumulation of surplus wealth and the growth of
market exchange, a third factor in the development of the culture of
competition is the use of money as a medium of exchange. Because money
provides an objective standard for measuring profit and loss, it further
reinforces the spirit of competition and the depersonalization of economic
exchange (Amsel 1973). Finally, the pervasive sense of insecurity so characteristic of the culture of competition reflects the underlying social and
economic insecurity of industrial capitalism. Such societies are hierarchically organized, with great differences in status among their members.
But, unlike traditional agricultural societies in which status is fixed
largely by family background, there is far more mobility in industrial
societies, and consequently an individual's status is far less secure. Employment, the single most important source of social status and economic
reward, is subject to many unpredictable threats. Employees are often
vulnerable to arbitrary dismissal or demotion at the whim of their
superiors, and there is always the danger that the firm on which one's
future depends may slip into bankruptcy or that the vicissitudes of the
economy may force large-scale layoffs. The existence of a substantial
group of the able-bodied unemployed serves as a constant reminder of the
dangers of economic failure and the need to maintain one's competitive
drive.
NORMATIVE RESTRAINTS AND T H E DISTRIBUTION OF
MOTIVATION
The culture of competition is an extremely important part of the culture

of contemporary industrial capitalism. I t is obvious, however, that modern life is not the Hobbesian war of all against all that such a system of
values could be expected to produce if unfettered by other restraints. One
such restraint comes from the influence of different social ideals, such as
the values of cooperation and mutual support, which are so important in
family and friendship groups. But, although very few people question the
validity of those values in principle, their effectiveness as a constraint on
white-collar crime is limited by the increasing segmentation of social life
in industrial society (Bellah et al. 1985, pp. 2 7-5 1). The economic sphere
is usually constructed as a separate realm from the world of home, family,
and friendship, and both worlds contain their own values and operative
principles. In the social world of economic activity, the culture of competition is the dominant cultural force, and the idea that one must look out
for the well-being of one's competitors is considered hopelessly naive.
A more important barrier to the formulation of motivation for white-
White-Collar Crime
collar crime lies in the normative restraints on economic life that attempt
to provide rules of the game within which the struggle for personal gain is
expected to be waged. These normative restraints include such things as
the need for honesty, fair play, and ethical practices in business, as well
as the injunction to follow the laws and standards imposed by government authority. But, like the culture of competition itself, these norms
can be understood only in the context of the structural forces in which
they have their roots. Despite the strong support the economic system
provides for the ideals of competitive individualism, it is clear that the
pursuit of economic self-interest must be contained within some normative boundaries-or social and economic chaos would be the ultimate
result. The economic rationality necessary to industrialism demands that
exchange relationships be based on some set of mutually accepted standards. Without these rules, exchange relationships would become vastly
more difficult for all parties involved, and many of the complex economic
relationships characteristic of modern society would be virtually impossible to maintain. By making the struggle for personal gain appear fairer to
its participants, these standards also help to legitimize the economic order
in the eyes of the majority of people who do not stand out as particularly
successful competitors. The demands of social life outside the economic
realm also require normative restraints, and some of those are inevitably
applied to economic behavior in even the most segmented societies. The
restrictions placed on activities that are seen as wantonly destructive of
human life or a physical danger to the community are typical examples.
These ethical standards for economic behavior are easily combined
with the values of competitive individualism on the theoretical level, but
in actual practice there is often an obvious contradiction between the two.
While the pronouncements of public figures tend to emphasize theory and
ignore the practical contradictions, there is little doubt in the public's
mind that those who are willing to violate ethical standards enjoy a
significant competitive edge over those who are not. In the words of the
popular homily: "Nice guys finish last." This contradiction is a major
source of tension in modern society that is not only reflected in the survey
research on the ethical standards of business managers (Baumhart 1961;
Silk and Vogel 1976; Madden 1977) but also in countless literary and
artistic works. Indeed, the laws, regulations, and standards defining
white-collar crime reflect this contradiction and the effort to demand
compliance with ethical standards for economic behavior in the face of
the extreme pressures of competitive individualism. The rationalizations
examined by the interactionist theorists represent a different approach to
resolving this contradiction, one that tends to weaken the normative
restraints rather than reinforce them.
The relative strength of these two cultural forces and the way the

