White-collar offenders: a 35-year follow-up

The long-term outcome for white-collar offenders after conviction is a comparatively under-researched area in
criminology. Do they continue to be engaged in offences involving white-collar crime, for example? Usually the focus is on those who have committed white collar offences. This present study confronts the issue in a different way. It considers offenders who are seeking white collar employment after conviction who may or may not have been engaged in what can be described in white-collar crime. Hence, their class position - defined in occupational terms - is quite clear. The aim is to describe the criminological outcome of a consecutive series of 388 persons seeking white-collar employment (between 1 January 1970 and 31 March 1973) with a follow-up of at least 35 years after conviction. The study builds on previous work which has considered the outcome after five years (Soothill, 1981) after ten years (Soothill and Holmes, 1981), after twenty years (Soothill et al., 1997, 1999), but also aims to present a more sophisticated statistical analysis. There is evidence that approaching one-half (or 49%) of the series had had convictions for offences committed against an employer and the outcome for these offenders will be compared with white-collar persons committing other types of offences.