Shining a Light on Racial Privilege: An Empirical Examination of the Role of Whiteness in Willingness to Commit Elite White-Collar Crime

A significant amount of criminological research has focused on explaining the overrepresentation of Black individuals in crime, attributing them with disproportionate criminal involvement. However, evidence suggests that the most severe crimes, particularly elite white-collar crime, can be disproportionately attributed to White individuals. This study tests the Theory of Racial Privilege and Offending, which argues that racial dynamics in the United States shape cultural adaptations contributing to white-collar and corporate crime. These adaptations involve cognitive frameworks related to empathy, entitlement, and competition. The findings support the influence of race on financial conditions and racial isolation, mixed support for isolation's impact on cognitive frameworks linked to criminality, and strong support for the direct impact of cognitive frameworks and crime-specific justifications on offending likelihood. The study concludes with implications for research and policy.