ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the sanctioning of white-collar offenders by focusing on the decision to suspend a sentence. It draws from earlier findings of the relationship between socioeconomic status and sentence outcomes in the federal district courts. The chapter suggests that the offender's socioeconomic status is relevant to sentencing outcomes only to the extent that the offender's status is related to priorities of efficient case processing. In order to test the hypothesis that case complexity conditions the effect of pleading guilty on the likelihood of a suspended sentence, the suspended sentence equation is estimated separately for each category of case complexity. The alternative perspective examined in this chapter suggests that case complexity, measured in terms of an overarching plan of illegal activities and level of organizational involvement, conditions the effect of pleading guilty on the likelihood an offender receives a suspended sentence.
