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Criminals: White-Collar Crimes

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Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management

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Definition

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI 2019; see chapter “Law: Criminal” in this encyclopedia) defines white-collar criminals as business and government professionals who commit crimes that are “characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust and are not dependent on the application or threat of physical force or violence” and have a financial motivation rooted in the desire “to obtain or avoid losing money, property, or services or to secure a personal or business advantage.”

Introduction

The terms white-collar criminal and white-collar crimehave been discussed conceptually and theoretically since Edwin H. Sutherland coined the terms 80 years ago. The widely accepted literature in criminology held that crimes were committed by people from low socioeconomic communities or by people with psychological or biological problems, making any other possibility a radical concept at least then. Over the years, the definition of what constitutes white-collar crime has...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Criminal Justice Department, State University of New York (SUNY), Plattsburgh, NY, USA

    Zakir Gul

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  1. Zakir Gul
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Correspondence to Zakir Gul .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Security, Fire & Emergency Mgmt, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA

    Lauren R. Shapiro

  2. Dept. of Security, Fire & Emergency Mgmt, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

    Marie-Helen Maras

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Gul, Z. (2020). Criminals: White-Collar Crimes. In: Shapiro, L., Maras, MH. (eds) Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_117-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_117-1

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