contradictions between them are resolved are, therefore, critical factors in
determining the motivation for white-collar crime. The purveyors of mass
culture expose virtually everyone to both sets of values through the expectations and assumptions they weave into their vision of taken-for-granted
reality. Yet, despite such general societal influences, individuals in different statuses are still exposed to very different constructions of reality. Of
particular relevance to the study of white-collar crime are the workrelated subcultures that expose their members to a particular worldview
while providing some degree of insulation from the generally accepted
definitions of social reality. As Holzner (1972, p. 95) puts it, the "epistemic communities that provide the locus for specialized reality construction in society on the basis of work concerns or ideological commitments
[often] show tendencies toward isolation and segregation from the rest of
society, and thus isolation from the generally shared reality of the interpretive order. "
There are at least three distinct types of these subcultures that may be
interwoven in various occupational settings. First, every complex organization has its own distinctive subculture. Not only do such subcultures
promote attitudes and definitions that help shape the motivation for
specific offenses, but there is also an "ethical tone" in an organization
that, in a general way, either reinforces or opposes the normative standards for economic behavior (Clinard and Yeager 1980, p. 60). Over and
above the organizational subculture, there are industry subcultures that
express the attitudes, beliefs, and definitions common to organizations in
a particular subsector of the economy (Barnett 1984). Finally, there are
occupational subcultures among those who work in the same careers.
Because persons in the same profession work in different organizations
and in different industries, occupational subcultures crosscut the other
subcultures, providing a different channel for diffusion of new ideas,
information, and definitions.
These work-related subcultures tend to isolate their members from the
mainstream of social life and its construction of realty. As Peter Drucker
(1972, p. 88) writes of corporate executives: "Contacts outside of business
tend to be limited to people of the same set, if not to people working for
the same organization. The demand that there be no competing outside
interests and loyalty . . . not only breeds a parochialism of the imagination comparable to the 'military mind,' but places a considerable premium on it." Members of professions such as law, medicine, and law
enforcement are subject to similar pressures. They are expected to identify with their profession, to support their colleagues, and to work to
advance their common interests. Like the executives Drucker describes, a
disproportionate number of these professionals' everyday social interactions are with others who share the same subculture.
White-Collar Crime
Because of this isolation, work-related subcultures are often able to
maintain a definition of certain criminal activities as acceptable or even
required behavior, when they are clearly condemned by society as a
whole. There are numerous examples of executives who expressed
genuine surprise and even shock that other people looked at their illicit
activities as criminal behavior. Typical is the statement by one General
Electric executive that price fixing "had become so common and gone on
for so many years that we lost sight of the fact that it was illegal" (Geis
1977, p. 123). Carey's (1978, p. 384) description of the attitude of
Richardson-Merrell Company employees, who concealed tests showing
the dangerous side effects produced by one of their company's drugs,
reflects this same normative isolation: "No one involved expressed any
strong repugnance or even opposition to selling the unsafe drug. Rather,
they all seemed to drift into the activity without thinking a great deal
about it." But the influence of such subcultures works both ways and may
also discourage criminal behavior. For example, the same police subcultures that defined some types of corruption as providing a kind of harmless fringe benefit also condemned the acceptance of "dirty money" from
narcotics dealers (Knapp Commission 1972; Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974). Subcultures in such professions as medicine and dentistry
have a similar dual influence. Strongly held sentiments of group solidarity
and collegial support make it much more difficult for enforcement agents
to punish wrongdoers, yet at the same time those subcultures still hold out
high standards of ethical behavior as the ideal for their members.
Of course, the formulation of criminal motivation depends on far more
than the definitions to which an individual is exposed by virtue of his or
her occupational position. The ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs individuals bring into the workplace play a decisive role in determining
which of the definitions that they learn on the job become part of their
taken-for-granted reality, which are given only tentative acceptance, and
which are rejected out of hand. Early socialization is especially important
in shaping an individual's vision of the world, but many other experiences
are a part of this ongoing process of reality construction. Membership in
groups such as those based on kinship, religion, or friendship often serve
as a counterbalance to the influence of occupational associations. But
their importance depends on the way an individual actor goes about the
task of constructing a meaningful world. Some persons maintain a highly
integrated definition of self and the reality it inhabits, and their behavior
is guided by a symbolic network that weaves together elements from all
the social worlds in which they participate. But others have a far less
global sense of reality and experience no difficulty in following one set of
standards and definitions on the job and a contradict,ory set in other social
relationships. The increasing segmentation of personal reality is an often-

