PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

White-collar crimes: ‘Fall from grace’ and the stigma of reentry into society

Study investigates how social class affects reintegration for ‘middle-class’ white-collar offenders

White-collar crimes: ‘Fall from grace’ and the stigma of reentry into society
2025-03-24
(Press-News.org) People convicted of federal white-collar crimes come from different social and demographic backgrounds compared to those convicted of other offenses. Typically older and from the middle class, white-collar offenders face unique challenges during reentry into society. Yet, research on how social class influences their reintegration remains scarce.

A study by Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with the University of Cincinnati, explores these challenges, focusing on how stigma, social background and emotional factors impact white-collar offenders as they transition into society after prison. The study also examines how modern technology, including social media, intensifies the stigma of imprisonment.

Using qualitative data from formerly incarcerated individuals, including both white-collar and non-white-collar offenders, researchers examined if white-collar offenders experience reentry differently, displaying either resilience or sensitivity. The resiliency hypothesis suggests they reintegrate easily due to their social status and skills, while the sensitivity hypothesis suggests they are more vulnerable to emotional distress and stigma from public shaming.

Results of the study, published in the journal Justice Quarterly, show that white-collar offenders typically had an easier time securing employment and stable housing compared to their non-white-collar counterparts, due to stronger social support networks and personal resources. However, they faced significant anxiety and fear about social stigma, particularly the fear of being publicly exposed or “Googled,” and sought mental health support to cope with these challenges. Middle-class status appears to make these individuals more vulnerable to public shaming.

In contrast, non-white-collar offenders struggled more with basic needs like employment and housing and did not express concerns about social stigma to the same degree. Findings suggest that the reentry challenges white-collar offenders face are shaped by both their social class and societal reactions, extending the differences between white-collar and non-white-collar offenders beyond incarceration and into their post-release lives.

“White-collar incarceration rates have changed dramatically since the passage of the United States Sentencing Guidelines in 1984. More white-collar offenders are serving prison sentences and returning to a society vastly different from the 1980s,” said Diana Sun, Ph.D., senior author and an assistant professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice within the FAU College of Social Work and Criminal Justice. “The rise of Google and social media has fundamentally changed how reputations are formed and destroyed, impacting the experiences of white-collar offenders in ways that the special sensitivity and resiliency hypotheses don’t fully capture.” 

While most white-collar offenders reported positive relationships post-release, some did experience strained family dynamics or the loss of social connections after their release. Despite their successes, white-collar offenders often struggled with intense stigma, leading to anxiety and fear, particularly in new social situations such as job searches and dating. This sensitivity was especially pronounced among male African American white-collar offenders, who felt unfairly judged because of their “Black man in prison” status.

The white-collar participants were highly aware of their “ex-con” status and concerned about other people’s perceptions. The non-white-collar sample were not as concerned. Instead, they had different priorities that focused on staying away from “bad habits,” finding employment and avoiding detrimental relationships, with less concern about social stigma or online scrutiny.

Upon release, white-collar participants often used personal resources like family, friends and community connections to help with their reintegration. The types of jobs they were able to get after incarceration remained in the middle-class. By comparison, the non-white-collar sample tended to have some difficulty in the job market and worked in “lower status” jobs. Some of them relied more heavily on the halfway house to help with employment unlike the white-collar sample.

“Our study questions the clear divide between ‘special sensitivity’ and ‘special resiliency’ in reentry, showing that white-collar offenders experience both, depending on where they are in the process,” said Sun. “Middle-class offenders face distinct challenges, particularly the loss of professional status and self-esteem. Our findings deepen the understanding of how social class influences reentry, especially as more middle-class individuals are incarcerated for crimes like fraud and deception, which mirror everyday behaviors.”

Study participants, which included women, were selected from a Midwest metropolitan area. White-collar crimes included fraud, embezzlement, tax fraud and credit fraud, and non-white-collar crimes included drug possession or robbery.

Study co-author is Michael L. Benson, Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research associate, University of Cincinnati.

