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Copyright Information
POLICY ESSAY
'VICTIM
COMPENSATION
WHITE-COLLAR
AND
CRIME
White-Collar Crime Is Crime
Victims Hurt Just the Same
Nicole Leeper Piquero
The University of Texas at Dallas
cholars examining public perceptions of crime seriousness have long shown, through
their findings, that white-collar crimes are considered as equally serious as many
street crimes (Cullen, Link, and Polanzi, 1982; Kane and Wall, 2006; Piquero,
Carmichael, and Piquero, 2008; Rosenmerkle, 2001). Likewise, these scholars have also
shown that respondents support, at times, harsh criminal sanctions for white-collar crimes,
especially for those that inflict physical harm (Cullen, Clark, Mathers, and Cullen, 1983;
Holtfreter, Van Slyke, Bratton, and Gertz, 2008; Schoepfer, Carmichael, and Piquero,
2007). In a variety of victimization reports, the findings continue to show that "white-collar
crime" is a growing problem in terms of both the numbers of people affected as well as
the amount of harm caused to these victims. For example, the Bureau of Justice Statistics
found that 7% of persons 16 years of age or older (an estimated 17.6 million people) were
victims of identity theft in 2014 (Harrell, 2015). Even more recently, an estimate by Javelin
Strategy and Research showed that the costs of identity theft or fraud were somewhere near
$16 billion (nearly $1 billion more than they found in 2015; Pascual, Marchini, and Miller,
2018). As a point of comparison, the gross domestic product of Iceland is approximately
$20 billion dollars. Although official crime reports have only recently started to include the
amount and costs of some types of white-collar crime,1 the public has long recognized the
Direct correspondence to Nicole Leeper Piquero, School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, GR 3.818,
The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 West Campbell Road, Richardson, TX 75080 (e-mail: npiquero@utdallas.
edu).
1. The Bureau of Justice Statistics added a supplement of questions in 2004 to capture estimates of
identity theft victimizations (Baum, 2006). To date, the Identity Theft Supplement has been
administered three times, in 2008, 2012, and 2014. The Uniform Crime Reports began collecting identity
theft and hacking/computer invasion offenses in 2016, and the National Incident-Based Reporting
System will begin collecting fraud offenses of identity theft and hacking/computer invasion as part of
cargo theft beginning January 2019 (FBI, 2017).
DOI:10. 1111/1745-9133.12384
© 2018 American Society of Criminology
Criminology &Public Policy • Volume 17 • Issue 3
595
Policy Essay
Victim Compensation and White-Collar Crime
impact of these crime types on their victims. As such, it should come as no surprise that
Miranda Galvin, Thomas Loughran, Sally Simpson, and Mark Cohen (2018, this issue)
have found that there is public support for using tax dollars to compensate white-collar
crime victims, a finding that is consistent with previous work I co-published in 2010 in a
four-state study of citizens' willingness to pay to be protected from identity theft (Piquero,
Cohen, and Piquero, 2011).
Specifically, Galvin et al. (2018) conducted a national study to assess the willingness of
taxpayers to provide financial support to white-collar crime victim compensation programs.
By examining three types of white-collar crime (e.g., financial fraud, consumer fraud, and
identity theft) along with one financial street crime (burglary), the authors compared an
individual's willingness to pay for a program linked to a certain amount of crime reduction
(either 25% or 50% reduction depending on the scenario) that includes payments to victims
versus an identical program without victim compensation. Four key findings emerged. First,
across all four crime types, they detected a willingness to pay for the victim compensation
option. Second, support for victim compensation was found among respondents who could
envision themselves as future crime victims. Third, when the victim was made "real" (i.e.,
vividness), respondents were supportive of victim compensation programs. Finally, a small
(7% to 10%) group of respondents preferred the options without the victim compensation
component. From these findings, the authors conclude that policy makers need to make
clear to the public their risks of victimization for all types of crime but especially so for
white-collar offenses.
With this study by Galvin et al. (2018) in mind, the next two sections of this policy essay
consider (1) the need to put white-collar crimes on an equal playing field with traditional
street crimes and (2) some possible policy responses that involve not only the actions of
policy makers but also the educational or crime prevention strategies.
Leveling the Playing Field
Distinguishing between white-collar and traditional crimes has long been a quandary to
criminologists and policy officials. The conceptual ambiguity of what is and what is not
"white-collar crime" dates back to Sutherland's (1940) introduction of the term almost
80 years ago. 2 The original purpose of the term was to draw attention to the fact that
anyone, regardless of social class, can commit criminal acts. Unfortunately, the taxonomy
seems to have created an arbitrary divide in classification of types of crimes as well as a
bifurcation within the field of criminology more generally regarding the extent to which
white-collar crime is a unique offense worthy of its own theoretical and empirical scrutiny
(e.g., Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990).
Since 1929, the collection and measurement of criminal activity in the United States
has remained almost unchanged. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform
2.
596
This definition dilemma has been deliberated ad nauseum and isbeyond the purview of this essay.