noted characteristic of industrial society (Holzner 1972; Bellah et al.
1985), and contemporary men and women are probably more comfortable
with a multidimensional view of self than was true in the past (Ogilvy
1977). Yet, a t the same t i n e , what Wuthnow (1976, pp. 70-71) terms
"the quest for wholeness" and the "desire that one's experiences somehow
make sense in relation to one another" remains an important force in all
social life.
T H E STRUCTURE OF OPPORTUNITY
Any analysis of the motivation of white-collar offenders can be of only

limited explanatory value unless it is placed in the context of the actual
opportunities available to individual actors. No matter how strong an
individual's motivation may be, if there is no opportunity, there will be
no crime. The variations in the menu of opportunities presented to the
occupants of different social statuses are one of the principal ways structural constraints shape individual behavior, and the distribution of such
opportunities plays a major role in the etiology of white-collar crime.
Moreover, motivation and opportunity are often closely associated in a
particular setting. Many of the rationalizations that are such an important part of symbolic motivational structures are formulated in response
to a particular set of structural opportunities and have little meaning in
another context. And, by the same token, an opportunity requires a
symbolic construction making that particular behavioral option psychologically available to individual actors, and that construction may also
include potential rationalizations. Thus, an individual may learn of both
the opportunity for a particular offense and at least part of the motivation
for committing it a t the same time in the same setting. The two are,
nonetheless, clearly distinct, for a motivation is a subjective construction
of an individual's personal desires, while an opportunity is rooted in a set
of objective social conditions.
Opportunities may be characterized as attractive or unattractive from
the standpoint of a particular actor (or group of actors). An opportunity's
attractiveness is determined by a t least four factors. The first is the actor's
perception of how great a gain he or she might expect to reap from the
opportunity. Second is the perception of potential risks, such as the likelihood that a criminal act will be detected and the severity of the sanctions
that would be invoked if detection indeed occurs (Hollinger and Clark
1983a, 1983b). The third factor is the compatibility of the opportunity
with the ideas, rationalizations, and beliefs the individual actor already
has. Finally, the evaluation of an illicit opportunity is made in comparison with the other opportunities of which the actor is aware and is therefore influenced by the actor's entire opportunity structure. A decrease in
White-Collar Crime
the availability or attractiveness of legitimate opportunities will normally
increase the attractiveness of illegal opportunities. The attractiveness of
an opportunity for white-collar crime is not, however, an inherent characteristic of the opportunity structure, the opportunity itself, or of the
motivation of the individual actor; it arises out of the relationship among
them.
The next step in this analysis is to describe and attempt to account for
the distribution of the opportunities for white-collar crime. Unfortunately, the available empirical research does not allow me to do either
with any degree of certainty. The most obvious shortcoming is the lack of
sufficient research examining a wide enough range of variables. But there
are also some difficult methodological problems that weaken the research
that has been done. Virtually all the quantitative measures of white-collar
crime used in these studies are based on reports by regulatory and criminal justice agencies. Although those statistics are certainly influenced by
the underlying crime rate, they also reflect a number of extraneous variables such as the likelihood of detection and the priorities and procedures
of the agencies themselves. A second problem is that some of the variation in the distribution of white-collar crime results from the distribution
of motivation as well as the distribution of opportunity. Even if there
were precise data available on the distribution of white-collar offenses,
separating opportunity from motivation would still require careful analysis. Yet, despite these difficulties, it is useful to draw some preliminary
conclusions both as a summary of the current state of our knowledge and
as a basis for further research.
Law and Enforcement
In one sense, the law is the most basic of all forces shaping the distribution of opportunities, for it is the law that ultimately determines which
behaviors are considered criminal offenses. A comprehensive analysis of
the origins of the current structure of legal norms is beyond the scope of
this paper. There is little doubt, however, that these norms are the product of conflicts among many competing social interests, the outcome of
which ultimately reflects the structure of power and the internal contradictions of contemporary industrial capitalism. The high degree of economic concentration characterizing such societies gives the corporate elite
far more power than any other segment of society, but it is not unlimited
power. Under the right circumstances, abuses by elite groups may stimulate popular discontent that requires some sort of legislative response to
maintain the legitimacy of the system. In addition, some white-collar
crime legislation, such as the statutes regulating stock and bond trading
or prohibiting embezzlement, is actively supported by business interests,

