Book Review: Williams, H. E. (2006). Investigating White-Collar Crime: Embezzlement and Financial Fraud (2nd ed.). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. 347 pp

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808322262
• Published date: 01 December 2008
• Date: 01 December 2008
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Reviews
Criminal Justice Review
Volume 33 Number 4
December 2008 565-583
© 2008 Georgia State University
Williams, H. E. (2006). Investigating White-Collar Crime:
Research Foundation, Inc.
http://cjr.sagepub.com
Embezzlement and Financial Fraud (2nd ed.). Springfield,
hosted at
IL: Charles C. Thomas. 347 pp.
http://online.sagepub.com
DOI: 10.1177/0734016808322262
This is a technical book designed for the criminal investigator. In this sense, it is an
excellent work that is well written and clearly organized. A law enforcement practitioner,
Williams does an impressive job of showing how white-collar crime emerged as a social
problem, summarizing key sociological works and theoretical debates and linking these
with legal responses to specific types of criminality. At the same time, he reminds the
reader that the rule of law and the technicality of a criminal prosecution require that the
investigator be more concerned with the body of a particular offense than with the social
status of a particular offender. As a result, much of the book would be best characterized as
being concerned with financial crimes, whether these involve the most powerful corpora-
tion or the most lowly bank official.
What Williams sees as especially problematic is the tendency for American law enforce-
ment, outside of the FBI and select regulatory agencies, to avoid the challenge of prose-
cuting white-collar crimes that are perceived to be “complicated, time consuming, and
difficult to investigate” (p. v). In financial crimes, Williams points out, violations of the law
are not immediately apparent and often have to be discovered by officers. Officers find
themselves faced with investigatory tasks that they were never trained for, such as analyz-
ing financial and legal transactions, sometimes requiring them to go to outsiders for help.
As a result, local law enforcement agencies, in particular, avoid pursuing white-collar crime
cases. This is problematic, Williams argues, because...