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鈥嬧�婯elly Pope and Rick Salisbury鈥檚 award-winning 2011 educational documentary provides a framework for examining ethical dilemmas.

鈥淧eople ask me, 鈥楥an ethics be taught?鈥欌�� says Kelly Pope, associate professor in the School of Accountancy.

鈥淚 think the answer is 鈥楴o, but consequences can be shown.鈥� And that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e doing with 鈥楥rossing The Line鈥欌�攕howing how the guy next door can get into serious ethical trouble on the job.鈥�

鈥淭he people we鈥檝e interviewed and filmed are just like your peers, your neighbors, the people you went to college with, the parents of your kids鈥� friends,鈥� Pope explains. 鈥淩eally ordinary people, who have committed extraordinary crimes and ended up in prison. That鈥檚 why this film is such a great teaching tool. It鈥檚 not only about theory; rather, it shows how easy it is to slip, and then slide, into murky behavior. That creates great classroom conversations.鈥�

Open To Interpretation

The film is not a documentary in the style of 鈥淭he Smartest Guys in the Room鈥� or 鈥淚nside Job.鈥� Rick Salisbury, a video producer with the Driehaus College of Business, explains:听

鈥淲e deliberately left out a traditional narrator because we wanted to avoid the 鈥榲oice of God鈥� perspective, that all-knowing authority. Rather, in the film, people tell their own stories, and those stories are open to interpretation. Because the film is an educational tool, viewers have to decide whether each felon is credible or sympathetic: 鈥業 don鈥檛 believe that guy鈥� or 鈥業 can see myself in this guy.鈥櫶�

To make the one-hour movie, we edited about 120 hours of interview footage鈥攁 painstaking process because it was important that each story be truthful: we didn鈥檛 want to make anyone look better or worse.鈥澨�

Tracking down the film鈥檚 subjects took the team coast-to-coast, from a prison in Bakersfield, California to meetings with felons in New York City, Atlanta, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago.听

Jason Green (MSA 鈥�13) volunteered to work on the project after seeing the film in an accounting class.听

鈥淚 instantly recognized a valuable opportunity to expand my skills as an auditor,鈥� he explained. 鈥淔or example, I got a chance to sit down with the former CFO of HealthSouth, Weston Smith, who had helped pull off a $3.6 billion fraud. He actually showed me how they 鈥榗ooked the books鈥� in ways that auditors wouldn鈥檛 catch. It was amazing to see the technical aspects (how they did it) and the psychological motives (why they did it). What accounting connections were made? What lack of control was exploited? It鈥檚 not that hard, really, to go along with bad behavior that鈥檚 already in the system.鈥�

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Pink Collar Crime

For an 鈥渁ct two,鈥� Pope is partnering with Tom Golden, adjunct professor and retired partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers (where he co-founded the firm鈥檚 Midwest division of investigation and forensic services) to explore instances of pink-collar crime鈥攖hat is, women who have committed large-scale accounting fraud鈥攑ossibly beginning with the case of Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller accused of stealing more than $53 million from the city of Dixon, Illinois.

In fact, Pope is part of a Media Advisory group with the U.S. Marshal Service; she and her team have听had access to the Crundwell horse ranch, where they鈥檝e shot film and photographs, while interviewing marshals about the asset seizure process.听

鈥淢en tend to commit white-collar crimes within a 鈥榞ood-old-boy network鈥� of chummy business deals,鈥� suggests Salisbury. 鈥淚s accounting crime the same for women?鈥�

鈥淢y research suggests not,鈥� answers Pope. 鈥淲hile men are drawn to sophisticated financial schemes or reporting manipulations, women tend toward embezzlement. Even more interesting, once they get the money, they shop! Often, they end up owning stuff鈥攍ots and lots of stuff鈥攖hat they couldn鈥檛 possibly afford on their salaries. Now that鈥檚 audacity!鈥�

Accessible For All

At this point, Pope is turning the film into a digital 鈥減roduct鈥� for the easy use of teachers and students. A next step could include the packaging of extended e-case studies.

鈥淲e鈥檙e moving classroom content, in the past held in books, onto technologies students want to use, like tablets,鈥� she says. 鈥淎ll the people in the film were happy to talk to us because they recognized the 鈥榞reater good鈥� in sharing their stories.听

Now it鈥檚 our duty to make this content as accessible as possible for as many people as possible鈥攏ot just in academia, but also in law enforcement, business, and public service.听

The need for insights on ethics, everywhere, couldn鈥檛 be greater.鈥� 鈻