Understanding Identity Theft

• Author: Lynne M. Vieraitis,Heith Copes
• Date: 01 September 2009
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808330589
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

329

Criminal Justice Review

Volume 34 Number 3

September 2009 329-349

© 2009 Georgia State University

Research Foundation, Inc.

10.1177/0734016808330589

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Authors’ Note: This project was supported by Grant No. 2005-IJ-CX-0012 awarded by the National Institute

of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of

the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

We are thankful to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments. Please address correspondence to

Heith Copes, Department of Justice Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1201 University

Boulevard; Suite 210, Birmingham, AL 35294-4562; e-mail: jhcopes@uab.edu.

Articles

Understanding Identity Theft

Offenders’ Accounts of Their Lives

and Crimes

Heith Copes

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Lynne M. Vieraitis

University of Texas at Dallas

Researchers typically label acts as “white-collar” based on the respectable status of the offender

(populist perspective) or on the characteristics of the offense (patrician perspective). However,

some crimes, such as identity theft are not easily classified into either of these categories. The cur-

rent study is designed to contextualize previous research and to situate the crime of identity theft

within these two broad perspectives of white-collar crime. To do this, 59 identity thieves incarcer-

ated in federal prisons were interviewed to offer the offenders’ perspectives on existing research

describing characteristics of thieves and the techniques they employ to complete their crimes.

Results show that identity thieves are a diverse group in terms of demographic characteristics (age,

race, gender, and social class), employment, and criminal histories. They employed a variety of

methods to both acquire information and convert it to cash. The most common methods of acquir-

ing information were to buy it from others or to steal it from mailboxes or trashcans. They also used

numerous methods to convert these identities into valuable goods, which included accessing exist-

ing accounts, applying for new credit, and obtaining loans. Thus, the findings show that identity

theft is difficult to classify as white-collar crime.

Keywords: identity theft; identity thieves; white-collar crime; fraud

The definition of white-collar crime has engendered much confusion and debate among

criminologists since it was introduced nearly seven decades ago and agreement over con-

ceptual boundaries has yet to be achieved. Perspectives on how best to conceptualize white-

collar crime tend to fall into one of two camps, what Shover and Cullen (2008) refer to as the

populist and patrician paradigms. The populist paradigm is perhaps best exemplified by the

work of Sutherland who saw the respectable status of the perpetrators as the defining character-

istic of white-collar crime. Those who take this perspective conceive of white-collar crime as

330 Criminal Justice Review

involving the “illegal and harmful actions of elites and respectable members of society carried

out . . . in the context of legitimate organizational or occupational activity” (Friedrichs,

2004, p. 5). When seen through this lens, white-collar crime evokes images of powerful elites

who use their position to fraudulently obtain money and evade prosecution and elicits a critical,

reform oriented stance to research.

The patrician perspective of white-collar crime “takes a narrower, more technical, and

less reform-oriented view of white-collar crime” (Shover & Cullen, 2008, p. 156). Those

who define white-collar crime from this perspective place emphasis on the characteristics

of the crime rather than the characteristics of the criminal. The work carried out at the Yale

Studies of White Collar Crime typifies this perspective (Weisburd, Wheeler, Waring, &

Bode, 1991). By reviewing the presentence investigation reports of federal offenders,

Weisburd et al. (1991) painted a portrait of white-collar offenders as mundane and ordinary.

This camp points out that the notion of white-collar crime being committed only by elites

is an exaggeration and, therefore, emphasis should be placed on “collaring the crime, not

the criminal” (Shapiro, 1990). As Shapiro (1990) notes, researchers should be “exploring

the modus operandi of their misdeeds and the ways in which they establish and exploit

trust” (p. 363). Edelhertz (1970) suggests that white-collar crime is “an illegal act or series

of illegal acts committed by nonphysical means and by concealment or guile, to obtain

money or property, to avoid the payment or loss of money or property or to obtain business

or personal advantage” (p. 3). Edelhertz (1970) makes clear the belief that “the character

of white-collar crime must be found in its modus operandi and its objectives rather than in

the nature of the offenders” (p. 4).

Regardless of whether one emphasizes the status of the offender (populist) or the nature

of the crime (patrician), Friedrichs (2004, p. 4) notes that most criminologists who study

white-collar crime agree that it occurs in a legitimate occupational context and is motivated

by the goal of economic gain or occupational success. This issue was also raised by

Newman (1958) who argued that “the chief criterion for a crime to be ‘white-collar’ is that

it occurs as a part of, or a deviation from, the violator’s occupational role” (p. 737).

Typologies of white-collar crime also illuminate the difficulties in defining white-collar

crime and classifying actors and/or actions as white-collar. Numerous typologies have

emerged since Sutherland’s (1949) White Collar Crime with some classifying types of

white-collar crime based on the context in which the activity occurs, the status or position

of the offender, the primary victims, the primary form of harm, or the legal classification

of the offense (Friedrichs, 2004).

According to Braithwaite (1985), the most influential partition has been Clinard and

Quinney’s (1973) separation of white-collar crime into occupational and corporate crime.

In doing so, the term corporate crime preserves the original definition of white-collar crime

as delineated by Sutherland, but recognizes that lower level white-collar and even blue-

collar workers commit crimes in the context of their occupations. Others have added forms

of governmental crime, hybrid forms of white-collar crime (e.g., state-corporate crime,

crimes of globalization, and finance crime), and “residual” forms such as technocrime and

avocational crime (Friedrichs, 2004).

When labeling acts as white-collar researchers typically use definitions from one of the two

camps. But some crimes are hard to classify in either of these broad categories, which makes it