New Economic Perspectives has the article Sutherland Explained in 1939 Why GM Killing Customers Isn’t Treated as “Real Crime” by William K. Black.

Edwin Sutherland was right about elite white-collar crime; and he’s still right

This year is the 75^th anniversary of Edwin Sutherland’s 1939 Presidential address to the annual meeting of sociologists in which he announced the concept of white-collar crime.
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Economists and most criminologists don’t understand financial crimes

“This paper is concerned with crime in relation to business. The economists are well acquainted with business methods but not accustomed to consider them from the point of view of crime; many sociologists are well acquainted with crime but not accustomed to consider it as expressed in business. This paper is an attempt to integrate these two bodies of knowledge. More accurately stated, it is a comparison of crime in the upper or white-collar class, composed of respectable or at least respected business and professional men, and crime in the lower class, composed of persons of low socioeconomic status.”

Sutherland’s doctorate combined the study of the economy and sociology. Note that Sutherland emphasized from the beginning the importance of elite white-collar crime by businessmen and professionals and what I refer to as “seemingly legitimate” entities – Sutherland archly calls them “respected” though they are not “respectable.”

This treatment of white-collar crime is not universal. The news has had stories of how white-collar Criminals in China have been executed for their crimes. For example, see the article 22 Chinese People Who Were Handed The Death Sentence For White Collar Crime.

Not that I am a proponent of capital punishment, but imagine if that kind of punishment were possible in the USA for white-collar crime.