Bilking Bankers and Bad Debts: White-Collar Crime and the Savings and Loan Crisis (From White-Collar Crime Reconsidered, P 195-213, 1992, Kip Schlegel and David Weisburd, eds - See NCJ-140367)

• NCJ Number: 140376
• Author(s): H N Pontell; K Calavita
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 19 pages
• Sale Source: Northeastern University Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: NIJ Reprint

Annotation

This analysis of the forms and potential extent of fraud related to the savings and loan crisis focuses on the similarities and differences between crime in the savings and loan industry and other types of white-collar crime.

Abstract

Data came from government reports, hearings, personal interviews, and media accounts. A 1989 report by the General Accounting Office found that each of the failed institutions in its sample was a victim of fraud and abuse in some form. Problems included inadequate record keeping, appraisal deficiencies, deceptive records, excessive compensation and expenditures, and many other problems. The three basic categories of crime were unlawful risk taking, collective embezzlement, and covering up. Overall, fraud was a pervasive and costly component of the thrift crisis, which will probably represent the largest single set of white- collar crimes in history. Notes and 43 references