- FAU -

About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, Florida Atlantic serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the Southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, Florida Atlantic embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. Florida Atlantic is designated as a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report, and holds the designation of “R1: Very High Research Spending and Doctorate Production” by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Florida Atlantic shares this status with less than 5% of the nearly 4,000 universities in the United States. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.

END


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
White-collar crimes: ‘Fall from grace’ and the stigma of reentry into society

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Engineers develop a better way to deliver long-lasting drugs

2025-03-24
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT engineers have devised a new way to deliver certain drugs in higher doses with less pain, by injecting them as a suspension of tiny crystals. Once under the skin, the crystals assemble into a drug “depot” that could last for months or years, eliminating the need for frequent drug injections. This approach could prove useful for delivering long-lasting contraceptives or other drugs that need to be given for extended periods of time. Because the drugs are dispersed in a suspension before injection, they can be administered through a narrow needle that is easier for patients to tolerate. “We showed that we can have very controlled, sustained delivery, ...

MIT scientists engineer starfish cells to shape-shift in response to light

MIT scientists engineer starfish cells to shape-shift in response to light
2025-03-24
Life takes shape with the motion of a single cell. In response to signals from certain proteins and enzymes, a cell can start to move and shake, leading to contractions that cause it to squeeze, pinch, and eventually divide. As daughter cells follow suit down the generational line, they grow, differentiate, and ultimately arrange themselves into a fully formed organism.  Now MIT scientists have used light to control how a single cell jiggles and moves during its earliest stage of development. The team studied the motion of egg cells produced by starfish — an organism that scientists have long used as a classic model for ...

Research spotlight: A generalized epilepsy network derived from brain abnormalities and deep brain stimulation

2025-03-24
Frederic L.W.V.J. Schaper, MD, PhD, director of Epilepsy Network Mapping at the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, is the senior author of a paper published in Nature Communications, “A generalized epilepsy network derived from brain abnormalities and deep brain stimulation.” How would you summarize your study for a lay audience? Generalized epilepsy has traditionally been considered a seizure of the ‘whole brain.’ However, new research has challenged this longstanding idea, since carefully targeting specific brain areas through deep brain stimulation ...

IMDEA Networks revolutionizes 6G networks with DISCO6G project: real-time communication and sensing

2025-03-24
IMDEA Networks has begun its participation in DISCO6G, an innovative project that will transform next-generation mobile networks, in collaboration with UC3M, UAM, and UPM and funded by the Madrid Regional Government. Its focus on Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) enables network infrastructures not only to transmit information but also to function as distributed real-time sensors. "DISCO6G represents a paradigm shift, as it turns the network into a system capable of detecting its environment while ...

Do-it-yourself box filter clears the air of indoor pollutants

Do-it-yourself box filter clears the air of indoor pollutants
2025-03-24
SAN DIEGO, March 24, 2025 — When wildfires threaten people’s communities, human health is impacted far beyond the inferno. Residual smoke distributes on the breeze, infiltrating homes, schools and offices. To help people protect themselves and their families, researchers have developed a low-cost, durable, do-it-yourself (DIY) air cleaner that works as well as more expensive HEPA filters to clear indoor air of pollutants such as smoke and possibly limit the impact of airborne disease spread. Richard Corsi, dean of the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) College of Engineering, will present results from his ...

Twice as many men recover erectile function after improved prostate cancer surgery

2025-03-24
A technique to improve the precision of prostate cancer surgery means that almost twice as many men preserve their erectile function compared to those undergoing standard surgery, according to results from a clinical trial led by researchers from UCL and UCLH. The results of the NeuroSAFE PROOF trial, presented at the 2025 European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Madrid and published in The Lancet Oncology, raise the prospect of major quality of life improvements for men undergoing surgery for prostate cancer, which can often result in erectile ...

