Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 film covering the life and activities of a conman in the 1960s. Based on the real-life scam artist Frank Abagnale, the film provides a comedic but factual look into a white-collar criminal's mind and operations. The movie takes a dramatized, but very real look at the inner workings of a scam artist's making and how they earn a living. Through it, the audience gets entertained as a genuine societal issue is highlighted – fraud. The film, made with Frank Abagnale's cooperation, references real-life criminality and features several actual scams that Abagnale undertook during his time as an active conman. Today, through entertainment pieces like this film and consultations with the authorities, Abagnale provides the public with a look into white-collar criminals' mindset. In this paper, the film will be analyzed for information on actual life criminality and psychology. This information and information from other sources will be used to propose solutions for the prevention of such white-collar crimes.
The Film
The film is set in the mid-1960s, following the escapades of Abagnale at the beginning of his career as a conman. The story begins when Abagnale is 16, but in two years, he has posed as a pilot, senior doctor, and a high-flying lawyer, all in the name of earning a living. Abagnale’s story begins with a normal family setting, where he believes to be living the best kind of average life with his mother and father. However, when his father begins to experience financial problems, Abagnale's issues start. Their conflicts with the IRS spiral down towards economic instability, and the family is forced to sell their assets, including their home and car. Before his very eyes, Abagnale’s idyllic family life begins to vanish. His parents’ marriage crumbles under the strain of their woes, and they get a divorce. Abagnale is forced to choose between them for custody, and the entire experience is traumatic.
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At a young age, he leaves home and lives life on the road. His circumstances force him to get creative so that he can make it by himself. In a brilliant 3-year-long stint as a scam artist, he manages to fly millions of miles for free, cash up to $4 million in fraudulent checks, and gain a reputation under several distinct and highly respectable identities. He lives a life of luxury, with expensive cars and fashion. He also manages to con a large number of women into having a relationship with his various fraudulent personas. Despite the large scale of his operations, Abagnale managed to go undetected for a significant amount of time before the FBI became aware of his financial fraud schemes.
FBI agent Carl Hanratty takes point in Abagnale’s case, being a specialist in bank fraud. In comparison to his early carefree life, Abagnale is then forced to stay constantly ahead of Hanratty and his team as they track him down. What follows is a chase between Abagnale and the FBI, which is what the film title is after .
White-Collar Crime Prevention
Understanding the Problem : Criminal Nature in Catch Me If You Can
Movies such as Catch Me If You Can are have been used as a general study of 'confidence crime', often colloquially referred to as scam artistry. Catch Me If You Can provide a look into the social and cultural world of the confidence criminal, including their mode of operation and the formative years that led to their current skill set. These modes of operation showcase the main theoretical points when it comes to confidence crime – the nature of social interactions and the nature of self-presentations that confidence criminals like Abagnale tend to use.
First, as the name ‘confidence criminal’ suggests, confident self-presentation is one of the main tenets of criminology for such individuals. The core of Abagnale’s success has been his confidence in his persona, regardless of the situation. Throughout the film, the audience sees this confidence nurtured and grown from his teenagehood. In the first scene with Abagnale in it, he is seated at an event, watching Abagnale senior receive an award. In keeping with his age and lack of finesse and confidence at the time, DiCaprio sits with his shoulders hunched, fidgeting and admiring. Through the film, lower confidence levels are associated with a relatively innocent, law-abiding life, and higher confidence levels are related to the height of white-collar crime.
Regarding social interactions, interactions between family and loved ones have also been demonstrated in the film related to white-collar criminology. Poor home lives or personal lives have been associated with the beginning of Abagnale’s upswing in fraudulent activity. Furthermore, adverse interactions between his family and financial institutions such as the banking industry and the IRS may have contributed to his relatively low regard for these bodies. In one of the scenes where Abagnale receives his first-ever chequebook, his father says things like, "They have all the money," and "You're in their little club now". These statements seem to be formative to Abagnale's perception of these institutions as sources of money and allusions to his future life of white-collar crime.
In terms of social interaction, another look into the criminal nature revealed through the film is having family involved in fraud. It is evident in Catch Me If You Can that Abagnale’s skill in lying and confidence is influenced by this father’s demonstration of the same abilities. From his father's deception to gain entry into a clothing store to his being trained to pose as a driver, Abagnale is slowly learning fraud from a role model, sanitizing its criminal nature.
Understanding the Problem : Criminal Nature in Psychology
There are aspects of a white-collar criminal's makings seen in the film that mirrors findings in scientific psychological studies. Tzanelli et al. (2005) state that white-collar crime is about deception rather than stealth or force. The lack of reliance on stealth is evident from the confidence with which such white-collar criminals operate, choosing to commit crimes hidden in plain sight rather than under cover of anonymity.
