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Political Corruption and State Crime  

Clayton Peoples and James E. Sutton

Subject:

White Collar Crime

Online Publication Date:

Apr 2017

DOI:

10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.274

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In This Article

 A Criminological Overview of Political Corruption and State Crime

 Literature Review

o Criminaloids and White Collar Crime

o Corruption: Early Emphases

o Political Corruption

o State Crime

o State-Corporate Crime

 Perpetrators

o Individual Versus Organizational Perpetrators

o The Role of Networks and Exchange

 Victimology

 Social Control Mechanisms

o Challenges Related to Perpetrators/Victims

o Conflicts of Interest in Lawmaking and Self-Regulation

 Broader Societal Consequences

o The Adverse Impact of Political Corruption

o The Adverse Impact of State (or State-Corporate) Crime

 Conclusions and Future Directions

 Further Reading 

 References 

 View PDF

Summary and Keywords

The state is responsible for maintaining law and order in society and protecting the people.
Sometimes it fails to fulfill these responsibilities; in other cases, it actively harms people. There have
been many instances of political corruption and state crime throughout history, with impacts that
range from economic damage to physical injury to death—sometimes on a massive scale (e.g.,
economic recession, pollution/poisoning, genocide). The challenge for criminologists, however, is
that defining political corruption and state crime can be thorny, as can identifying their perpetrators
—who can often be collectives of individuals such as organizations and governments—and their
victims. In turn, pinpointing appropriate avenues of controlling these crimes can be difficult. These
challenges are exacerbated by power issues and the associated reality that the state is in a position
to write or change laws and, in essence, regulate itself. One possible solution is to define political
corruption and state crime—as well as their perpetrators and victims—as broadly as possible to
include a variety of scenarios that may or may not exhibit violations of criminal law. Likewise, a
resolution to the issue of social control would be to move beyond strictly institutional mechanisms
of control. Criminological research should further elucidate these issues; it should also, however,
move beyond conceptual dilemmas toward (a) better understanding the processes underlying
political corruption/state crime and (b) illustrating the broader ramifications of these crimes.

Keywords: political corruption, state crime, state-corporate crime, white collar crime, corporate
crime, corruption, bribery, power, official deviance, organizational deviance

A Criminological Overview of Political Corruption and State Crime

In ideal conceptions of democracy and governance, the state represents and serves the people; it is
a protector of people’s rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, the state does not always fulfill this role.
Indeed, in some cases the state does the exact opposite and harms the very people it is supposed to
protect—sometimes engaging in implicit or even explicit criminal activity in the process (see, e.g.,
Kramer & Michalowski, 1990). Criminal acts by the state tend to both reflect and result from abuses
of power when they occur. Political corruption and crimes of the state are therefore often
inextricably linked in complicated ways.

Although political corruption receives considerable scholarly attention in political science (see, e.g.,
Heidenheimer & Johnston, 2002; Philp, 1997; Rose-Ackerman, 1999), relatively little attention has
been paid to political corruption in criminology. There have, however, been high-profile calls in
criminology to examine the broader theme of state crime (see, e.g., Chambliss’s statements during
his 1988 presidential address, documented in Criminology, 1989), and a sizable literature has
emerged around that topic. This literature has primarily focused on conceptual issues related to
state crime, but some studies have begun to branch out into other related areas. Overall, while state
crime has received more attention than political corruption in criminology, both have received less
emphasis than other topics within the white collar crime literature, which itself is small in
comparison with the literature on street crime.

This article outlines a framework for a criminological understanding of political corruption and state
crime—particularly in the context of the United States. The key conceptual question in the state
crime literature is, put simply: What is the definition of state crime? A concomitant conceptual
question for this article is: What is political corruption? Hence, this article provides overviews of
attempts to address these questions for a criminology audience. Conceptual challenges and debates
have often hindered the development of the literatures highlighted here beyond the conceptual
stage (Zimring & Johnson, 2005). This article therefore focuses on issues pertaining to conceptual
clarifications while ultimately foregrounding the interconnections between political corruption and
state crime.
When assessing a specific type of crime, there are a number of important substantive considerations
that extend beyond the conceptual realm. For instance, aside from defining what a particular crime
is, criminologists and others will also want to know more about how it is perpetrated, its victimology,
the social control mechanisms that it has elicited, and its broader impact on society. Accordingly, this
article also presents sections on each of these substantive themes as they pertain to political
corruption and crimes of the state. This article concludes by offering some ideas for future directions
in this important and growing area of scholarship.