Childhood tuberculosis cases up by 26% in the EU/EEA

Childhood tuberculosis cases up by 26% in the EU/EEA
2025-03-24
New data published by ECDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe [1] show that with almost 39 000 reported tuberculosis cases in 2023, the 29 European Union and European Economic Area (EU/ EEA) countries continue to see increases in TB notifications. Given that young children have an increased risk of developing tuberculosis disease during the first year after infection, childhood TB serves as a marker for ongoing transmission within a community.  The new data for 2023 indicate that children and adolescents under the age of 15 accounted for ...

Study shows almost all people claiming Universal Credit struggle to afford to eat properly

2025-03-24
A new study has shown that almost all people claiming Universal Credit aren’t able to eat properly, with many never eating fruit or vegetables, and a significant proportion regularly not eating for whole days at a time, leading to deficiencies in vital nutrients. The Benefits and Nutrition Study (BEANS) was led by the University of Nottingham’s Division of Food, Nutrition and Dietetics to examine food insecurity among people who claim Universal Credit. Their findings, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, show that 85% of those in receipt of Universal Credit are food ...

Fatty liver linked to increased risk of death from several diseases

2025-03-24
A comprehensive study from Karolinska Institutet shows that people with fatty liver disease have almost twice the mortality rate of the general population. They have an increased risk of dying from both liver diseases and common diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, according to the study published in The Journal of Hepatology. It is estimated that one in five people in Sweden has fatty liver disease known as MASLD (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease), and globally it may be as many as one in four. The disease is caused by overweight or obesity and is characterised by an excessive ...

Do lifetime body weight patterns affect kidney cancer risk?

2025-03-24
Excess weight in mid-life is a known risk factor for kidney cancer, but new research indicates that weight patterns throughout life may also affect an individual’s likelihood of developing this malignancy. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. To assess weight patterns and their associations with kidney cancer and its different subtypes, investigators analyzed information on 204,364 individuals from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, including body mass index (BMI) data when participants entered the study (an average age of 61.6 years), and prior BMI recordings at 18, 35, and 50 ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Indra's internet

Lymph nodes found to be key to successful cancer immunotherapy

Room-temperature terahertz device opens door to 6G networks

A hard look at geoengineering reveals global risks

When smoke signals danger: How Australian lizards evolved to escape fire

Beyond the surface: Atopic eczema linked to significantly higher risk of suicidal thoughts, major study finds

After weight loss regular exercise rather than GLP-1 weight-loss drug reduces leading cause of heart attack and strokes

EASD launches its first ever clinical practice guideline – the world’s first to focus on diabetes distress

Semaglutide provides powerful protection against diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults, Greek study suggests

Orforglipron taken orally once daily leads to significant body weight loss (ATTAIN-1 Study)

U of I researchers trace genetic code’s origins to early protein structures

Disease experts team up with Florida Museum of Natural History to create a forecast for West Nile virus

Researchers: Targeted efforts needed to stem fentanyl crisis

New UMaine research could help lower prescription drug costs

Molecular movie shows how mitochondria read their DNA

Loss of key male fertility gene leads to changes in expression of hundreds of other genes

Water’s density is key to sustainable lithium mining

Pioneering research reveals problem gambling quadruples the risk of suicide among young people four years later

New method improves the accuracy of machine-learned potentials for simulating catalysts

Astronomers discover rare Einstein cross with fifth image, revealing hidden dark matter

UCalgary researchers show brain shunts significantly benefit older adults with hydrocephalus

UCalgary researchers pursue new approach to manage deadly lung scarring

Psychotherapy can be readily integrated into brief “med-check” psychiatry visits

‘Wiggling’ atoms may lead to smaller, more efficient electronics

Alliance webinar highlights latest advances in cancer treatment

Climate change could drastically reduce aquifer recharge in Brazil

$1.7M DOD grant funds virtual cancer center to support research into military health

Brain organoids could unlock energy-efficient AI

AI-powered CRISPR could lead to faster gene therapies, Stanford Medicine study finds

Shared genetic mechanisms underpin social life in bees and humans

[Press-News.org] White-collar crimes: ‘Fall from grace’ and the stigma of reentry into society
Study investigates how social class affects reintegration for ‘middle-class’ white-collar offenders