while other proposals for reform split those interests, drawing support
from some and opposition from others (e.g., automobile safety legislation)
(Coleman 1985a, pp. 123-50; 1985~).
Once a particular set of activities is labeled illegal, its attractiveness to
potential white-collar criminals is strongly influenced by their perceptions
of the certainty and severity of punishment. Although it would not be
accurate to say that an actor's perceptions are based solely on a realistic
assessment of the situation, the activities of the enforcement bureaucracy
certainly play a major part in the formation of these attitudes. A knowledge of the pattern of the state's enforcement efforts and the likelihood
and severity of the punishment for different offenses is therefore important to our understanding of the attractiveness of various opportunities
for white-collar crime.
The available data once again leave much to be desired, but it does
appear that the severity of punisbment for a particular type of offense
varies inversely with the power and influence of the typical offenders.
Several studies show that, both in terms of the percentage of convicted
offenders given jail terms and the length of those sentences, street crimes
(non-white-collar crimes) are punished more severely than occupational
crimes, and occupational crimes are punished more severely than organizational crimes (Seymour 1973, pp. 45-46; Bureau of National Affairs
1976, p. 11; Clinard and Yeager 1980, p. 296). Sanctions for organizational offenses are also directed against entire corporations, but the penalties in such cases are even more lenient than those given to individual
defendants. The Wisconsin study found that the average fine levied
against the largest American corporations was only about $1,000obviously not a serious penalty for firms which commonly make hundreds
of millions of dollars a year in profits (Clinard et al. 1979, p. 291). Since
virtually no one disputes the fact that street criminals are as a whole far
less wealthy and less influential than occupational criminals and that
organizational offenders (corporations) have far more wealth and influence than any single individual, this evidence clearly supports the
conclusions stated above. I t should be pointed out, however, that this
relationship has been shown only for general categories of offenses, not
for individual defendants.
Because there is no reliable indicator of the total incidence of whitecollar offenses to compare with the rates of prosecution and conviction, it
is far more difficult to appraise variations in the certainty of punishment.
However, the distribution of cases brought against white-collar offenders
is also consistent with the hypothesis of an inverse relationship between
power and the likelihood of prosecution. That is, there are a very large
number of prosecutions for street crimes, far fewer for occupational
crimes, and only a handful of prosecutions for organizational crime. For
White-Collar Crime
example, the Wisconsin study found only 56 cases in which corporate
executives were charged with criminal offenses for their involvement in
organizational crimes, yet the study examined all the reported cases involving America's 477 largest corporations during a two-year period
(Clinard and Yeager 1980, p. 291). McCormick (1977) found that fewer
than 700 criminal charges had been brought against antitrust violators in
the 80-year period from 1890 to 1969 and that most of the early cases were
brought against labor unions, not big business. Yet, a survey of the chief
executives of the 1,000 largest firms in the United States found that 58%
believe that antitrust violations were a "way of life" in American industry
(Green et al. 1972, pp. 149-SO), and appraisals by two different studies
conclude that price fixing is quite prevalent in the United States (Green et
al. 1972, p. 150; Clinard et al. 1979, p. 184).
Victims also play an important part in determining the likelihood and
severity of punishment for different types of white-collar offenses. Many
white-collar crimes, such as antitrust violations, victimize a large number
of persons who individually lose only a small amount. Often, victims of
such crimes are not even aware that they have been victimized. These
offenses can be expected to carry a lower chance of detection because few
victims are likely to complain to enforcement agencies. Offenses in which
each victim suffers an obvious loss at the hands of a clearly recognizable
offender are more likely to come to the attention of the enforcement
bureaucracy. Pressure from victims can also be expected to increase the
severity of the sanctions given a particular offense, as would the level of
the general public's concern about a particular offense at the time it is
uncovered. Thus, illegal disposal of toxic wastes would be more risky
after a series of well-publicized cases that had focused public attention on
the dangers of such activities. Other things being equal, it would also be
expected that the greater the financial loss and the more the physical
injuries caused by an offense, the greater the punishment would be.
However, this relationship is often obscured by the fact that the harm
caused by a crime is also related to the size and influence of the offenders.
Larger, more serious crimes are more likely to be committed by larger
organizations with greater resources for protecting themselves.
Industries
Both the distribution of opportunities and their relative attractiveness
vary significantly from one industry to another. The demand for profit is
one of the most important economic influences on the opportunity structure for organizational crime. But, because this demand is such a pervasive part of business organization in capitalist societies, many criminologists have lost sight of the fact that it varies significantly from one sector

