Dy­lan Ker­ri­g­an

On ra­dio phone-in shows last week there was much dis­cus­sion of the Ryan re­port. One idea many mem­bers of the pub­lic seemed to sup­port was fo­cus­ing po­lice re­sources on ar­rest­ing peo­ple for vi­o­lent crimes over white-col­lar crimes.The sen­ti­ment was that the vi­o­lent crim­i­nal threat­ens our lives, while the white-col­lar crim­i­nal "just" steals our mon­ey.On the sur­face, this no­tion is quite palat­able. It re­flects the per­son­al fear of be­com­ing a vic­tim of vi­o­lent crime.Yet dig­ging deep­er in­to re­search on white-col­lar crime, the pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment of those ra­dio phone-in callers might be con­sid­ered mis­placed, as it mis­per­ceives not just the act of white-col­lar crime but al­so the be­hav­iour­al pro­file of white-col­lar crim­i­nals.

First­ly, the white-col­lar crim­i­nal is not–as stereo­typ­i­cal­ly rep­re­sent­ed–a stan­dard type of crime of­fend­er who is most­ly a first-time wrong­do­er, who suf­fered a one-time moral lapse, and is in­volved in non-vi­o­lent crime. Rather, white-col­lar crim­i­nals are a di­verse group not lim­it­ed to one eco­nom­ic class and whose crimes are rarely vic­tim­less.Sec­ond, white-col­lar crime does have vi­o­lent con­se­quences. For ex­am­ple, there is the sub­set of white-col­lar crim­i­nals who com­mit mur­der to pre­vent their crimes from be­ing dis­cov­ered. There are the vic­tims of white-col­lar crime, such as those felled by Cli­co and En­ron, who suf­fer heart at­tacks, com­mit sui­cide, or have their lives de­stroyed. And it has been shown that the phys­i­o­log­i­cal and emo­tion­al trau­ma of white-col­lar crime is sim­i­lar to that ex­pe­ri­enced by vic­tims of street-lev­el vi­o­lence.

Then there's the fact that the to­tal fi­nan­cial cost of white-col­lar crime mas­sive­ly ex­ceeds the cost of street crime and that we are far more like­ly to be a vic­tim of the for­mer than the lat­ter.And of course, the so­cial con­se­quences of mas­sive fi­nan­cial crimes desta­bilise so­ci­ety, stretch the di­vide be­tween rich and poor, and dam­age so­ci­etal har­mo­ny by un­der­min­ing eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. What's more is if the white-col­lar ac­tiv­i­ty is fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing for crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions, a white-col­lar crim­i­nal is di­rect­ly sup­port­ing and en­cour­ag­ing the vi­o­lence of street-lev­el crime.Last­ly, white-col­lar crimes al­so do vi­o­lence to peo­ple's life chances by deny­ing peo­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties and re­sources they might oth­er­wise have ac­cess to.

In the field of of­fend­er pro­fil­ing, the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion's Be­hav­ioral Sci­ence Unit now de­vel­ops be­hav­iour­al pro­files for fraud in­ves­ti­ga­tors. They note that many con­vict­ed white-col­lar crim­i­nals ex­hib­it be­hav­iour­al traits and crim­i­nal think­ing qual­i­ties sim­i­lar to those of vi­o­lent, street-lev­el crim­i­nals. These traits in­clude nar­cis­sism, an­ti­so­cial per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der, and psy­chopa­thy.Nar­cis­sism is "a per­va­sive pat­tern of grandios­i­ty, a need for ad­mi­ra­tion, a lack of em­pa­thy for oth­ers, and a be­lief that one is su­pe­ri­or, unique, and cho­sen." It is al­so a qual­i­ty of­ten found among those who com­mit fraud, not to men­tion an em­pir­i­cal risk fac­tor used to ex­plain street crim­i­nals who com­mit mur­der.

Psy­cho­path­ic traits are "char­ac­terised by those who are cal­lous, lack con­science, have an in­abil­i­ty to em­pathise with oth­ers, and show no re­morse for their ac­tions when they vi­o­late the rights of oth­ers." This is a qual­i­ty and risk fac­tor found among many white-col­lar crim­i­nals, and some street-lev­el crim­i­nals.An­ti­so­cial per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der–"a per­va­sive pat­tern of dis­re­gard and vi­o­la­tion of the rights of oth­ers and a lack in so­cial con­science and con­ven­tion­al moral­i­ty"–is com­mon among con­vict­ed white-col­lar crim­i­nals (and al­so found in high num­bers among many who work on stock mar­kets like Wall Street and the City of Lon­don).

So two cen­tral mis­con­cep­tions about white-col­lar crim­i­nals are that they are peo­ple with a quite dis­tinct be­hav­iour­al pro­file to vi­o­lent street-lev­el crim­i­nals, and that their crimes are non-vi­o­lent and vic­tim­less. Those ideas do not fit mod­ern frame­works for un­der­stand­ing white-col­lar crime.White-col­lar crim­i­nals play on such so­ci­etal mis­con­cep­tions. They use the per­cep­tion of them­selves as ed­u­cat­ed, po­lite, well-spo­ken, and pro­duc­tive mem­bers of so­ci­ety, many dis­ci­plin­ing and ac­tive­ly play­ing down traits like nar­cis­sism, an­ti­so­cial per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der, and psy­chopa­thy.

They pur­pose­ful­ly de­ceive and re­ly on a per­cep­tion of crim­i­nal­i­ty as stem­ming from street crim­i­nals who sup­pos­ed­ly are un­e­d­u­cat­ed, rude, ill-man­nered, and un­sta­ble. This has the ef­fect of mak­ing a white-col­lar crim­i­nal in­vis­i­ble even when he/she is stand­ing right in front of you be­ing fraud­u­lent.Fraud, cor­rup­tion and mon­ey-laun­der­ing–or ly­ing, cheat­ing and steal­ing–do have vi­o­lent con­se­quences–from ac­tu­al per­son-on-per­son vi­o­lence to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic vi­o­lence done to peo­ple's life chances. The myths about white-col­lar crime and crim­i­nals that cir­cu­late in so­ci­ety and pop­u­lar cul­ture make us mis­per­ceive these dan­gers, and the de­struc­tive con­se­quences of white-col­lar crim­i­nal­i­ty.

�2 Dr Dy­lan Ker­ri­g­an is an an­thro­pol­o­gist at UWI, St Au­gus­tine.