Chapter Five - Prison Sanctions and Criminal Careers

Summary

Our goal so far has been to describe the nature of criminal careers for a white-collar crime sample and to link different types of offenders to different types of careers. We have not as yet examined how the criminal justice system and the sanctions it imposes influences white-collar offenders. This has been a major focus of criminal career research and a major public policy concern.

Of the many types of sanctions that are imposed by criminal courts, incarceration occupies a central place in both empirical research and in public debate. Imprisonment is ordinarily the most punitive sanction that a criminal court may impose. It is also the sanction that is associated most strongly with the criminal, as opposed to civil or administrative, justice system. In this chapter we direct attention to the impacts of imprisonment on the recorded criminal careers of those convicted of white-collar crimes, focusing on whether prison sentences influence the likelihood, timing, frequency, and type of reoffending.

Specific Deterrence and White-Collar Crime

Some theories predict that imprisonment will deter sanctioned offenders from future criminal behavior (e.g., see Zimring and Hawkins, 1973). Others suggest that severe punishment may “backfire” for certain types of people and actually enhance the likelihood that individuals will again be processed in the criminal justice system (e.g., see Sherman et al., 1986). In the case of street crimes, there is little empirical evidence to support an assumption of specific deterrence (Lab, 1988).