NCJ Number
211010
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 33 Issue: 4 Dated: July/August 2005 Pages: 353-365
Date Published
July 2005
Length
13 pages
Annotation
In order to assess existing white-collar crime conceptualizations, this study examined differences in individual offender characteristics and organizational victim characteristics for cases of asset misappropriation, corruption, and fraudulent statements.
Abstract
The data used were originally collected by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). The ACFE administers an exam that members must pass to earn the Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) designation. The study sample consisted of 1,142 CFEs who responded to ACFE surveys at 2 time periods: 1997-98 and 2001-02. Both surveys were an extension of ACFE's original, exploratory study of occupational fraud and abuse, which was conducted in 1995-96 to establish baseline measures of the frequency and types of fraud investigated in different kinds of organizations. The respondents were employed in government, business, and public accounting. The cases reported by the CFEs were required to have been completed, to have identified perpetrators, and to have all legal proceedings concluded. The variables pertained to type of fraud, offender individual characteristics, and the characteristics of the organization victimized by the fraud. Two one-way ANOVA models by the three types of occupational fraud considered were estimated in relation to offender characteristics and the characteristics of the victimized organization. The analysis found that individuals who made fraudulent statements conformed to the literature's "high status" image; and those who committed asset misappropriation or corruption more closely resembled the "middle-class" white-collar offenders described by Weisburd, Wheeler, Waring, and Bode (1991). Organizations victimized by corruption were similar to the literature's portrayal of the large, profit-making company setting for white-collar crime. The other two types of occupational fraud occurred in distinctly different settings. 3 tables, 11 notes, and 63 references