onetary damages are significantly fewer than convictions of low socioeconomic status white collar offenders whose crimes have small numbers of victims and small amounts of monetary damage. This proposition will be tested by examining the conviction rates for a large sample of high socioeconomic status and low socioeconomic status white collar offenders.
Theoretical Foundation of the Study
This study tests the claim that high socioeconomic status white collar offenders receive harsher sentences than low socioeconomic status white collar offenders because the only white collar offenders convicted are those whose crimes are serious in terms of number of victims and amount of monetary damage. The theoretical underpinnings of this explanation for sentence disparities associated with white collar crime can be found in Labelling Theory.
According to LaFree (1989), labelling theory is an outgrowth of symbolic interaction theory which, in terms of criminal etiology:
...suggests that criminal behavior is not caused by fixed biological attributes, deep psychological drives, or rigidly structured social organizations, but instead is a product of social interaction. (p. 18)
As such, labelling theory focuses issues of conviction, judicial decisions to imprison, and severity of sentence on the social interaction between the alleged criminal and the officials making the allegations. It explains how individuals come to be identified as criminals and the consequences attendant to this process of identification (LaFree, 1989).
Who then is likely to be identified as a criminal based on his/her social interactions with officials making the allegations of crime? LaFree (1989) states that labelling theory holds that at least for the initial allegation, those without monetary or legal resources or some other form of social influence are most likely to be branded criminals.
Those with these resources are likely to either escap...