1. The theory of white collar crime began in 1939 with Edward Sutherland. He spoke of embezzlement, fraud committed by companies, and also insider trading. Granted these are not violent crimes but they are extremely financially devastating. The positions of power held over lower workers in the companies was a huge boost. This lead to extremely harmful behavior being committed that is often overlooked by society due to its non violent nature.The power dynamics in these situations.The economic, social, and political shift of the decades brought forth conservative criminological ideas. There were many factors such as the drug epidemics that ran rampant as well as an increase in violent crime that drove the public to call for more proactive law enforcement rather than settling for reactive law enforcement. Conservative criminology and those who studied it is the belief that if left unchecked then smaller crimes would eventually pave the way for criminals to commit more serious crimes due to having no punishments or even less severe punishment.
2. Theories of white-collar crime primarily developed as criminologists began to challenge the more traditional focus on “street-level” crimes and rather turn their attention to crimes committed by individuals associated within business and government. Sutherland is credited with coming up with the term white-collar crime, and his work challenged the stereotypes that crime was primarily associated with lower-class individuals. His differential association theory suggested that criminal behavior can be learned through association with others who actively promote and justify criminal behavior. Many have also highlighted how white-collar criminals often escape punishment due to their social status and due to this analysis has been taken of how law, power, and class affect the enforcement within the criminal justice system. The rise of conservative criminological ideals in the 1980s and early 1990s was shaped by the social and political climates of the time. In this period, growing concerns arose surrounding rising crime rates, urban disorder, and a drug epidemic. Such concerns received high volumes of media influence and public discourse. The issues many time were framed as personal responsibility and moral decay, which aligned with the political shift toward neoliberalism and traditional values. Due to these factors, criminological thinking began increasingly emphasizing punitive responses, deterrence, “broken windows” policing, and a belief that individual accountability was needed over structural or sociological explanations. Within today’s context, conservative criminology is still influenced by concerns of public safety, drug related issues. and immigration. Though, it now also includes new dynamics like digital surveillance, social media influences and debates surrounding legitimate policing. Conservative criminology still tends to stress punishment and control, but current debates also are including balancing the stance against increasing public scrutiny of law enforcement and is calling for criminal justice reform.
