Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was recently sentenced to 28 years in prison after being convicted of two dozen federal charges including racketeering, extortion, and the filing of false tax returns. Judge Nancy G. Edmunds recently told CNN that although she wasn’t holding Kilpatrick responsible for Detroit’s bankruptcy, “a long prison sentence is necessary to insulate the public from his behavior.” Whether conviction alone is enough to restore public trust and put an end to white collar crime is still an open question.

Who commits white-collar crime and why? Classical criminology shows how the answers have changed over time.

• Sutherland, E.H. (1940). White Collar Criminality. American Sociological Review. 5(1):1-12.

Current work suggests that political and economic corruption often happens through collaboration, and that we shouldn’t treat the two as separate issues.

• Raymond J. Michalowski and Ronald C. Kramer , 2006. State-corporate crime: Wrongdoing at the intersection of business and government. Rutgers University Press