of the economy to another. There is a sharp cleavage in the structure of
opportunity between profit-seeking private organizations and government agencies. Government employees are seldom, if ever, involved in
such organizational offenses as price fixing, consumer fraud, false advertising, stock manipulation, or deceptive sales practices. Even though
accusations of bribery are often made against government officials, their
involvement is usually as individual occupational offenders, not as agents
acting in the interests of their employer. I t is clear, moreover, that the
explanation of this sharp difference in the patterns of criminal involvement is to be found in the opportunity structure, not in differences in
motivation. Because government agencies are not profit-seeking organizations, there is no reason for them to reward their employees for involvement in such organizational offenses. Of course, this is not to say that the
demand for profit inevitably leads organizations into criminal activities;
but the absence of that demand does eliminate many illicit opportunities.
There has been considerable research examining variations in the crime
rate among different industries in the business (profit-seeking) sector. The
most heavily researched topic has been the effect of market structure on
crime, especially the relationship between antitrust violations and the
degree of economic concentration in an industry. Because there is no
reason to suspect that market structure has a significant effect on the
symbolic motivations of employees, most or all of the effects of market
structure can be attributed to differences in the opportunities it creates.
This research might therefore be expected to make a significant contribution to our understanding of variations in the opportunity structure
among different industries. However, the findings of this research are
contradictory, and no clear conclusions about the effects of market structure on criminal behavior can be drawn from the current evidence. Burton (1966), Riedel (1968), and Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) found the highest rates of antitrust violations in industries with intermediate levels of
concentration; Hay and Kelly (1974) found more violations in highly
concentrated industries; and Posner (1970), Asch and Seneca (1969), and
Clinard et al. (1979) reached mixed conclusions or found no differences at
all. One of the principal problems is, once again, the necessity of relying
on the reports of enforcement agencies as the sole indicator of the rate of
antitrust violations. There is, however, general agreement on one point,
although it is based as much on theoretical as on empirical grounds. The
opportunities to engage in antitrust violations are less attractive to firms
in industries with a very low concentration ratio, because such a conspiracy would require so many participants that it would be extremely
difficult to conceal.
Although it has been the subject of less empirical research, there are
similar disagreements about the effects of market structure on the inci-
White-Collar Crime
dence of bribery. Clinard and Yeager (1980, pp. 165-66) hold that bribery is most common in highly competitive industries, but Kugel and
Gruenberg (1977, p. 36) take the opposite position, arguing that because
"oligopolistic markets are characterized by lack of price competition,
international payoffs become a kind of nonprice competition." Data from
the international payoff scandals in the 1970s suggest that bribery is
common in both competitive and collusive industries but takes different
forms in each. Most of the payoffs by firms, such as aircraft manufacturers, that were in highly competitive international markets were made to
influence particular purchasing decisions while the petroleum industry,
long characterized by the absence of competition (Blair 1975), aimed its
corruption a t public officials with the hope of improving the overall climate for the operations of petroleum multinational^.^ But, because it is
doubtful that more than a small percentage of all the incidences of bribery
ever came to light even during this well-publicized scandal, these conclusions can be regarded as only a tentative hypothesis.
Because of the weakness of the quantitative data, other researchers
have used a case-study method, analyzing conditions that contribute to
the rates of particular white-collar offenses in particular industries. Farberman (1975) and Leonard and Weber (1970) concluded that the economic organization of the automobile industry virtually forces individual
dealers to engage in shady business practices. They argue that the
oligopolistic firms that control the supply of new automobiles pressure
their franchises to sell their cars at an extremely low price in order to
increase their sales volumes, and dealers are therefore forced to make up
their losses through repair and service rackets and other fraudulent activities. Denzin (1977) found similar conditions in the liquor industry. Distillers impose rigid sales quotas on their distributors that force them to give
untaxed, under-the-table incentives to retailers in order to keep their
volumes up. Needleman and Needleman (1979) have, however, criticized
the assumption in such studies that the participants are coerced into
criminal activity. They argue that in most cases it is more accurate to talk
about "crime-facilitative" rather than "crime-coercive" systems. Their
study of the securities industry, for example, found many conditions that
made criminal activities easier but did not actually force individuals to
participate. More specifically, the Needlemans found that the legal doctrines limiting the financial risk in handling stolen securities, the strong
financial incentives to keep up market flow, and the traditions of trust
and professional solidarity in the banking industry all combine to facilitate securities theft.
For a breakdown of the known offenses by industry, see Kugel and Gruenberg (1977,
p 47).

