Occupational Criminality

Occupational criminality is a broad concept. Edwin Sutherland first proposed a reconceptualization of crime in 1940, which sought to broaden the definition of crime to include behaviors such as fraud and insider trading. These behaviors have become collectively known as white-collar crime. In an address to the American Sociological Society, Sutherland spelled out various examples of behaviors that had not been thought of as criminality, owing to the social status of the actors. It was his goal to convince social scientists to adopt an expanded view of criminality to include violations of law that were committed by people of high social status in the course of their occupations. Until that point, criminologists viewed crime as behaviors engaged in almost exclusively by lower-class individuals. Until that time, research and theory in the field of criminology had principally been done only with regard to lower class, uneducated individuals.

Since Sutherland's speech, many criminologists have become interested in the concept of white-collar crime. One issue within the study of white- collar crime is the question: What exactly is white-collar crime? There are now different typologies of white-collar crime, which range from public versus private employment, corporate level versus individual level, and legal violation behaviors versus norm violation (i.e., deviance). To be certain, there are forms of occupational deviance that come close to violations of legal codes, but there are also examples of occupational norm violation that do not even border on law violation (i.e., rate busting by employees).

All of the efforts to reconceptualize and redefine white-collar crime have successfully brought a much needed expansion of our understanding of crime. However, it is still likely that the average person does not include white-collar crime in their cognitive conceptualization of crime. Those who research and theorize about crime are now forced to distinguish between conventional and white-collar crimes. Furthermore, it is now probable that criminologists are forced to distinguish between different varieties of white-collar criminality.

There is an ongoing debate among criminologists over what is the true definition of white-collar crime. Some have separated corporate crimes (e.g., polluting the environment, manufacturing of unsafe products, or exposing workers to unsafe work conditions) from individual-level crimes (e.g., performing unnecessary surgeries, excessive billing by lawyers, or employee theft). These discussions that have thrived in criminology journals and textbooks have created great confusion over all of the [Page 477]possibilities of criminality that exist in the course of people's occupations. Several researchers in this area of criminology have called for a replacement of the term white-collar crime with occupational criminality.

The status of the offender is often taken into consideration when discussing white-collar crime or occupational crime. It has been stated by several theorists that these crimes are most likely to be committed by people of upper- or middle-class standing. However, there is no complete agreement on this, and many believe that even employees at lower levels are provided opportunities to engage in occupational crimes. For instance, employee pilferage is thought to be quite extensive in most businesses and organizations. Theft of small items such as pens or paper clips has been estimated to add up to billions of dollars lost in the course of a year. Furthermore, theft by lower-level employees can exist in the form of time theft where an individual intentionally or accidentally misrepresents the actual amount of hours worked, therefore, being paid wages that were not earned.

...