When stealing, go for millions? Quantitative analysis of white-collar crime sentencing in Poland.

Czarnocki, Kazimierz and Janulek, Dawid and Olejnik, Łukasz (2019): When stealing, go for millions? Quantitative analysis of white-collar crime sentencing in Poland.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the length of custodial sentences for white-collar crimes in the context of Polish criminal policy. The analyses, based on the new and original data set obtained from case files, showed the non-linear dependency between the custodial sentence and the damage caused by a given fraud. From the perspective of the criminal law and economics, such a non-linearity may generate incentives for committing frauds on a bigger scale, because as the scale increases the relative severity of punishment decreases. Moreover, the gender bias in sentencing for the white-collar crimes in Poland was proven and in such cases women not only did receive lower custodial sentences, but also those ruled by female judges were lower.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: court decisions; white-collar crime; bias in sentencing
• Subjects: K - Law and Economics > K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior > K42 - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

References

Alesina, Alberto, Eliana La Ferrara. 2014. "A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing." American Economic Review 104(11): 3397–3433.

Becker, Gary S. 1968. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach." Journal of Political Economy 76(2): 169–217.

Benson, Michael, Elizabeth Moore. 1992. "Are White-Collar and Common Offenders the Same? An Empirical and Theoretical Critique of a Recently Proposed General Theory of Crime." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 29(3):251–272

Bhattacharya, Utpal, Cassandra Marshall. 2012. "Do they do it for the money?" Journal of Corporate Finance, 18(1): 92–104.

Boyd, Christina, Lee Epstein, Andrew Martin. 2010. "Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging." American Journal of Political Science 54(2): 389–411.

Depew, Briggs, Ozkan Eren, Naci Mocan. 2017. "Judges, Juveniles, and In-Group Bias." The Journal of Law and Economics 60(2):209–239.

Ehrlich, Isaac. 1973. "Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation." Journal of Political Economy 81(3): 521–565.

Gazal-Ayal, Oren, Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan. 2010. "Let My People Go: Ethnic In-Group Bias in Judicial Decisions – Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment." Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 7(3): 403–428.

Gottschalk, Petter. 2011. "Chief executive officers as white-collar criminals: an empirical study." International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics 6(4): 385–396.

Gottschalk, Petter. 2014. "White-Collar Crime Defence Knowledge: Predictors of Lawyer Fame." Journal of Information & Knowledge Management 13(1): 1450001.

Johnson, Brian. 2006. "The Multilevel Context of Criminal Sentencing: Integrating Judgeand County-Level Influences." Criminology 44(2): 259–298.

Levitt, Steven, Thomas Miles. 2006. "Economic Contributions to the Understanding of Crime." Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2(1): 147–164.

Merall, Elizabeth, Mandeep Dhami, Sheila Bird. 2010. "Exploring Methods to Investigate Sentencing Decisions." Evaluation Review 34(3): 185–219.

Podgor, Ellen. 2007. "The Challenge of White Collar Sentencing." The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 97(3): 731-760.

Polinsky, Mitchell, Steven Shavell. 2007. "Chapter 6 The Theory of Public Enforcement of Law. In: Polinsky, M., Shavell S. (Eds.), Handbook of Law and Economics Vol. 1. Elsevier, pp. 403–454.

Posner, Richard. 1985. "An Economic Theory of the Criminal Law," Columbia Law Review 85(6): 1193–1231.

Riger, Stephanie, Penny Foster-Fishman, Julie Nelson-Kuna, Barbara Cunnan. 1995. "Gender Bias in Courtroom Dynamics." Law and Human Behavior 19(5): 465–480.

Steffensmeier, Darell, Stephen Demuth. 2006. "Does Gender Modify the Effects of Race-ethnicity on Criminal Sanctioning? Sentences for Male and FemaleWhite, Black, and Hispanic Defendants." Journal of Quantitative Criminology 22(3): 241–261.

Wheeler, Stanton, David Weisburd, Nancy Bode. 1982. "Sentencing the White-Collar Offender: Rhetoric and Reality." American Sociological Review 47(5): 641–659.