A Proposed Addition to the FBI Criminal Classification Manual
Frank S. Perri, Terrance G. Lichtenwald · 2007
Behavioral data were located from 27 homicide cases in which fraud, a white-collar crime, oc curred either prior to or contemporaneously with each homicide. The homicide cases in this study were classified as fraud-detection homicides because either white-collar criminals them selves, or assassins they hired, killed the individuals suspected of detecting their fraud. The white-collar criminals who committed murder were sub-classified as r ed-collar criminals. Both the descriptive homicide data and the literature review lend support to three overrid ing impressions: red-collar criminals harbor the requisite mens rea, or state of mind, to physi cally harm someone that may have detected, or is on the verge of detecting, their fraudulent behavior; the victim of a red-collar crime does not have to be someone who profi teered, aided, or abetted in the fraud; and red-collar criminals have a history of antisocial and psychopathic tendencies. Given these conclusions, advocacy for consideration of forensic accountants and fraud examiners as members of homicide investigation teams to assist in the development of a motive to support the prosecution of red-collar criminals is in order. Data gathered in the course of this study indicate the presence of a sub-classifi cation of white- collar criminals who are violent and the need for a new homicide classification to be r eferred to as fraud-detection homicide for inclusion in the FBI's Crime Classification Manual (Douglas, 1992) as an appropriate system for classifying and profiling these mur ders.