Criminology & Public Policy
Piquero
Crime Reports (UCR) was designed to create a national set of comparable crime statistics. By focusing almost exclusively on street crimes (i.e., aggravated assault, forcible rape,
murder, robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson 3 ), the UCR has
added to the ambiguity of which crimes "count" and which crimes do not count. Although
these index offenses are certainly serious and must be counted, the UCR program has
neither captured all crime types nor not kept pace with the changing nature of crimes or
the changing methods by which some crimes are committed, especially with the advent
of technology in the late twentieth century. As but one glaring example, identity theft
and cybercrimes are not well captured by the antiquated UCR summary reporting system.
As the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Modernizing Crime Statistics (2018: 1-5)
recently observed, "[T]he nation's crime statistics have not been well equipped to measure
[those emerging crime types]." One of the Panel's main observations was that the United
States needs to keep better records associated with newer crimes that are not well covered by current crime statistics (i.e., environmental offenses, forgery, and insider trading).
Other crime measurement strategies have been more flexible in capturing crime trends
and patterns. For example, in 2004, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
added supplemental questions to gage the amount of identity theft victimizations (Baum,
2006).
The need to have white-collar crimes seated at the same table as traditional crimes
becomes even clearer when one looks at the costs or consequences associated with crimeespecially because there seem to be more similarities than differences between white-collar
and traditional crime victims. Most often, the consequences of crime victimization can be
categorized as physical harms, emotional consequences, direct financial losses, and societal
harms (see Golladay and Holtfreter, 2017; Payne, 2012). In examining these crime outcomes, crime victims seem to report similar consequences to both the authorities as well
as researchers. For example, Golladay and Holtfreter (2017) used data from the Identity
Theft Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (referenced earlier) to examine what happens to victims in the aftermath of their victimization experiences. The
key finding from their study was one that is almost identical to victims of street crime;
namely, victims reported experiencing not only financial losses resulting from identity theft
victimization but also emotional and physical symptoms. 4 When their findings are coupled
with research by Piquero et al. (2008) documenting that the public places the seriousness
of many forms of white-collar crime on par with traditional street crimes, the evidence is
clear that white-collar crime has "arrived" with traditional street crimes in the crime data
3.
Arson was added to the UCR in 1979.
4.
It is important to note that the National Institute of Justice (NIJ-201 6-9880) is currently funding a project
that isconducting a multimethod research study to assess the effect and quality of services provided to
victims of identity theft across four types of outcomes: social problems, mental health problems,
physical health problems, and financial problems. This effort isa partnership with the Developmental
Services Group, the University of Texas at Dallas, and the Identity Theft Resource Center.
Volume 17 - Issue 3
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Policy Essay
Victim Compensation and White-Collar Crime
collection sphere. Given the increases in victimizations that are undoubtedly to occur as
new forms of identity theft and cybercrime are carried out on victims-many of whom will
not realize they have been victimized until days, weeks, or even years later-researchers and
policy makers will do well to make white-collar crime a priority in not just data collection
but also understanding and prevention efforts.
Policy Directions
Until there is broad political support that is designed to fund the necessary financial resources
to compensate all crime victims, including white-collar crime victims, it is clear that steps
need to be taken to aid victims in navigating the complex waters of dealing with white-collar
crime victimization. Most often when someone has discovered that he or she has been a
victim of a street crime, that person is likely to call the police and report the offense (which
depending on the type of crime gets tallied in the UCR). In the latest report from NCVS
(Harrell, 2015), however, the findings show that this is not true for victims of identity
theft. In fact, in the 2014 data, 98% of identity theft victims did not report the incident to
police (and as a consequence is not being measured in national crime rates). Instead, 89%
of victims reported to one or more non-law-enforcement agencies, most likely a credit card
company or bank, to report the misuse of an account or personal information (Harrell,
2015). Even more troubling is that 21% of nonreporting victims indicated that they did
not know how to report the incident to police.
Although resources for victims of white-collar crimes are readily available, most notably
for victims of identity theft, much more needs to be done to promote the resources that are
available to help white-collar crime victims. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) houses
a website (IdentityTheft.gov) that helps victims of identity theft to develop a recovery plan
that attends to issues such as fraud alerts and credit freezing (Peterson, 2016). Another
helpful aid to identity theft victims are the resources made available by the Identity Theft
Resource Center (idtheftcenter.org).
Policy makers have taken some steps to help ensure the public's safety. For example, the
Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003 (FACTA) gives consumers the right to
place fraud alerts with consumer reporting agencies, request a free credit report from each
of the three national credit reporting agencies (e.g., Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion)
when placing a fraud alert, block. fraudulent information from appearing in their credit
reports, and receive a notice of these and other rights from the credit reporting agencies.
Furthermore, data from the National Conference of State Legislatures (2018) show that
many states have specific restitution provisions for identity theft and a few have forfeiture
provisions. In addition, several states offer an identity theft passport program to help victims
deal with the ongoing effects of identity theft.
