Co-offending in white-collar crime [electronic resource] : a network approach.

1993

1 online resource (184 p.)

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Many crimes and other deviant activities are not committed by lone individuals, but rather by a number of persons acting together. Yet few studies of crime have explored the nature or impact of co-offending. This failure to incorporate co-offending and the distinctive unit of analysis that co-offending networks represent leads to a number of theoretical and methodological difficulties. This project argues that co-offending may be best understood as a network form of social organization. The adoption of a network approach to co-offending makes possible the incorporation of co-offending into research on a variety of issues related to crime while at the same time locating the social organization of crime within a broader spectrum of forms of social organization. Although co-offending is most commonly associated with the actions of juveniles in gangs, it also plays a major role in white collar crimes. Indeed, some white collar crimes, such as price-fixing conspiracies and (successfully completed) bribes by their definition involve more than one person. Other crimes, such as extremely complex frauds, almost always involve large numbers of individuals who carry out small, at times highly specialized, parts of a larger crime. Using a sample of almost 1000 individuals convicted of more than 450 multiple offender white collar crimes, this study explores the structure of white collar co-offending networks and issues related to their analysis.

Books / Online / Dissertations & Theses

English

July 12, 2011

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 1993.

Yale University.