The development of effective anti-corruption measures relies on a sound understanding of underlying country-specific cultural patterns of corruption. However, finding these patterns faces the problem of ecological fallacies when tracing back the results of comparative macro-studies to the national level or of using ex-post explanations for cultural variances in experimental research designs. Thus, we ask how cultural patterns can explain country differences in the propensity to act corrupt without neglecting the aforementioned problems. Based on institutional theory, we model path-dependent cultural patterns at the macro, meso and micro levels promoting propensity to act corrupt in Poland and Russia. The results of experimental data gathered from students in Poland and Russia show that the extent to which legal nihilism and ethical dualism are institutionalized at the macro level, as well as the micro factors of gender-specific socialization and studying law, has a significant effect on the propensity to act corrupt.

The most prominent sentencing theories, also known as justifications for punishment, were developed long before white-collar crime entered mainstream criminology. Not surprisingly, the literature still focusses on the phenomenology of white-collar crime rather than on the issues of punishment. As a growing number of respectable offenders face criminal prosecution or even incarceration, the application of traditional sentencing rationales proves problematic in practical, ethical, and terminological terms. The article first explains how the debate on punishing upper-world offenders in Europe is inhibited by the offence-based nomenclature of economic crime or ‘collaring the crime, not the criminal’. Thereafter, a review and discussion of relevant English-language literature on the subject is offered, leaving open some questions as to its applicability to the Central-eastern European context. White-collar offenders were traditionally viewed as the perfect target for general deterrence, yet the body of evidence challenges this hypothesis. The theory of positive general prevention seems promising with regard to reinforcing business ethics and counteracting the spiral effect. It is hardly clear what the rehabilitation of middle-class convicts should mean in practice, while incapacitation is reinvented as business debarment and the loss of licences. There is often a glaring discrepancy between retributive and preventive ends in white-collar cases, which also features the political dimension of class inequalities in the criminal justice system. A short excursus provides insight into neoliberal criticisms of punishing white-collar offenders, revealing its unintentional similarities to penal abolitionism. Finally, empirical findings on subjects relevant to punishment theories, such as fair sentencing, public attitudes, and the effectiveness of deterrence, are reviewed with special attention given to Central and Eastern European research.

As the awareness and extent of white-collar crime increases, the number of prison inmates from the middle and upper classes can be expected to grow. However, existing scholarship on the imprisoned white-collar offenders has geographical and methodological limits, is of a predominantly explorative nature and often employs definitions focused on the offence rather than the perpetrator. This study attempts to advance the current state of research by utilising Bourdieu’s capital theory in the description and explanation of the prison experience of a sample of 13 politicians, businesspersons, and lawyers serving prison terms for corruption and embezzlement in Poland. Deductive analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals how participants used social, cultural, and symbolic capital to secure an advantageous position whilst in prison. Due to varied assets such as their non-criminal identity, interpersonal skills and legal knowledge, the incarcerated elites studied were able to curry favour with guards, win recognition from fellow inmates and, unlike most prisoners, maintain supportive connections with the outside world. When considered within Bourdieu’s framework, these results provide an insight into the workings of capital in carceral settings, support the special resiliency hypothesis and explain it through differences in the social situation of inmates.

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