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This chapter begins with a discussion of the three critical issues in defining ‘white-collar crime’. It then considers the offenses that should be regarded as white-collar crimes, and salvaging white-collar crime as a concept of law and legal theory.

This essay introduces the book’s rationale and purpose, foregrounding the need for analysing what is distinctly European about the nature of white-collar and corporate crimes in Europe. The essay argues for European perspectives on white-collar and corporate crimes, and for exploring white-collar crime related dynamics and tensions that exist within and between the nation-states of Europe, and with the institutions of the European region. By speaking to the common theme of what is “European” about the realities of white-collar crimes in Europe, the essay discusses how the contributors encourage and engage in cross-European dialogue and collaboration as they seek to put forward key provocations about how we can better understand and examine the intricacies of associated offending and its control.

All of social life depends on trust, which often is best understood through its betrayal. The literature on white collar crime delineates its distinctive characteristics; case studies of embezzlement in the United States and “fiddling” in England illuminate the ways in which trusted employees and agents betray their principals. This offers a framework for the study of lawyer deviance. Disciplinary proceedings against New York lawyers eventuating in findings of guilt and suspension or disbarment are public records. Aside from misappropriation of client funds (which displays predictable behavior) and the miscellany of felonies, the most common and important categories of lawyer deviance are client neglect, overcharging, and excessive zeal.

This essay examines the distinctiveness of white-collar crime scholarship from the perspective of an academic located in the United States. Drawing on personal experiences and a review of white-collar crime articles published in 21 peer-reviewed criminology/sociology journals over a 14-month period, the author finds that traditional assumptions about white-collar crime research as a generally American endeavour are no longer accurate. In fact, European white-collar crime scholarship is overrepresented compared to other regions of the world, although the veneration of quantitative methods over qualitative methods often means that European scholarship is left out of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which purport to assess the state of research. This neglect is much to the detriment of the field. All consumers of white-collar crime scholarship would benefit from efforts to delve into the European perspective, but American white-collar crime scholars in particular would benefit greatly by looking to organizations like the European Working Group on Organizational Crime (EUROC) for opportunities to network with these scholars.

This chapter begins the task of looking at white-collar crime through the lens of criminal law theory. It discusses the place of retribution in criminal law theory and moral ambiguity in white-collar criminal law.

Comparative socio-legal and criminological research is notoriously complex due to the variety of languages, cultures and legal systems that exist across the globe. These issues are particularly pronounced in comparative white-collar crime research since terms like white-collar crime have no fixed legal meaning in any one country, let alone across multiple jurisdictions. Though currently in its infancy, comparative white-collar crime research is beginning to attract scholarly attention. This essay seeks to add to this emerging field by comparing responses to white-collar crime in the USA and Ireland, using quantitative data as well as qualitative, contextual analyses of both criminal justice landscapes. These analyses are used as a springboard for a critical reflection on the methodological challenges and opportunities that arise during comparative white-collar crime research. While the essay focuses on the US and Ireland, these issues can bedevil any scholar who seeks to compare their jurisdiction against an international exemplar.

This chapter focuses on three kinds of moral element found in any criminal offense: (1) mens rea (or omission of mens rea), (2) harmfulness, and (3) moral wrongfulness. This three-part framework is used as an analytical framework for describing white-collar crime's moral complexity.

This essay deals with questions about which areas could be considered as the key priority areas of European white-collar and corporate crimes scholarship when taking into consideration the EU Agenda on Security, especially if the EU maintains its role as one of the global leaders. In prioritizing white-collar crime research in relation to EU Internal and External Security, violations of human security, as security threats, should be foregrounding. Notwithstanding the enormous amount of opportunities for white-collar crimes scholars for testing know theories and typologies, a clear emphasis on understanding the root causes of conflicts or threats in the EU Security Agenda could be one of the ways to prioritise white-collar crime research in the EU in conjunction with the EU Internal and External Security. The other way to prioritise research could be by identifying the greatest harm and economic violence caused that are greatly violating human dignity and universally recognised human rights.

This essay explores the value of identifying Europeaness in understandings of white-collar crime through reference to key European policy relating to unlawful behaviours which are termed ‘market abuse’. Most proximately ‘market abuse’ is a term of European capital markets law, but the behaviours underpinning it – insider dealing and market manipulation- are commonly to be found identified with the terminology of ‘financial crime’ and ‘white collar crime’; and across key discourses in academic scholarship, practitioner interest, and policymaking. The analysis considers how such ideas of substantive activity and rhetoric can be joined in different ways, and directed towards evaluating the feasibility of identifying Europeaness in conceptualisations of white-collar crime, and the benefits which might accrue from this. In doing so, utmost significance is attached to how behaviours termed ‘market abuse’ by European discourse demonstrate European commitment to the use of criminal responses for behaviour which is considered unacceptable. In focusing this on the policy of EU institutions, particular attention is paid to European Commission reflections on new market abuse legislation proposed in 2011.

