Special Sensitivity?: The White-Collar Offender in Prison

184 Pages·2012·0.797 MB·English

by  William A. Stadler

Criminal Justice
Recent Scholarship

Edited by
Nicholas P. Lovrich

A Series from LFB Scholarly

Special Sensitivity?
The White-Collar Offender in Prison

William A. Stadler

LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC
El Paso 2012
Copyright © 2012 by LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stadler, William Andrew, 1978-
Special sensitivity? : the white-collar offender in prison / William A.
Stadler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59332-582-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. White collar crimes--United States. 2. Sentences (Criminal
procedure)--United States. I. Title.
HV6769.S83 2012
365'.60973--dc23
2012021517

ISBN 978-1-59332-582-4

Printed on acid-free 250-year-life paper.

Manufactured in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
List of Tables ....................................................................................... vii 
Chapter 1: The White-Collar Crime Problem ........................................ 1 
Chapter 2: Understanding White-Collar Crime ..................................... 9 
Chapter 3: Exploring the Special Sensitivity Hypothesis .................... 71 
Chapter 4: The White-Collar Inmate Experience ................................. 93 
Chapter 5: Questioning the Special Sensitivity Hypothesis ............... 131 
Chapter 6: The Future of White-Collar Offender Sentencing ............ 149 
Bibliography ...................................................................................... 161 
Index .................................................................................................. 173 
v

List of Tables
Table 1. Percent of white-collar offenders receiving a prison
sentence by offense categories (1998, 2003, and 2008) ...... 27 
Table 2. Mean sentence length (in months) for white-collar
offenders by offense category (1998, 2003, and 2008) ....... 27 
Table 3. Characteristics of offenders in the Yale studies ..................... 37 
Table 4. Percent of white-collar offenders in the Yale studies by
offense type ......................................................................... 39 
Table 5. Distribution of Inmates by Primary Offense Category .......... 75 
Table 6. Offenses of white-collar offenders (N = 78) .......................... 77 
Table 7. Offenses of non-white-collar offenders (N = 288) ................. 78 
Table 8. Distribution of inmates by occupational position .................. 79 
Table 9. Inmate demographic and social characteristics ..................... 97 
Table 10. Inmate criminal history characteristics ................................ 98 
Table 11. Inmate attitudes toward their offense and punishment ....... 100 
Table 12. Inmate motivations............................................................. 101 
Table 13. Inmate self-control ............................................................. 103 
Table 14. Inmate Jesness t-scores ...................................................... 104 
Table 15. Inmate personality subtypes ............................................... 106 
Table 16. Inmate adjustment to prison ............................................... 108 
vii
viii List of Tables
Table 17. Inmate Prison Victimization and Misconducts .................. 110 
Table 18. Prison adjustment scales .................................................... 111 
Table 19. Logistic Regression: General difficulties in prison ............ 113 
Table 20. Logistic Regression: Trouble sleeping ............................... 115 
Table 21. Logistic Regression: Depressed most of the time in
prison ................................................................................ 116 
Table 22. Logistic Regression: Evidence of Need for Safety in
Prison ................................................................................ 118 
Table 23. Logistic Regression: Problems with Current or Former
Cellmate in Prison ............................................................. 120 
Table 24. Logistic Regression: Having No Friends in Prison ............ 121 
Table 25. Logistic Regression: Prison Victimization ......................... 123 
Table 26. Logistic Regression: Prison Misconducts .......................... 124 
Table 27. Linear Regression: Prison Stress ........................................ 127 
Table 28. Linear Regression: Prison Depression ............................... 128
CHAPTER 1
The White-Collar Crime Problem
INTRODUCTION
Despite federal and state budget shortfalls in recent years, as of 2007
rates of criminal justice supervision and imprisonment in the United
States were still on the rise (Glaze & Bonczar, 2009; West & Sabol,
2008). Not surprisingly, more new offenders are being placed under
the supervision and control of probation and corrections departments,
while repeat offenders are being recycled through the justice system at
alarming rates. Though these trends have remained unabated for
offenders convicted of the most widely studied conventional, street-
level crimes, there is also evidence to suggest that the use of
imprisonment and severity of legal sanctions for white-collar offenders
are also trending in an upward direction. Unfortunately, relatively little
is known about the breadth and extent of white-collar crime in
America. Even more importantly, less is currently known about the
individuals who engage in white-collar crimes and what happens after
they are tried and sentenced.
Nearly every day the American public is exposed to a new media
report about the reprehensible behavior of another Wall Street tycoon,
politician, or public figure. Over the course of the last decade these
accounts have revealed a number of high profile cases involving acts of
fraud, insider trading, collusion, embezzlement, tax evasion, cover-ups,
and so on. Some of the most publicly familiar names of the latter
twentieth century have been prosecuted and subsequently convicted for
perpetrating white-collar crimes. These include Ivan Boesky, Michael
Milken, Dennis Kozlowski, Bernard Ebbers, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey
1