Study explores reentry challenges for white-collar offenders

“The reason we wanted to focus on this is because the number of people convicted of what we call white collar crime has been increasing,” said Benson, a professor emeritus and senior research associate at UC’s School of Criminal Justice.  

White collar crimes, he said, are known as crimes of deceit such as fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement as opposed to street crimes which typically include physical violence.  

The study was in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University and found unique challenges that individuals who have been convicted of white-collar crimes face upon reentry to the workforce.

This study, he said, found that  those who committed white collar crimes had fewer issues with housing and employment than street criminals. However, white collar criminals had increased difficulty with their identity being attached to their incarceration.

“They were worried about meeting new people…fearful that their story would be found out,” said Benson.

Listen to the interview. 

Photo at top of tax forms and handcuffs/iStock/ronstik