The whiteness of white-collar crime in the United States: Examining the role of race in a culture of elite white-collar offending

Abstract

While the role of race has been heavily scrutinized in terms of minority involvement in crime, it has remained largely invisible for Whites despite indications that Whites are overrepresented as offenders in elite white-collar crimes. We propose a theoretical model detailing how “whiteness” encourages cultural adaptations conducive to elite white-collar crime in contemporary US society. Many middle- and upper-class US Whites live in environments of relative social isolation, both geographically (in terms of schools and neighborhoods) and culturally (as mainstream media largely reflect the lived realities of middle- and upper-class Whites). When this social isolation is combined with financial advantage, it serves to block the development of empathy toward outgroups and increases feelings of individual entitlement, which leads to the formation of crime-specific cultural frames that include neutralizations and justifications for elite white-collar crime. We argue that whiteness plays a role that is independent from (but exacerbated by) socioeconomic status, and is an important contributor to the generative worlds from which many white-collar criminals emanate.

Race, ethnicity, and social change: The democratization of middle‐class crime*

“…Membership in the middle‐class has cultural dimensions that influence motivations for middle‐class crimes that may vary by race and ethnicity. Building off of work by Shover and Hochsteler (2006), Sohoni and Rorie (2019) argued that middle‐ and upper‐class Whites are geographically and socially isolated from racial and ethnic minorities and from members of the lower social class. Because they spend most of their time around people of their own racial and class background, research findings suggest that Whites have a reduced sense of empathy toward anyone who is not like them.…”

“…Whites also operate in an environment that prioritizes competition and winning over cooperation and sharing. Taken together, these features of White life facilitate the involvement of middle‐ and upper‐class Whites in white‐collar crimes (Shover & Hochstetler, 2006; Sohoni & Rorie, 2019).…”

“…In doing so, we draw attention to the criminological implications of an aspect of social stratification that criminologists have primarily ignored: growth in the size of the Black, Latino, and Asian middle classes. Our analyses relate to the opportunity perspective on crime (Benson & Simpson, 2018; Clarke, 1983; Cohen & Felson, 1979; Felson & Boba, 2010), institutional anomie theory (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2001), and to a recently developed cultural explanation of white‐collar offending among Whites (Sohoni & Rorie, 2019). In addition, we consider whether race‐centered perspectives might help inform our findings (Unnever & Gabbidon, 2011; Unnever et al., 2019).…”

“…During the period under investigation (2000 to 2015), Latinos and Asians dramatically increased their involvement in white‐collar type crimes and jobs, whereas the participation of Blacks in both crimes and jobs appears to have stalled. To explain these different patterns, we draw from cultural theories of white‐collar crime (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2001; Shover & Hochstetler, 2006; Sohoni & Rorie, 2019) and race‐centered perspectives (Gabbidon, 2020; Unnever & Gabbidon, 2011; Unnever et al., 2019). In addition, the results of our analyses also hold key relevance for opportunity‐based explanations of crime as well as for macro‐level strain perspectives on crime (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2001), which suggest that growth in middle‐class employment and pursuit of the “American Dream” may have a dark side, at least where white‐collar crime is concerned.…”

Dear British criminology: Where has all the race and racism gone?

“…A second illustration of the routine skewing of racial knowledge in criminology is the effective de-racialization of corporate and state crimes in contrast to the ready racialization of violent crime, particularly serious youth violence. Indeed, as Russell-Brown (2019: 116) notes, ‘“White crime” and victimization are rarely investigated as racially specific criminological phenomena’ (but see just published Benson and Kennedy, 2019; Sohoni and Rorie, 2019).…”