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White-collar crime, in all of its subcategories, all route to roots of the same three factors—a trifecta or trinity of sorts. First is the abuse of access for profit; The profit of the crime is subjective, that is that it is not always monetary gain but profit in accordance with the interests of the criminal. Said gain is contingent upon the crime actor’s ideals— what they consider to be money. Some of the interests include yet aren’t limited to respect and admiration of peers, supplies for a hobby, or something else of a vast array of possibilities—what matters is that there’s a gain from the ordeal.

Second of white-collar crime’s trinity is the abuse of one’s access granted to them via occupation in addition to the influence, to take advantage of them and more importantly obtain a profit from the endeavors. One example of abuse of access is the endeavor of embezzlement; If the entrusted occupant of the “professional” profession is ‘skimming a little off of the top’, by way of ‘keeping the change’ by taking a little money from each transaction and putting it into a separate account for themselves, then that is one form. If a professional position’s occupant takes advantage of the perception of other people—based on the premise regarding the authority of subject matter, ethics, and morality(which many presume to be upstanding and sound), to achieve their obtained —when earned; Or proclaimed—when administering a scam to the likes of Ponzi, such as Bernie Madoff, and more recently, Sam Bankman-Fried, who can be said to be the current epitome and mascot of white-collar crime. What’s more, Sam Bankman-Fried is the current example of the direction that white-collar crime is heading, as he doesn’t wear shirts with a collar at all—the white-collar criminal has gone from formal suit and tie to casual t-shirt and flip-flips. Although one difference between crime types—violent and white-collar crime types are just that —the long-term effects are more foreseeable with violent crime than white-collar crime. White- collar crime, being that it’s technical and complex, may require an actuarial approach for proper estimative measure.

The general opinion of society, according to research cited in Brian K. Payne’s White-Collar Crime, 3rd Edition, shows that surveyed individuals who are at least college educated believe that white-collar crime is equally as serious as violent crime, but street criminals were more likely to receive longer prison sentences. One-third of respondents, and two-thirds of believed that white- collar criminals should be punished more severely than violent crimes and the government should allocate more resources to combatting white-collar crime, respectively. (Payne, 2021, p. 49)

Although the respondents of studies provided varying responses which seemed to differ by medium of inquiry (interview, questionnaire, phone interview) a substantial amount of them didn’t know much about white-collar crime, which media coverage is to blame for. A study by Michael Cochran, & Heide proved that less than 10% of the respondents’ knowledge of white- collar crime ranged, from barely informed to very informed, so the majority of them didn’t know a substantial amount about it. (Payne)

Deterrence theory, developed by Cesare Beccaria in 1764; A theory of punishment which assumes that punishment can stop individuals from offending—negative reinforcement. Beccaria deemed that for the deterring punishment to be effective, it must meet three criteria of being: swift; certain; and proportional to the crime, in that it outweighs what would’ve been beneficial to its commission. For example, if someone conspires to rob a bank, then it wouldn’t behoove them to do so because if caught, they might not enjoy the benefit of their crimes when caught because if they’re caught then they will lose an amount of time that will make the effort unworthy in hindsight. One of the things mentioned in the film, “Typical White-Collar Offender”, the criminals didn’t think of the consequences—So, it might not be effective. Coined by Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi in 1990; who developed the general theory that “the cause of white-collar crime is contingent upon the individual and that all types of crime were caused by the absence of self-control. An example of self-control theory at work is two-fold —if a high school science teacher understands that their position is one of authority, and they abuse it to influence students to fundraise for their sect of scientology then they refrain from doing so because they know that’s beyond the bounds of their contractual and ethical duty, that’s self-control theory at work. The opposite would be going through with the ordeal of something egregious due to lack of restraint—self-control theory still at work, yet lack of self-control which would result in prison.

Due to white-collar crimes and their commissions requiring technical and complex skillsets, these skills are acquired in schools such as college and medical school. In school, the students learn right from wrong, then intentionally commit wrong as a professional. “If they learned that certain behaviors are technically legal, they would be more supportive of these behaviors regardless of whether the behaviors are ethical.” (Payne, p. 344) Educational institutions teach the skills, rules, and regulations of fields, so it’s only natural that the curious and explorative products of academia— students – make use of the acquired skills which they paid dearly for. Whether right or wrong, the students learn to circumvent and exploit the systems learned and the regulations of them.