Substance or Semantics? The Consequences of Definitional Ambiguity for White-collar Research

• DOI: 10.1177/0022427819888012
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Miranda A. Galvin
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Substance or

Semantics? The

Consequences of

Definitional Ambiguity

for White-collar Research

Miranda A. Galvin

1,2

Abstract

Objectives: To determine whether different conceptions (Populist, Patrician)

and operationalizations of “white-collar crime” produce different substan-

tive conclusions, using the applied case of sentencing in federal criminal

court. Method: Federal Justice Statistics Program data are used to identify

white-collar and comparable crimes referred for prosecution in 2009 to

2011 that were also sentenced through 2013. Five different oper ational

strategies are used to identify “white-collar crime” and are employed in

separate hurdle regressions jointly capturing incarceration and sentence

length. Differences in model coefficients and case composition are dis-

cussed across definitions. Results: There are differences in the relationship

between “white-collar crime” and incarceration both between and within

Populist and Patrician conceptions. These differences are most pronounced

at the in/out decision but are also present for sentence length. Conclusions:

1

University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

2

Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University, University

Park, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Miranda A. Galvin, Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State

University, 211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

Email: mag483@psu.edu

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2020, Vol. 57(3) 369-399

ªThe Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0022427819888012

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Contradictory findings from past research are largely able to be replicated

within a single sample simply by changing the conception and operationali-

zation of white-collar crime used. This demonstrates that debating what is

“truly” white-collar crime is not just an exercise in semantics—it is a con-

ceptual and methodological choice that can have dramatic consequences on

what (we think) we know about the treatment of white-collar crime in the

criminal justice system.

Keywords

white-collar crime, definition, status leniency, status liability, sentencing

Few, if any, terms used in legal and crimin ological writing and research

arouse as much agitation and dispute as the white-collar crime concept.

Geis (1991)

Nearly 75 years after Sutherland (1939) coined the term white-collar crime,

extensive disagreement remains over which acts, what offenders, and what

types of government responses (criminal, civil, regulatory) encapsulate the

phenomenon.

Simpson (2013:310)

Despite more than a quarter century since the term was first coined—and

nearly 30 years since Geis’s observation above—white-collar research

remains preoccupied with definition. Unlike studies of most any other crime

type, white-collar crime research almost invariably begins with a (generally

lengthy) discussion defining the concept of interest. This definitional pre-

occupation is likely owed to the sociological, rather than legal, nature of the

term (Benson, Kennedy, and Logan 2016) and was fueled by inconsisten-

cies in the label’s early usage. Since Sutherland’s first definition of white-

collar crime, dozens of scholars have introduced their own clarifications on

the concept, including Sutherland himself. Importantly, the definitional

debates in white-collar crime research reflect not only concerns of opera-

tionalization but deeper entrenched conceptual differences in the phenom-

ena being studied. This in and of itself may not be cause for concern.

However, there is reason to suspect that this underlying conceptual varia-

bility may create ambiguity in what we know—or think we know—about

white-collar crime.

370 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 57(3)