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23 S. Ill. U. L. J. 485 (1998-1999)
Imprisoning White-Collar Criminals

handle is hein.journals/siulj23 and id is 517 raw text is: IMPRISONING WHITE-COLLAR CRIMINALS? Elizabeth Szockyj I. INTRODUCTION In his keynote address to A Fork in the Road participants on September 22, 1998, Assistant United States Attorney Joseph Hartzler discussed, then ultimately dismissed, white-collar criminals as potential candidates for diversion from prison sentences. As nonviolent offenders, he acknowledged, white-collar criminals could safely be diverted from prison and placed under community supervision. However, a prison sentence, Hartzler believes, serves the purposes of general deterrence and retribution or just deserts. General deterrence implies that middle- and upper-class people refrain from committing crimes for fear that they will be similarly punished. Ajust deserts rationale connotes that a prison sentence should reflect the seriousness of the offense through its emphasis on punishment; in the vernacular, it declares, If you do the crime, you do the time. This article examines the current literature as it relates to these points, and offers a counter-perspective on the use of prison sentences for white- collar criminals. The article begins by defining white-collar crime, then proceeds into a discussion of the assumption that white-collar offenders are punished less severely than other criminals. Research related to the two rationales of punishment that Joseph Hartzler highlighted, deterrence and just deserts, are addressed in the next section. Finally, the article turns to a discussion of intermediate and informal sanctions as alternatives to prison sentences. II. DEFINING WHITE-COLLAR CRIME Sutherland, in coining the term white-collar crime earlier this century, defined the concept as a crime committed by a person of respectability and Assistant Professor, Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency and Corrections, Southern Illinois University. Ph.D., 1992, University of California-Irvine. The author gratefully acknowledges the advice and assistance of Gil Geis and Tom Castellano.