Abstract
Following punishment at the hands of the criminal justice system, offenders often struggle with resettling successfully and leaving crime behind. Part of this involves demonstrating that they have desisted from crime and are in fact ‘ex’ offenders. Here, we focus on a subset of offenders by considering the experiences of those convicted of white-collar offences, recounted through autobiographical writing and informed by the extant literature of their experiences of punishment and resettlement. For white-collar offenders, the experience of punishment often stands in stark contrast to the lives they led prior to entering the criminal justice system, which challenges self-perception through forced association with criminal others, perhaps best exemplified by the experience of prison. Potentially more difficult however is their experience of community reactions to their offending. Upon contact with the community—whether during or after punishment—white-collar offenders find their perceptions of self challenged. Frequently denying any intent to offend, they may resent having to submit to scrutiny of their whereabouts or being denied opportunities to pick up their lives where they left off through being barred from their previous profession. They struggle with simultaneously demonstrating that they are in fact ‘ex’ offenders while also denying the presence of the offender status in the first place. We explore the emotional components of this struggle—including anger and frustration—and also consider that white-collar offenders potentially face an unusual challenge compared to other offenders in demonstrating that change has taken place. This is because many of the trappings traditionally associated with successful transition to ex-offender status—including finding employment and forming a stable romantic partnership—are unavailable as markers of change because white-collar offenders are typically in possession of these at the time of their offending. This possibly explains the efforts some go to via engagement in quite grand gestures to demonstrate that change has taken place.
“A chapter of my life has closed, punctuated with the exclamation that I’m free! But exclamation points pass quickly, and mine is followed by questions I cannot answer easily or hurriedly. What about the future? What do I do now? I must answer soon.”
—Dean (1982, p. 13)
“I was released from federal custody on September 8, 1988, pondering this question. After skyrocketing to the top of the world and crashing down even faster, what do you do next?”
—Levine and Hoffer (1991, p. 380)
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Notes
- 1.
In addition, they offend less frequently and have fewer offences as part of their criminal careers (Weisburd et al., 2001).
- 2.
- 3.
Again, prisoners are something of an exception here, as their release back into society gives an opportunity for some anticipation as to what is to come (Hunter, 2015, chapter 5)
- 4.
And where offending is not a one-off occurrence this may be even more likely.
- 5.
The relationship between employment, relationships and desistance from crime is more complex than this of course. However, from the point of view of role exit, the following will suffice.
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Hunter, B. (2022). Exiting an Offender Role: White-Collar Offenders’ Sense of Self and the Demonstration of Change. In: Hardie-Bick, J., Scott, S. (eds) Ex-treme Identities and Transitions Out of Extraordinary Roles. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93608-2_3
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