Although these studies were not specifically cast in terms of the opportunity structure, the criminogenic conditions described clearly have their
primary effects through their influence on the opportunities that confront
individual actors in those industries rather than through the motivation of
potential criminals. The "crime-coercive systems" described by Farberman, Leonard and Weber, and Denzin sharply reduced the legitimate
opportunities for financial success, thus making the illicit opportunities
more attractive. The "crime-facilitative systems" described by Needleman and Needleman increased the attractiveness of illicit opportunities
by reducing the likelihood of strong sanctions.
Another variable influencing the opportunity structure in an industry is
what Edward Gross (1980) calls "organizational setsn-groups of similar
organizations whose actions are visible to one another. The key point
about these sets is that they tend to have an internal system of stratification with dominant, middle-level, and marginal organizations. The
relatively small number of firms a t the top of these stratified organizational sets greatly increases the attractiveness of antitrust conspiracies
because it reduces the number of firms that must become involved and
thus reduces their chances of being discovered. Gross also argues that the
tendency for organizations to focus their attention almost exclusively on
the activities of other members of their set, and the great complexity of
relationships among participants in different sets, makes it easier for
outsiders to conceal fraudulent schemes that cut across set boundaries.
Variations in the regulatory environment also play a major role in
determining the opportunity structure in different industries. Tightening
legal controls on an industry shifts the balance of opportunities by criminalizing attractive patterns of behavior, while a decrease in regulation
shifts the balance in the opposite direction. Thus, more tightly regulated
industries can be expected to present their employees with a wider variety
of criminal opportunities. One of the most important influences shaping
an industry's regulatory environment is the products it makes. Industries
whose products cause serious and clearly identifiable harm to the public
tend to be subject to more stringent regulation than other industries.
Examples include pharmaceutical manufacturers, whose products may
mean life or death for their users, the automobile industry, which has
been subject to an increasing number of safety and environmental regulations, and the chemical industry, which produces a wide variety of
hazardous substances.
There is considerable evidence that illegal practices spread from one
organization in an industry to another (Sutherland [I9491 1983, pp. 24650; Clinard and Yeager 1980, pp. 60-63; Cressey 1976). Some of this
tendency can be attributed to the diffusion of motivation discussed in the
previous section, but other processes appear to be involved as well. Along
White-Collar Crime
with motivations and rationalizations, knowledge about the availability
of criminal opportunities and specific techniques necessary to carry them
out also diffuse throughout an industry (Barnett 1984). The illegal activities of a firm also have a direct effect on its competitors. For one thing,
seeing a competitor increase its profits by illegal means is likely to enhance the attractiveness of such behavior, while the failure of a competitor's illegal enterprise is likely to have the opposite effect. Profits generated by illegal means may also allow a firm to lower its prices or take
other advantages over its competition, thus reducing the attractiveness of
the competition's legitimate opportunities and encouraging all firms in the
industry to become involved in similar illegal practices.
Organizations
Most of the quantitative research on the organizational level has focused
on a single issue: the effects of an organization's profitability on its involvement in criminal activity. The general conclusion of this research is
that the attractiveness of illicit opportunities increases as profitability
declines. George Katona's (1946) study of wartime price-control legislation concluded that firms in the meat and laundry industries were more
likely to comply with the law if their profits were rising than if they were
declining. Lane (1954) reached the same conclusion about fair-trade violations in the New England shoe industry-manufacturers were more
likely to break the law when profits were going down. Barnett (1984)
found a positive correlation between bankruptcy rates and the violation
of tax laws in Sweden. However, he failed to find a relationship between
an index of overall economic performance and tax violations. Staw and
Szwajkowski (1975) found that firms cited for antitrust violations had
been earning lower profits than firms that were not. The Wisconsin study
of corporate crime also concluded that ". . . firms in depressed industries
as well as relatively poorly performing firms in all industries tend to
violate the law to a greater degree" (Clinard and Yeager 1980, p. 129).
Despite the relatively large number of studies indicating that low
profitability encourages corporate crime, a great deal of caution is still
required in drawing any firm conclusions. For one thing, reports from
government enforcement agencies once again provided the only measures
of actual criminality. Moreover, the strength of the correlation in most of
these studies was not very great, so profitability seems to explain only a
small amount of the variance in crime rates. Finally, some of the relationship between low profitability and crime is probably due to the greater
ease of rationalizing criminal behavior seen to be necessary to the survival
of an organization and not to the opportunity structure itself. I t nonetheless seems logical to argue that low levels of profitability are a reflection of

