"T Markus Funk Sketch with Frank Calabrese" by Amosgalils - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The phrase "white-collar crime" was coined in 1939 during a speech given by Edwin Sutherland to the American Sociological Society. Sutherland defined the term as "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation."