White Collar Crime in a Nutshell

The structure of the Nutshell is well done, clear. Sometimes it lacks precisions, grahics of how the concepts have to interact would be helpful to better understand the structure of the core crimes outlined. The most important recent cases are not integrated.

First off, I'm not a lawyer. I needed a book on whitecollar crime in US and I had to search intensively. For one reason or another the books on the market and in law libraries are for US lawyers which means that you don't find a full treatise on the subject but starting points that you have to develop by yourself. This book is the best I could find in an atrophic market. So if you are a novice don't expect very much but a short introduction on theoretical concept. One question I had in mind was how harsh was the punishment for such crimes and how precise and effective was the contour of the crime. Well, the answer is not here. If I had to rely on this book for an anwer I can infer that there is some punishment in theory for a vague crime. Unless you know well and by heart the US Sentencing guidelines and the rest of the US crime law, you end up with more questions than answers. It's more on the elements of the crime (willfulness, mens rea, a scheme to defraud etc.) than on the actual behavior the laws are meant to cope with. So read this book and be ready to do your own research.

I don't have the opportunity to take a law class on this topic, so I bought the nutshell. This was a very interesting read, just hitting the basics, and didn't take too much time out of my study schedule. Highly reccommend if you think you are interested in this type of law but don't have time /opportunity to take the class.