Motivation, Opportunity and Rationality

Abstract

This chapter explores various motivations given for their crimes by the offenders in the study. Braithwaite (1985) notes that while very few studies have been carried out on this aspect of white-collar crime, the literature has revealed a range of motivations, which are often interlinked (see for instance Alalehto, 2003; Friedrichs, 1996; Holtfreter, 2005; Paternoster and Simpson, 1993; Shover and Hochstetler, 2006). Levi (2008) develops a typology which distinguishes between three types of fraudsters: ‘pre-planners’, those who start by constructing a plan to commit their crime; ‘intermediate planners’, who turn from honesty to fraud because of various experiences they have encountered; and ‘slippery-slope’ fraudsters, who (usually through reckless behaviour) incur debts which lead them into committing crime. During their interviews, offenders in the present study detailed a multitude of motivations and reasons, some of which overlapped, for their offending. They represented themselves as ‘actors’ in different situations to explain their deviant behaviour (in a similar way to that postulated in Levi’s typology). Individuals gave accounts describing both primary and secondary motivations, which covered a number of often multiple reasons and pressures. When these accounts were analysed, individuals presented themselves in one of three main ways — as ‘rational’, ‘pressurised’ or ‘seduced’ actors.