ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the unlawful activities of outwardly 'respectable' people, and thus reflects continuing interest in the treatment of white-collar criminals by the criminal process. It illustrates why the treatment of respectable people who commit crimes, and especially certain types of crime, raises particular issues, and appears to cause difficulties. The chapter explores the proposition that the penalties in place for the punishment of many so-called 'respectable' crimes do not always reflect accurately their seriousness, and also the strand of popular belief that those who commit such offences often either 'get away', or get off very lightly. It emphasizes historical research suggesting that the problematics of 'respectable' crime first started to reveal themselves during the middle years of the nineteenth century. The chapter suggests that fraud trials dating from c. 1850 were not only central to earliest responses to fraud, but they can also reveal much about legal and social constructs of criminality in modern British society more generally.
