Knowledge Management in Private Investigations of White-Collar Crime

White-Collar Criminals

A white-collar criminal is typically a member of the privileged socioeconomic class in society (Sutherland, 1940, 1949), who behaves illegally (Hansen, 2009) in non-violent acts committed for financial gain (Brightman, 2009; Bucy et al., 2009). The criminal is a person of respectability (Gottschalk, 2015b), who commits crime in a professional setting, where criminal activities are concealed and disguised in organizational work (Benson and Simpson, 2009; Bookman, 2009) by law-abiding behavior (Abadinsky, 2007). The criminal has power and influence (Kempa, 2010; Podgor, 2009), and enjoys trust from others in privileged networks (Pickett and Pickett, 2002).

Furthermore, the criminal is usually independent and irresponsible, dishonest and antisocial (Collins and Schmidt, 1993; Listwan et al., 2010), and lacks integrity and social conscience (Price and Norris, 2009). The offender is likely to exhibit narcissistic behavior (McKay et al., 2010; Ouimet, 2009, 2010) and psychopathic traits (Ragatz et al., 2012). The criminal belongs to the elite, is often wealthy and is higher educated (Heath, 2008). The criminal may be subject to strain (Langton and Piquero, 2007; Piquero et al., 2010) and have low self-control (Gottfredsson and Hirschi, 1990). The offender has legitimate access to the location in which the crime is committed, and the offender’s actions have a superficial appearance of legitimacy (Benson and Simpson, 2009).