the absence of legitimate opportunities, which, in turn, promotes crime
by increasing the attractiveness of the available illicit opportunities.
An organization's system of social control also exerts a strong influence
on the attractiveness of different criminal behaviors. Most corporations
maintain some official policy condemning illegal activities by their employees. Yet, the literature on white-collar crime is full of examples of top
corporate officials who were not only unconcerned about the organizational crimes of their subordinates but made intentional efforts to avoid
knowledge of such activities. Employees involved in organizational
crimes are commonly rewarded for the results their illegal behavior brings
(e.g., higher profits) while suffering no penalties as long as they avoid
detection by outside authorities (see Geis 1977). Some organizations, such
as the notorious Equity Funding Corporation, go much further, and
explicitly require illegal activities of employees in certain positions (Blundell 1978). Those involved in occupational crimes are unlikely to receive
such tacit or explicit organizational support, yet there are still significant
differences in the way organizations respond when they are victimized by
employees. Some organizations take strong measures to prevent or to
uncover and punish employee thefts and embezzlements, while others
show far less interest. Some employers even look a t certain types of
employee theft as a kind of fringe benefit that need not be viewed too
seriously as long as it stays within appropriate limits (Horning 1970).
There has been some speculation that certain types of organizational
structures, especially the multidivisional organization common among
most large corporations, are particularly conducive to criminal behavior.
One argument is that multidivisional corporations distribute responsibility among so many different individuals that no one takes responsibility
for the ultimate consequences of corporate activities. Gross (1980) holds
that the proliferation of semi-independent organizational structures with
responsibilities for different tasks increases the likelihood that some of
them will engage in illegal activities simply because it creates so many
more autonomous organizational actors. Considerable research indicates
that corporate structure places especially difficult demands on middle
management. When top management sets goals that cannot realistically
be attained by legitimate means, great pressure is placed on middle managers to pursue whatever illegal opportunities are available. For example,
Kramer (1982) argues that the extremely difficult goals set for the development of the Ford Pinto-that it weigh less than 2,000 pounds and cost
less than $2,000-ultimately caused the safety problems for which it
became infamous. Managers were forced to reject safety modifications
that would have increased the weight of the car and later launched a
cover-up to conceal the problem. Several surveys of middle managers
have found that they are often afraid to be honest with their superiors and
White-Collar Crime
feel they are under significant pressure to compromise their ethical standards (Baumhart 1961; Brenner and Molander 1977; Clinard 1982).
Occupations
Although most of the research on white-collar crime has focused on the
industry and organizational level, it is equally important to examine the
structure of opportunities associated with different statuses in organizations and the independent professions. However, the great diversity of
such statuses and the paucity of sociological research make it possible to
present only a few examples of the forces that influence the distribution of
opportunities. The attractiveness of the opportunities for bribery, for
instance, depends to a substantial degree on the economic value of the
services the occupant of a particular status can offer in exchange for
corrupt payments. One of the reasons corruption is more common in the
enforcement of narcotics and vice laws than in the enforcement of other
legal norms is that organized criminals supplying those illegal goods and
services are willing to pay large sums of money to gain the cooperation of
the police (Knapp Commission 1972; Pennsylvania Crime Commission
1974). Other occupations with rich opportunities for corruption include
purchasing agents, government inspectors, and politicians. The opportunities for embezzlement seem to vary with the degree of financial trust
placed in the holders of different occupational positions. Accountants,
bookkeepers, and clerks have many opportunities for embezzlement,
while other employees in the same organizations may have none. Opportunities for fraud and other illegal financial manipulations appear to be
greatest in occupations with direct involvement in financial dealings such
as those of salespeople and upper-level executives.
One of the most important determinants of the illicit opportunities
available to professionals is the financial arrangements determining their
remuneration. Professionals working on a fee-for-service basis have numerous opportunities to persuade their clients to consent to profitable but
unnecessary procedures, while those working on salary have nothing to
gain from such activities. It is difficult to determine how common such
fraudulent practices actually are, but there is considerable evidence that
unnecessary medical procedures are a serious and widespread problem
(Brody 1976; Rensberger 1976). A subcommittee of the House of Representatives concluded that there are 2.3 million unnecessary surgical procedures a year in the United States that result in an annual loss of about
11,900 lives (Brody 1976). Similar charges have been made about "overlawyeringn-the practice of persuading uninformed clients that they need
more legal services than they actually do-although the results are seldom as physically harmful as those in the medical ~rofession.

