Gender and varieties of white-collar crime

Abstract

The Wheeler et al. (1982) data set of white‐collar defendants is used to compare men's and women's socioeconomic profiles and occupations and the nature of their illegalities. The results show that a minority of men but only a handful of women fit the image of a highly placed white‐collar offender. Most employed women were clerical workers, and most employed men were managers or administrators. Women were more likely to be nonwhite, less likely to have completed college, and owned less in economic assets. Men were more likely to work in crime groups and to use organizational resources in carrying out crimes, and their attempted economic gains were higher. Occupational marginality, not mobility, better explains the form of women's white‐collar crime. The results raise questions about white‐collar arrest data and the nature of crime and offenders in white‐collar sentencing samples. They compel an investigation of the multiple injuences of gender, class, and race relations in generating varieties of white‐collar crime and in being caught and prosecuted for white‐collar crime.