Abstract
Identity theft, the acquisition and use of someone’s personal identity for the purposes of the thief’s profit, has garnered extensive media attention thereby generating sizable anxiety in the public at large. Such wariness is not necessarily unfounded, as this crime effects “eight to twelve million [people] per year” (p. 3), that is, 2 to 3 times the number of burglaries Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimated occurred in 2010. Not surprisingly, a bevy of security products designed to protect individual’s financial identities and information are offered. Until the publication of this book, and two earlier articles by the authors from this data, little was known about who identity thieves are or how they plan and execute their crimes. Clearly such information is vital to the generation of effective protections and policies, not to mention the development of an informed theoretical understanding of the behavior.
Building on the long-established tradition of studying crime through the open-ended interviewing of offenders, this book draws on a sample of 59 identity thieves (23 men and 36 women) incarcerated in 14 different Federal prisons. Copes and Vieraitis allow the voices of the offenders to come through, presenting this emic view alongside their more analytical etic criminological explications. Such an approach provides a multileveled, rich understanding of the crimes, the offender’s perceptions of the crimes and themselves, and the insights of academic criminology. The demographics of the sample itself belie many media and academic characterizations of white-collar offenders; the authors find that their interviewees came from “all walks of life and had diverse criminal histories” in fact, “they were just as likely to resemble persistent street thieves . . . as middle class fraudsters” (p. 19). This diversity of offender background and situation is not only surprising but speaks to the wide-spread nature of both the lure of and the opportunities for identity theft.
The first chapter presents a demographic overview of the sample, as well as brief biographies of certain interviewees. This provides important context for the ensuing analyses. The second chapter provides an accounting of criminal motivations, showing that identity thieves are little different from other street offenders in that the “identity theft offered the financial rewards deemed necessary to forestall desperate situations and sustain whatever lifestyle they chose” (p. 43) whether that lifestyle was the desperate partying of the streets examined by the likes of Bruce Jacobs, Neal Shover, and Richard Wright or the excessive middle-class conspicuous consumption identified by Cressey. Further, as one would expect from Copes, the chapter also provides an astute analysis of neutralizations and identity management practices. The authors provide detailed exhibitions of how their “participants attempted to distance themselves from “real” criminals . . . [by] framing their actions and themselves as different from other criminals” (p. 62), even other identity thieves. As they note, this is far more common of white-collar criminals than embedded street offenders. Such examinations not only enhance our knowledge of crime but of identity formation processes more generally.
Chapters three, on technique, and four, on risk reduction, provide valuable analyses of the specific techniques and practices of identity thieves. Oppositional to the Hollywood image of a highly calculating and super intelligent offender (á la Catch Me if You Can), Copes and Vieraitis show that identity thieves are similar to other street offenders. They are opportunistic offenders who learn techniques from others and tend to rarely diverge from narrow commission scripts. Yet, these skill sets do tend to be wide and often complex. Not surprisingly, most offenders worked in groups. Copes and Vieraitis uncovered two general type of networks that introduced offenders to and facilitated their crimes: street-level networks, composed of individual involved in street life and who also engaged in more typical offending, and those networks organized in places of business, composed of individuals resembling embezzlers and other occupational offenders.
The closing chapter provides theoretical analysis and policy suggestions. The authors acknowledge that identity thieves do focus on increasing return and minimization of risk, but not in the manner predicted by rational choice theories. Identity thieves operate on scripts, relying “on convenience, experience, and casual familiarity with their crimes to minimize risk and increase reward. When situations and targets closely matched their perceived ideals, they seized the opportunity to offend” (p. 123). This form of situational and highly subjective assessment has been found in other studies of offenders, both active and incarcerated, again connecting this work into the broader criminological knowledge base. The chapter closes with a series of situational crime prevention strategies to make it more difficult for identity thieves to get access to the sorts of information they need to accomplish their crimes. Yet, even the authors acknowledge that any gains made by such target hardening are likely to be temporary as, quite simply, offenders adapt to new situations and find new ways around impediments placed before them. Copes and Vieraitis feel a more productive crime reduction policy would capitalize on the willingness many of their interviewees showed to exit the offending lifestyle; however, while insightful, no concrete proposals are made.
In sum, this book is a valuable contribution to our empirical knowledge of identity theft and to the growing body of literature examining crime and criminality from the offender’s perspective. The book will be of interest to a variety of criminologists; those who are interested in the offender’s perspective and criminal decision making, as well as those who study property or white-collar crime, will definitely want to add this to their personal libraries. Its writing is clear and crisp, making it suitable for use in upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level courses on qualitative criminology, property crime, and white-collar crime. Copes and Vieraitis have produced the definitive volume on identity theft; it is a welcome addition and valuable contribution to the theoretical and empirical literature.