This problem is not, however, the exclusive result of the fee-for-service
method of payment. Another important factor is the ignorance of clients
about what kind of services they really need and the strong emphasis on
mutual trust in the professional-client relationship that leads many clients
to an unquestioning acceptance of the professional's judgment. The fact
that a substantial portion of medical and dental bills are paid by insurance further decreases the client's concern about unnecessary services and
overcharging, thus decreasing the chances of punishment and increasing
the attractiveness of illegal opportunities. The feelings of mutual identification and support that develop in occupational subcultures and the resistance of professionals to outside regulation serve to provide further protection for the professional involved in occupational crime.
Occupational subcultures also facilitate white-collar crime by promoting the spread of knowledge and techniques necessary to transform a
potential course of criminal action into a psychologically available opportunity. Because these subcultures generally contain individuals employed
in many different industries, they provide a source of communication
independent of the industry or organization in which an individual
works. Accountants, physicians, and lawyers, for example, learn about
opportunities for white-collar crime as they learn their profession and are
socialized into its subculture. Similarly, the striking similarities in the
patterns of corruption found in the New York and Philadelphia police
departments in the early 1970s (Knapp Commission 1970; Pennsylvania
Crime Commission 1974) strongly suggest the transmission of criminal
techniques through an occupational subculture shared by officers in both
departments. Occupational subcultures thus serve as part of a network of
communication that transmits information about opportunities and techniques for white-collar crime.
CONCLUSIONS
The objective of this paper has been to create a unified theoretical framework to explain the causes of white-collar crime. However successful this
endeavor has been, much remains to be done. Existing research has
established the general outlines of the rationalizations used to justify
white-collar crimes, but larger and more comprehensive quantitative
studies are needed to determine more clearly the distribution and relative
importance of the different rationalizations and to search for other common justifications that may have been overlooked. Scientific attention
should also be directed to the variations in the original motivations for
white-collar offenses. A good place to start such investigations would be a
quantitative exploration of the relative strength of the culture of competition and the normative restraints on it among different groups and differ-
White-Collar Crime
ent organizational segments of society. An examination of the developmental changes in the balance of these two forces as individual actors
respond to different environmental influences and career contingencies
may also yield valuable information. Another fruitful area for research
lies in the comparative study of the culture of competition. A quantitative
assessment of the relative strengths of this system of beliefs in capitalist
and communist nations would be particularly interesting because industrialized communist nations share many of the structural characteristics
that gave rise to the culture of competition (great surplus wealth,
monetarized market exchange, and a high degree of social inequality), yet
their official ideology condemns most of the central tenets of the culture of
competition as the product of a corrupt capitalism. A comparative analysis of the opportunities for white-collar crime created in those two types of
societies would also be valuable if reliable quantitative measures could be
used. Much more work must also be done to clearly delineate the structure of opportunities for white-collar crime in capitalist societies. Broadly
based studies of the variations in opportunities among different occupational statuses and in different industries would be particularly useful in
this regard.
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Toward an Integrated Theory of White-Collar Crime

James William Coleman

Toward an Integrated Theory of

California Polytechnic State University-San

This paper attempts to integrate etiological research on white-collar

O 1987 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

AJS Volume 93 Number 2 (September 1987): 406-39

American Journal of Sociology

American Journal of Sociology

American Journal of Sociology

American Journal of Sociology

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The culture of competition is an extremely important part of the culture

American Journal of Sociology

American Journal of Sociology

Any analysis of the motivation of white-collar offenders can be of only

American Journal of Sociology

American Journal of Sociology

American Journal of Sociology

American Journal of Sociology

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