Convenience in white-collar crime: Introducing a core concept

Abstract

This article is concerned with white-collar criminals and considers the role of convenience in explaining crime occurrence. The article puts forward convenience as a theoretical concept that underlies existing theories and research on white-collar crime. Convenience seems present in all three dimensions of crime: economic dimension, organizational dimension, and behavioral dimension. Convenience in white-collar crime implies savings in time and effort by privileged and trusted individuals to solve a problem, where alternatives seem less attractive, and future threats of detection and punishment are minimal. The proposed theory of convenience in white-collar crime emerges as an integrated explanation in need of more theoretical work as well as empirical study.