Book Review: Shover, N., & Hochstetler, A. (2006). Choosing White-Collar Crime. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 212 pp

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808319490
• Date: 01 September 2008
• Author: Michael L. Benson
• Published date: 01 September 2008
• Subject Matter: Articles

Shover, N., & Hochstetler, A. (2006). Choosing White-Collar Crime.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 212 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016808319490

In Choosing White-Collar Crime, Neal Shover and Andy Hochstetler argue that as an

alternative to “deterministic accounts” of criminal behavior, rational choice theory has

come to dominate political and academic discourse about crime. With respect to white-

collar crime, however, the full benefits of choice theory have yet to be adequately

“extracted and exploited.” Hence, this book is presented. The effort to apply rational choice

theory to white-collar crime is premised on two assumptions: that “all criminal decision

making represents a single field of study and that much of what has been learned in studies

of street criminals and their decision making almost certainly is paralleled in white-collar

criminal decision making” (p. 3). Though the authors describe these assumptions as

“straightforward,” a question regarding the second one immediately springs to mind. To

wit, exactly what has been learned about the decision making of street criminals?

Unfortunately, a review of this topic is not provided. However, one gathers that apparently

what has been learned is that criminals are attracted to the benefits of crime, do not like to

be punished, and will change their behavior if they are held accountable for their actions.

Before exploring how the authors apply rational choice theory to white-collar crime, a

disclaimer is in order. This reviewer is not a fan of the choice perspective. When it is

expressed in a parsimonious form (i.e., decision making about crime is a simple function

of a cost and benefit analysis), it strikes me as vacuously uninformative and when it is

expressed in a more complex manner (i.e., as is done in a very sophisticated way here), it

starts looking and sounding a lot like the so-called deterministic accounts of crime that it

purports to supplant. Although there is a great deal to be admired in this book, the assump-

tion that the rational choice theory is the last word on criminal decision making is not one

that this reviewer is willing to accept yet.

Nevertheless, one cannot help but admire the sophisticated, insightful, and eloquent

manner in which the choice perspective is applied to white-collar crime here. The authors

start with the benefit side of the choice equation, focusing first on what they call “lure.”

Lure refers to a thing or a situation that is attractive or desirable, in the sense that it can be

taken or used to one’s advantage. Lure attracts potential criminals. Over the past few

decades, new sources of lure have arisen. Increasing state largesse (e.g., Medicare and

Medicaid), a revolution in financial services (e. g., consumer credit), evolving technology

(e.g., the internet), and globalization (e.g., transnational corporations) have fostered new

opportunities for fraud, embezzlement, and exploitation of the weak by the strong. This

chapter spotlights where lure is greatest, and hence where white-collar offenders are likely

to be most active.

Having identified prominent sources of lure, the authors move next to those who are attracted

by lure, that is, the predisposed or tempted. Like everyone else in the area of white-collar crime, the

authors face the difficult task of addressing both the organizational and individual dimensions of

offending. The idea of predisposition is applied to organizations and is viewed a function of

“structural, cultural, and procedural characteristics” (p. 51) of organizations that influence the

odds that organizational personnel will recognize lure. The tempted, on the other hand, refers

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