When personal rational decision-making fails: examining the psychological limits of criminal punishment as a successful deterrent for white-collar offenders

ABSTRACT

Recent decades have witnessed numerous headline stories about white-collar crimes. These crimes, causing considerable harm to organizations, individuals, and society, warrant closer study. This article describes financial white-collar offenders mostly from a medium or high socioeconomic background who abuse their positions. It presents theoretical explanations for white-collar offending, together with associated psychological, personality, and cognitive traits that impair rational decision-making. Regarding their punishment, doubts have been cast regarding the possibility that even harsh criminal punishment achieves the aim of deterrence for white-collar offenders. This does not mean that offenders should go unpunished, and in certain cases it would even be justified to deal with them severely. It does, however, require more meaningful goals to be set for their punishment, such as maintaining social order, retribution, and, in some cases, possibly rehabilitation through psychological treatment. Therapeutic intervention could be effective in helping white-collar offenders tackle the root causes of their behaviors and in reducing the likelihood of reoffending.

KEYWORDS:

• White-collar crimes
• white-collar offenders
• criminal punishment
• deterrence
• recidivism
• irrational decision-making

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Conscientiousness encompasses attributes of orderliness, performance of obligations, ambition and self-discipline (Costa & McCrae, 1992) – desirable qualities in management.