ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the criminal justice system functions to weed out the wealthy (meaning both middle- and upper-class offenders) at each stage of the process and, thus, produces a distorted image of the crime problem. Like the property crimes on the street, white-collar crimes inflict financial losses and psychological harm while eroding public confidence. They often result in mass financial victimization. Most official records of who commits crime are really statistics on who gets arrested and convicted. If the police are more likely to arrest some people than others, these official statistics tell us as much about police behavior as they do about criminal behavior. In any event, they give us little reliable data about those who commit crimes and do not get caught. The chapter presents several examples of major financial fraud as case studies for the economic bias.
