Objectives: This article analyzes the criminal development and sociodemographic and criminal profile of a sample of prosecuted white-collar offenders. It identifies trajectory groups and describes their profiles based on crime, sociodemographic, and selection offence characteristics. Methods: The criminal development of 644 prosecuted white-collar offenders in the Netherlands was examined using all registered offences from age 12 onward. In addition, sociodemographic background information was gathered from the Netherlands Internal Revenue Service and Municipal Personal Records Office. Trajectory analysis was conducted to approximate the underlying continuous distribution in criminal development by a discrete number of groups. Results: The criminal career characteristics and sociodemographic profile show a heterogeneous sample of white-collar offenders. Trajectory analysis distinguished four trajectory groups. Two low-frequency offender groups, totaling 78 percent, are characterized by their adult onset. The two high-frequency offender groups, totaling 22 percent, are characterized by their adolescent onset. Distinct and internally consistent offender profiles emerged for the four trajectory groups on the basis of crime, sociodemographic, and selection offence characteristics. Conclusions: The diversity in offence patterns and offender profiles points to different (developmental) causes for white-collar crime and underlines the importance of further longitudinal research on white-collar offending from an integrated white-collar and life-course perspective.

In two studies, this paper examines age-graded informal social controls (bonds) in white-collar offenders. Using register data, Study 1 compares bonds in a sample of white-collar offenders to a matched control sample, while Study 2 uses probation data to examine bonds within a subsample of white-collar offenders of Study 1. The results show that white-collar offenders, including those who occupy executive positions and those with an adult-crime onset, were characterized by weakened bonds and that earlyonset offenders had weaker bonds than adult-onset offenders. Along with the implications of these findings for theory, limitations and directions for future research are presented. ARTICLE HISTORY

In order to understand the mechanisms that underlie involvement in white-collar crime on a personal level, 26 offenders convicted of a white-collar offence were interviewed. Building on theory and research from white-collar criminology, life-course criminology and moral psychology, findings show that a combination of criminogenic circumstances, weakened social bonds and adjusted moral ideas lead offenders down different pathways into white-collar offending. Although the process of crime involvement seems highly context-dependent in some instances, the interviews indicate that crime involvement is more commonly part of a long-running process, in which social bonds have weakened or moral ideas have been adjusted, which in turn influenced the decision to engage in the white-collar offence. Along with the limitations of the study and the directions for future research, the paper discusses the implications of the findings for white-collar crime research, in particular the complex role of morality in white-collar crime involvement.

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