White-Collar Criminals and Organized Crime in America: Defining the Relationship and the Impact on Society

This study examines the relationships between white-collar criminals, who operate as enablers for organized crime groups. Also, it focuses on identifying the causal factors and motivations that lead white-collar enablers into relationships with dangerous criminal organizations. It was essential to investigate the consequences of these criminal scenarios for third parties and how these relationships impact society. Lastly, it was also critical to determine what frameworks are necessary to mitigate or control any adverse effects of these associations by these two groups of criminals. To better understand these phenomena, the study applied the qualitative approach, used semi-structured interviews involving 20 participants, and conducted a literature review of previous studies concerning the two criminal groups. Although limited by the number of interviewees for the research, the preliminary findings show a credible nexus between white-collar enablers and organized crime and major predicate crimes and money-laundering scenarios. The findings also revealed causal factors to white-collar enabler motivations linked to psychological, organizational, and situational contributors. The results also showed significant adverse effects on society because of these criminal associations and that mechanisms in place to mitigate the effects of the crimes were minimally successful because countermeasures were compromised due to corporate insider behaviours and governmental failures, which minimized the effectiveness of their anti-crime measures. We concluded in this study that the aims of the research questions were answered in the data analysis and results. This study provides a ground breaking foundation upon which future studies can build.