White-Collar Crime and the Study of Embezzlement

The term “white-collar crime” has come to mean many things since Edwin Sutherland coined it more than fifty years ago. Many scholars, including Sutherland himself, referred to embezzlement as a white-collar crime. Upon close examination, however, this theft-after-trust offense is probably not a white-collar one in the original sense of the term. This article addresses the problems of data interpretation and behavioral explanation in the study of trust violation, especially in light of scholars' focus on it as a white-collar offense.