[1][2][3] Born in 1919 in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, he obtained his bachelor's degree from Iowa State College in 1943 and earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1950.

[1][2][4] He also wrote Other People's Money, a study of embezzlement, and co-authored the popular textbook Social Problems.

[4] He served as a consultant on organized crime for the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice in 1966 and 1967.

[4] Based on research conducted in this capacity he wrote the acclaimed Theft of the Nation, a treatise on the Cosa Nostra, and later the smaller Criminal Organization, in which he extended his conceptualization of organized crime to include criminal groups other than the Cosa Nostra.

[6] For two of the three motivational factors identified by Cressey, he drew on the thoughts of the US-American sociologist of German-Danish origin Svend Riemer (1905–1977).