UCLA School of Law

It is orthodox to divide the universe of crimes according to their violence. There are violent crimes, prototypically street crimes. And there are nonviolent crimes of fraud, prototypically white-collar crimes. Although the implications of this distinction are controversial, the distinction itself is not controversial. This Essay challenges this universal dichotomy by offering an account of violence that admits many crimes of deception. That is, properly understood, violence can be found in the fraudulent foreclosure, the embezzlement, and the forged check.