How White is Low-Level White-Collar Crime? A Multi-Level Comparison of Fraud and Street Crime
摘要
This exploratory project compares the individual- and community-level characteristics of white-collar crimes with those of street crimes. Specifically, we examine fraud alongside the property crimes of theft and burglary, using policing data from Houston, Texas, and guided by an opportunity framework. While the typical white-collar offender is often portrayed as an older White male, recent research has indicated that white-collar crimes are increasingly becoming accessible to and committed by members of racial minority groups. We begin by analyzing the demographics of individuals arrested for fraud using arrest data from the Houston Police Department, followed by an examination of community-level opportunity structures using data from the American Community Survey. At the individual level, analyses showed racial differences between fraud and street offenders, with these differences being most pronounced for Hispanic offenders, who were consistently less likely than Whites to be arrested for fraud than for the street crimes examined. These results suggest that even among low-level financial crimes, Whites may have more opportunities for offending. At the community level, the only significantly different variable across all models was the percentage of renters; communities with a higher percentage of renters were more prone to fraud than those with fewer renters, particularly concerning street property crimes.