This study examined the criminal careers of 1,331 offenders
convicted of white-collar crimes in the United States District Courts
to assess the relative effectiveness of court-imposed prison sanctions
in preventing or modifying future criminal behavior. The white-collar
crime event that was the central focus of this study, the
"criterion" offense, provided the standard point of entry for sample
members. Researchers for this study supplemented the data collected by
Wheeler et al. in their 1988 study (NATURE AND SANCTIONING OF WHITE
COLLAR CRIME, 1976-1978: FEDERAL JUDICIAL DISTRICTS [ICPSR 8989]) with
criminal history data subsequent to the criterion offense through to
1990. As in the 1988 study, white-collar crime was considered to
include economic offenses committed through the use of some
combination of fraud, deception, or collusion. Eight federal offenses
were examined: antitrust, securities fraud, mail and wire fraud, false
claims and statements, credit fraud, bank embezzlement, income tax
fraud, and bribery. Arrests were chosen as the major measure of
criminal conduct. The data contain information coded from Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal history records ("rap
sheets") for a set of offenders convicted of white-collar crimes in
federal courts in fiscal years 1976 to 1978. The seven federal
judicial districts from which the sample was drawn were central
California, northern Georgia, northern Illinois, Maryland, southern
New York, northern Texas, and western Washington. To correct for a
bias that can be introduced when desistance from criminality is
confused with the death of the offender, the researchers examined the
National Death Index (NDI) data to identify offenders who had died
between the date of sentencing for the criterion offense and when data
collection began for this study in 1990. This data collection contains
three types of records. The first record type (Part 1, Summary Data)
contains summary and descriptive information about the offender's rap
sheet as a whole. Variables include dates of first entry and last
entry on the rap sheet, number of separate crimes on the rap sheet,
whether the criterion crime was listed on the rap sheet, whether the
rap sheet listed crimes prior to or subsequent to the criterion crime,
and date of death of offender. The second and third record types are
provided in one data file (Part 2, Event and Event Interim Data). The
second record type contains information about each crime event on the
rap sheet. Variables include custody status of offender at arrest,
type of arresting agency, state of arrest, date of arrest, number of
charges for each arrest, number of charges resulting in no formal
charges filed, number of charges dismissed, number of charges for
white-collar crimes, type of sanction, length of definite sentence,
probation sentence, and suspended probation sentence, amount of fines,
amount of court costs, and restitution ordered, first, second, and
third offense charged, arrest and court disposition for each charge,
and date of disposition. The third record type contains information
about the interim period between events or between the final event and
the end of the follow-up period. Variables include date of first,
second, and third incarceration, date discharged or transferred from
each incarceration, custody/supervision status at each incarceration,
total number of prisons, jails, or other institutions resided in
during the interval, final custody/supervision status and date
discharged from incarceration for the interval, dates parole and
probation started and expired, if parole or probation terms were
changed or completed, amount of fines, court costs, and restitution
paid, whether the conviction was overturned during the interval, and
date the conviction was overturned. A single offender has as many of
record types two and three as were needed to code the entire rap
sheet.