To be sure, government actions alone cannot protect anyone from victimization. Citizens must take an active role in their own safety, whether it is their physical, identity,
or financial safety. Just as we have learned that we need to target harden our physical
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Piquero
property (e.g., lock car doors and purchase home alarm systems), so too must individuals take responsibility in target hardening their identity and finances. Some simple, but
no doubt overlooked, actions to protect oneself include regularly changing passwords on
financial accounts, shredding documents with personal information, and checking one's
credit report. This latter action is a simple one, but many persons do not perform the
annual credit report checks even after high-profile data breaches such as with Equifax or
Anthem.
The bottom line is that white-collar crime victims should be given the same consideration under current victim compensation programs as are traditional crime victims. Until
local, state, and federal governments make white-collar crime as high a priority as they
do traditional street crimes (e.g., homicide, robbery, and illegal immigration), victims of
white-collar crimes will continue to struggle financially, physically, as well as emotionally, in
dealing with their victimization. This call for "equality" of crime types is not new. In 2004,
when then President George W Bush signed the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act,
he stated: "Like other forms of stealing, identity theft leaves the victim poor and feeling
terribly violated." The time to do so has both come and gone; hopefully it will not come
and go again in the future.
References
Baum, Katrina. 2006. Identity Theft, 2004. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Cullen, Francis T., Gregory A. Clark, Richard A. Mathers, and John B. Cullen. 1983.
Public support for punishing white-collar crime: Blaming the victim revisited. Journal
of CriminalJustice, 11: 481-493.
Cullen, Francis T., Bruce G. Link, and Craig W. Polanzi. 1982. The seriousness of crime
revisited. Criminology, 20: 83-102.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 2017. UCR Program Quarterly, 17: 1-9. Retrieved
from ucr.fbi.gov/ucr-program-quarterly/ucr-quarterly-april-2017.
Galvin, Miranda A., Thomas A. Loughran, Sally S. Simpson, and Mark A. Cohen. 2018.
Victim compensation policy and white-collar crime: Public preferences in a national
willingness-to-pay survey. Criminology &Public Policy, 17: 553-594.
Golladay, Katelyn and Kristy Holtfreter. 2017. The consequences of identity theft victimization: An examination of emotional and physical health outcomes. Victims &
Offenders. Epub ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2016.1177766.
Gottfredson, Michael R. and Travis Hirschi. 1990. A General Theory of Crime. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Harrell, Erika. 2015. Victims of Identity Theft, 2014. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice
Statistics.
Holtfreter, Kristy, Shanna Van Slyke, Jason Bratton, and Marc Gertz. 2008. Public perceptions of white-collar crime and punishment. Journalof CriminalJustice, 36: 50-60.
Kane, John and April D. Wall. 2006. The 2005 NationalPublic Survey on White Collar
Crime. Fairmont, WV: National White Collar Crime Center.
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National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 2018. ModernizingCrime Statistics - Report2: New Systemsfor MeasuringCrime. Washington, DC: National Academies
Press.
National Conference of State Legislatures. 2018. Identity Theft. Retrieved from
ncsl.org/research/financial-services-and-commerce/identity-theft-state-statutes.aspx.
Pascual, Al, Kyle Marchini, and Sarah Miller. 2018. 2018 Identity FraudEnters a New Era
of Complexity. Retrieved from javelinstrategy.com/coverage-area/2018-identity-fraudfraud-enters-new-era-complexity.
Payne, Brian K. 2012. White-Collar Crime. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Peterson, Andrea. 2016. Why so few identity theft victims turn to the government
for help. The Washington Post, Jan. 28. Retrieved from washingtonpost.com/
news/the-switch/wp/2016/01/28/why-so-few-identity-theft-victims-turn-to-thegovernment-for-help/?noredirect=onandutm term=.a0471c2eeec6.
Piquero, Nicole L., Stephanie Carmichael, and Alex R. Piquero. 2008. Assessing the perceived seriousness of white-collar and street crime. Crime & Delinquency, 54: 291-312.
Piquero, Nicole L., Mark A. Cohen, and Alex R. Piquero. 2011. How much is the public
willing to pay to be protected from identity theft? Justice Quarterly, 28: 437-458.
Rosenmerkle, Sean P. 2001. Wrongfulness and harmfulness components of seriousness of
white-collar offenses. Journalof Contemporary CriminalJustice, 17: 308-327.
Schoepfer, Andrea, Stephanie Carmichael, and Nicole L. Piquero. 2007. Do perceptions of
punishment vary between white-collar and street crimes? Journalof CriminalJustice,
35: 151-163.
Sutherland, Edwin. 1940. White-collar criminality. American Sociological Review, 5: 1-2.
Statutes Cited
Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA), Pub.L. 108-159 (2003).
Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, Pub.L. 108-275 § 1028A (2004).
Nicole Leeper Piquero is the Robert Holmes Professor of Criminology and program head
of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Program at The University of Texas at Dallas. Her
research interests include white-collar crime, criminological theory, and gender/crime. She
is past president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.
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