This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It is because white-collar criminal law is informed by everyday moral concepts such as cheating, deceiving, coercing, and the like that its moral character can seem so ambiguous. But such ambiguity should not dissuade us from its study. The white-collar offenses constitute an increasingly important part of our criminal law. If we are to really understand that law, we have no choice but to continue exploring the complex relationship between it and morality.

This chapter very briefly outlines the book's five contributions. First, the book identifies two broad perspectives on organizational wrongdoing and misconduct, conceived broadly as corporate crime, white-collar crime, unethical behavior, and socially irresponsible behavior. One perspective characterizes wrongdoing as an abnormal phenomenon, and the other characterizes it as a normal one. Second, it elaborates two general approaches to analyzing the causes of organizational wrongdoing. One is dominant in the field today, and the other represents an emerging alternative view. Third, it delineates eight specific explanations of organizational wrongdoing. Two explanations are associated with the abnormal perspective and dominant approach, five are associated with the normal perspective and alternative approach, and one occupies a bridging position. Fourth, the book illustrates these perspectives, approaches, and explanations with rich case material. Fifth, it explores the implications of the theoretical ideas presented for those interested in curbing wrongdoing in and of organizations.

This chapter discusses corporate crime and overcriminalization. It first discusses the concept of corporate crime and its historical background. Corporate crimes include entity criminal liability, corporate agent criminal liability, and white-collar crime. Next, it discusses the recent expansion of corporate crime and enforcement. This is followed by criminalization and its factors. The failure of American public morality is also examined.

Follow the Money is a Danish crime thriller that explores how misguided corporate ambition and greed leads to criminal activity. The series exposes viewers to economic crime's complex world, highlighting the stark differences in social understanding of “ordinary crime,” carried out by the economically marginalized, versus “white-collar” crime. When a body turns up on a wind farm in Denmark, initial reactions underline the criminal justice system’s overwhelmingly “downward gaze,” reinforcing the idea that societal problems stem mostly from the “lower stratum,” populated by the poor working class and cultural “underclass.” As the show progresses, it reveals the complex ways in which corporations and corporate individuals subtly (and not so subtly) evade scrutiny. Through the TV show, it is possible to situate a crucial debate within the study of corporate crime, concerning the process of legitimation. Follow the Money highlights the way corporate crime is often done “by business to benefit business” and the behavior is neutralized by a capitalist demand for profit and growth along with a criminal justice system that is ill-equipped to shed light on the crimes of the powerful.

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the moral complexity and uncertainty associated with white-collar crime. It presents two recent cases of alleged criminality to illustrate these issues: the case of Tom DeLay and the case of Bill Clinton. An overview of the three parts of the book is presented.

This chapter argues that a process of double marginalisation operates in Irish society. Put at its most simple - one group is marginalised in the conventional sense, that is, from access to social resources such as education, housing, and employment. The other has privileged access to these resources but is insulated from the impact of effective social control over their behaviour and from the social stigmatisation that follows from any activities they engage in that could be being labelled as criminal. The label of criminality in Ireland is mainly reserved to describe the illegal behaviour of working-class and conventionally marginalised people and as such it distorts social reality and serves the processes of class reproduction. There are a number of reasons for the comparative silence around white collar and corporate crime in Ireland, The first is universal and is a matter of definition. When we are talking about white collar and corporate crime and about white collar and corporate offenders, what and who exactly do we mean? The second is the manner in which such crimes are regulated by the state, a process that, it will be argued, is designed to downplay their criminality. The third is the law of libel.

This chapter describes the self-reports for seventy-two different offenses. Rates of prevalence (the percentage of the sample reporting an offense), incidence (the number of offenses reported by the sample), and recency (the number of offenses committed within the previous year) are described, and are organized into nine crime types, ranging from minor infractions to capital felonies: (1) violent crimes; (2) sex crimes; (3) white-collar crimes; (4) drug crimes; (5) property crimes; (6) professional misconduct; (7) vehicular offenses; (8) justice-system offenses; and (9) a handful of miscellaneous offenses. Contrary to prevailing theories of IQ and crime, high-IQ index respondents reported higher prevalence rates than controls for fifty of the seventy-two offenses and, overall, reported higher incidence rates than controls.

Accountancy tends to capture the public imagination only when something goes spectacularly wrong. This chapter illustrates how such spectacles, rather than being isolated incidents, can be understood as extreme manifestations of some aspects of everyday accounting practice. It introduces the problems of trust, truthfulness, factuality, and ethics that motivate subsequent chapters, and also offers a vivid description of the social world inhabited by chartered accountants working in large firms.