Date

4-29-2026

Department

Helms School of Government

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice (PhD)

Chair

Marc Weiss

Keywords

White-Collar criminal activity, COVID-19, Fraud, Disaster Fraud, Pandemic

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era that has forever changed how people work, communicate, and socialize. The pandemic also brought one of the most significant influxes of financial assistance to individuals, businesses, educational institutions, and state and local governments that has ever been seen. This massive infusion of cash, which was orchestrated and managed by the federal government, was instituted in a manner that provided quick relief with little ability for oversight, resulting in every assistance program experiencing high rates of fraudulent activity. This project aims to understand if the levels of white-collar crime increase during a disaster, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, or if the increase in available funds creates the illusion of increased fraud while maintaining similar levels as non-disaster periods. Thanks to the substantial amount of information tracked during the pandemic related to how funds were dispersed, along with the Department of Justice tracking of indictments and convictions specific to white-collar criminal activity, considerable data is available to ascertain the difference in crime rates between periods. Using quantitative analytical methods on the publicly available data sets, this project hopes to prove that the rapid deployment of funds through COVID-19 legislation provided an incentive for increased incidence of white-collar crime.

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