In the film, negative home lives or personal life situations have been linked to the beginning of the white-collar crime. One study carried out by Dearden (2019) corroborates this association. The research shows that individuals suffering from stress – financial, relationship, or otherwise – are more likely to disregard risk and pursue white-collar crime than those who are not suffering from high amounts of stress. Abagnale’s traumatic home life provided the pressure that gave him the final push, which turned him to crime. Stress has been found to confound rational thinking and the risk assessment that comes along with it.
Another psychological connection that the film creates regarding white-collar crime is a disregard for financial institutions, especially given their role in Abagnale’s misfortune. In psychology, parallels can be drawn between this situation in Catch Me If You Can and the relationships between values and white-collar crime. Goossen et al. shows that the value of universalism or benevolence is negatively associated with white-collar crime. Thus, those who value benevolence and generosity rarely tend towards white-collar crime, and those who care away from benevolence are positively related to white-collar crime. Abagnale, and other individuals' negative experiences with the perceived lack of benevolence that institutions treat them with, will tend towards acts in the same vein that lead to white-collar crime.
Applying the Research
Considering the lessons on the mindset of white-collar criminals that have been provided by the film and psychological experts, the root of the problem can be found in white-collar criminals' experiences even before their first forays into crime. To focus on preventing crime, the focus should not be on active criminals but instead on would-be criminals.
One approach applies to financial professionals. From a corporate standpoint, white-collar crimes such as misappropriation of funds, embezzlement, and other kinds of fraud have been prevented successfully by actively encouraging and monitoring ethical code compliance and increasing auditing and control measurements (Enofe et al., 2015; Gottschalk, 2011). While this would not have prevented characters like Abagnale Jr from resorting to white-collar crime, they often prevent characters like his father, Abagnale Sr., from doing so. The tax fraud that eventually created their family situation can be avoided in corporate settings by carrying out more rigorous oversight and encouraging ethical conduct to create positive and negative reinforcement.
From a social standpoint, white-collar crime prevention can benefit from an increase in positive psychological habits for individuals undergoing adverse life events. As evidenced by the film and psychological research, there is a positive association between adverse life events and engaging in white-collar crime (Dearden, 2019). Further studies show that for most white-collar criminal cases tried in court; the offenders had a recent upset in their lives (Endaghl, 2015). A poor understanding of stress and its effect often leads to the creation of inadequate coping mechanisms. For such individuals, the poor management of their stress led to poor decision-making, which was the final push towards white-collar crime despite the inherent risk. While individuals in corporate settings, especially financial institutions, may benefit from counselling provided, this is not the case for characters like Abagnale who exist outside this framework. From a social standpoint, making an effort to have social workers who interact with such minors or young adults to teach them to manage stress through healthy coping mechanisms will go a long way in ensuring that these individuals do not turn to crime.
In conclusion, stress – born from negative experiences of several kinds – has been conclusively linked to the poor decision-making that leads to white-collar criminal development. Engaging in more rigorous mechanisms to guard against fraud, encouraging ethical conduct for professionals, and improving education on positive coping mechanisms for the general public – and especially youths – are three approaches that can successfully prevent white-collar crime. By utilizing these solutions simultaneously, it will be possible to create a multi-level approach that can address several population segments at once. In the case of the Catch Me If You Can, Abagnale had several opportunities to interact with social workers during his parents' divorce. If he had been able to access proper education on what he was going through psychologically at the time and been taught to develop appropriate coping mechanisms, he would perhaps have found a different path in life. Abagnale was a product of his times, and counselling practice in social work during the 60s would probably not have captured this issue. All the same, it can be utilized in the modern-day world to this effect.
References
Dearden, T. E. (2019). How modern psychology can help us understand white-collar criminals. Journal of Financial Crime .
Engdahl, O. (2015). White-collar crime and first-time adult-onset offending: Explorations in the concept of negative life events as turning points. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice , 43 (1), 1-16.
Enofe, A. O., Ekpulu, G. A., & Ajala, T. O. (2015). Forensic accounting and corporate crime mitigation. European Scientific Journal , 11 (7).
Goossen, M., Johansson Sevä, I., & Larsson, D. (2016). Basic human values and white-collar crime: Findings from Europe. European Journal of Criminology , 13 (4), 434-452.
Gottschalk, P., Filstad, C., Glomseth, R., & Solli-Sæther, H. (2011). Information management for investigation and prevention of white-collar crime. International Journal of Information Management , 31 (3), 226-233.
Tzanelli, R., Yar, M., & O’Brien, M. (2005). ’Con me if you can’ Exploring crime in the American cinematic imagination. Theoretical Criminology , 9 (1), 97-117.
