Despite all the attention paid to rogue companies like Enron, academics know very little about the practicalities of
white-collar crime. The reason? There are no good data. A key fact of white-collar crime is that we hear about only the
very slim fraction of people who are caught cheating. Most embezzlers lead quiet and theoretically happy lives;
employees who steal company property are rarely detected.
With street crime, meanwhile, that is not the case. A mugging or a burglary or a murder is usually tallied whether or
not the criminal is caught. A street crime has a victim, who typically reports the crime to the police, who generate
data, which in turn generate thousands of academic papers by criminologists, sociologists, and economists. But
white-collar crime presents no obvious victim. From who, exactly, did the masters of Enron steal? And how can you
measure something if you don't know to whom it happened, or with what frequency, or in what magnitude?
The excerpt helps the authors support their conclusion by
O evaluating a logical fallacy.
O providing statistical evidence.
O presenting logical statements.
O summarizing their claim.