The Paradox of the ‘Respectable Offender’: Responding to the Problem of White-Collar Crime in Victorian and Edwardian England

Abstract

Traditional crime discourses highlighted the association between class and delinquency. For nineteenth-century contemporaries the relationship between lower-class status and crime was firmly entrenched, and while commentators observed that not everyone from the lower classes was a criminal, it was nevertheless supposed that the main criminal threat resided within lower-class communities. In contrast, although not all ‘respectable’ people were law-abiding, respectability (and its component features) was considered to be a fundamental determinant of honesty. As such, the widespread and unprecedented emergence of the ‘espectable criminal’ during the nineteenth century presented a paradox for Victorian society. As growing numbers of respectable offenders appeared before the courts, this new criminal type posed important, yet difficult, questions about how such offenders could be reconciled alongside established crime discourses, and what responses were appropriate.

Things are not always what they seem. We all know that. We all frequently forget it. Nature is full of examples of creatures pretending to be what they are not. Hover-flies pretend to be wasps. Stick-insects pretend to be twigs. The examples are almost endless. Still we insist on judging by appearances. Every confidence trickster knows that, if you wish to cash a dud cheque, you should be well groomed and wear an expensive suit. We all know that. But still we are deceived by appearances. It is always dangerous to assume that because a man seems to be respectable and acts as if he is respectable, then he is respectable (Piper, 1991: 11).