Prosecuting and Sentencing White‐Collar Crime in US Federal Courts

Reimagining Sutherland 80 years after white‐collar crime*

“…Our theoretical understanding of how white‐collar offenders are treated in the criminal justice system in terms of sentencing outcomes is entirely dependent on the definition of white‐collar crime used in the analysis. Recent research findings by Galvin () demonstrated how the use of one definition may give the impression that, relative to non–white‐collar offenders, white‐collar offenders are treated with leniency. The use of other definitions, however, may lead to an entirely different conclusion—that white‐collar offender status is a liability or immaterial to sentencing.…”

“…The use of other definitions, however, may lead to an entirely different conclusion—that white‐collar offender status is a liability or immaterial to sentencing. Galvin concluded that “debating what is ‘truly’ white‐collar crime is not just an exercise in semantics—it is a methodological choice that can have dramatic consequences on what (we think) we know about the treatment of white‐collar crime in the criminal justice system” (, p. 1).…”

From Crime Convenience to Punishment Inconvenience: The Case of Detected White-Collar Offenders

“…Since plea bargain in the United States is "largely unknown to German (and continental) system of criminal law" (Walburg 2020:341), prosecutors in continental Europe tend to be reluctant to prosecute white-collar cases lacking complete and convincing evidence. As argued by Galvin and Simpson (2020), a number of factors can influence prosecutorial perceptions of case strength, such as evidentiary load, victim behavior, and offender characteristics.…”

Corporate Crisis-Response Match

“…Accounts then typically include application of all five neutralization techniques suggested by Sykes and Matza (1957): the denial of responsibility, the denial of injury, the denial of victim, the condemnation of the condemners, and the appeal to higher loyalties (Maruna and Copes 2005). Accounts also tend to include more recently suggested neutralization techniques such as the claim of blunder quota (Galvin and Simpson 2020), the claim of legal mistake (Kaptein and Helvoort 2019), and the claim of normality of action (Kennedy 2020). Furthermore, the claim of entitlement to action (Cullen et al 2020;Dodge 2020), the claim of solution to a dilemma (Jordanoska 2018; Rooij and Fine 2020), and the necessity of crime (Cohen 2020) are often present.…”