Ricerc@Sapienza

The paper analyses the problem of public corruption as a “white-collar crime”. The term “white-collar crime” was coined in 1939 during a speech given by Edwin Sutherland to the American Sociological Society. Sutherland defined the term as “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation”. Although there has been some debate as to what qualifies as a white-collar crime, the term today generally encompasses a variety of crimes usually committed in commercial situations for financial gain, and it includes also public corruption. This paper indeed aims to focus and frame the problem of public corruption into the “white-collar crimes” category.