Benson, Michael L. (1950–)

MICHAEL BENSON, A SOCIOLOGIST and professor of criminology, is the author of several books and articles on white-collar and corporate crime. He teaches criminological, white-collar crime, and life-course theories.

In 1998, Benson, along with co-author Francis T. Cullen, published Combating Corporate Crime: Local Prosecutors at Work. This book was the first major study of corporate crime prosecutions by local government. Benson and Cullen investigated how district attorneys, as publicly elected officials, actually responded to situations of corporate crime. Combining quantitative data and qualitative information, the book concluded that many prosecutors fail to hold corporate criminals accountable for behavior such as false advertising, unsafe working conditions, and environmental pollution.

The actions of prosecutors depended in large part on local economic, social, and crime conditions. The book by Benson and Cullen expounded on how factors such as population size, economic conditions, and legal culture influence a community's attitude toward corporate crime. Community context, in turn, “strongly influences prosecutors' activity against corporate crime,” the authors explain. The communities with strong and diverse economies were more likely to take the risk of controlling corporate crime.

Benson and Cullen offered recommendations for improving local responses to corporate crime. Their suggestions at the national level were to establish laboratories to help prosecutors investigate and prosecute environmental offenses; establish an information clearinghouse on prosecuting corporate crime; and establish personnel exchanges between federal and state regulatory agencies and between regulatory agencies and local prosecutors.

Their recommendations at the local level were to recruit prosecutors and investigators who have an interest in corporate-crime prosecutions; create a local-area computer network linking agencies that can share information; educate the public about their role and make it easier for citizens to report corporate crimes; increase the number of prosecutors and investigators assigned to corporate offenses; and assign investigators to environmental regulatory agencies so that they can identify cases that should be brought to the attention of prosecutors.

Benson's 2001 book, Crime and the Life Course, was a comprehensive overview of life-course theory as it applies to crime. The life-course perspective, in criminology, focuses on evidence of biological and genetic influences in criminal careers. Benson discussed an application of the life-course approach to white-collar crime. His research included a focus on the onset of offending behavior in white-collar criminals. He also described the connections between social locations, family backgrounds, educational trajectories, and conviction in white-collar offenders.

Benson's research and publications continue to augment the study of white-collar and corporate crime. Effective prosecution of corporate crimes will depend on the implementation of recommendations such as those offered by Benson and Cullen in their analysis of obstacles faced by prosecutors of corporate crime.