Literature Review

Criminological work on political corruption and state crime has roots in research on white collar and
organized offending (Nelken & Levi, 1996). As such, this section begins with an overview of selected
key works on white collar crime to provide a starting point for understanding political corruption and
crimes of the state. It then addresses the key conceptual issues related to political corruption and
state crime, with an emphasis on consensus or oft-cited definitions of key terms, where they exist, as
well as influential typologies of these crimes.

Criminaloids and White Collar Crime

The lineage of scholarly attention to the crimes of powerful actors can be traced back to Edward A.
Ross’s classic article “The Criminaloid.” Ross (1907, p. 45) warned of pro-social offenders, or
criminaloids, that are “guilty in the eyes of the law: but since they are not culpable in the eyes of the
public and in their own eye, their spiritual attitude is not that of the criminal.” The examples Ross
provided were of powerful offenders from more advantaged social positions who engaged in bribery
and other forms of offending that are along the lines of what we focus on in this article.

Approximately 40 years later, Edwin Sutherland coined the term white collar crime, which he defined
as “. . . a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his
occupation” (Sutherland, 1983, p. 7). Sutherland’s groundbreaking work provided a systematic study
of offending perpetrated by corporate offenders, and it set the stage for subsequent empirical work
in this area. In turn, Clinard and Yeager (1980) conducted a study of corporate crime about 30 years
later that updated and expanded upon the scope of Sutherland’s research. For instance, whereas
Sutherland examined the offending of 70 corporations, Clinard and Yeager studied 582 corporations.
Clinard and Yeager also further distinguished between occupational offenses that are perpetrated
for the benefit of individuals and corporate offenses that are perpetrated to further the interests of
the corporation, and their work remains the most comprehensive study of corporate offending to
date. This article introduces other influential works as well in subsequent sections; it first, however,
turns to corruption.

Corruption: Early Emphases

Although corruption—particularly political corruption—is a well-studied area in political science (see,

e.g., Heidenheimer & Johnston, 2002; Philp, 1997; Rose-Ackerman, 1999), attention to corruption
within criminology has been limited (Huisman & Vande Walle, 2010). This said, policing is one
subfield in which notable works on corruption have been published.

Some of the best known books on police corruption were authored by Sherman (1974) and
Goldstein (1974). Goldstein outlined the challenges associated with defining police corruption and
put forth his own definition, in which he states that police corruption includes “. . . acts involving the
misuse of authority by a police officer in a manner designed to produce personal gain for himself or
for others” (Goldstein, 1974, p. 3). Although Goldstein’s definition, and most of the examples
outlined in his book, emphasized the personal, or occupational, nature of offending, Goldstein also
presented examples of coordinated forms of corruption perpetrated by multiple actors within police
organizations.

Another classic study of corruption from the 1970s is William Chambliss’s On the Take. Chambliss
(1978) examined the intersections of organized crime and corruption among police and local
governmental officials, and his work is especially notable for the ways in which it outlined dynamics
of collusion, interplay, and exchange that occur on the local level. Chambliss’s research provides us
with a fitting segue into organized crime, which is the primary context within which political
corruption has been studied over the years by criminologists (Huisman & Vande Walle, 2010).

Corruption has most often been approached as a facilitator of organized crime. Similar to police
corruption, there have also been definitional challenges associated with determining what actually
constitutes organized crime and corruption (Beare, 1997). If we return to Sutherland’s definition of
white collar crime, organized crime would differ in that the perpetrators would not be people “. . . of
respectability and high social status in the course of [their] occupation” (Sutherland, 1983, p. 7).
With respect to corruption, Beare (1997) notes that common corruption categories within the
context of organized crime include “bribes/kick-backs” and “election/campaign corruption,” which
involve illegal payments to gain desired outcomes, as well as garnering influence by offering
“protection.”

Political Corruption

Political corruption is certainly not a new phenomenon. The early great thinkers in philosophy (e.g.,
Aristotle, Plato) addressed the topic, and the Roman Empire—and its fall—serves as an important
early case study (MacMullen, 1988). Despite this, the term “political corruption” has no agreed-upon
definition. Although efforts have been made to advance conceptual frameworks of political
corruption (e.g., Heidenheimer & Johnston, 2002; Philp, 1997), a consensus definition does not
currently exist—particularly in the criminology literature.

Many definitional challenges—and, hence, debates within the study of crime—come down to issues
of inclusivity, parsimony, and analytic precision. One possibility is to cast the net broadly and
formulate a broad, inclusive definition. For instance, Sutherland (1945) thought of crime as going
beyond state-defined violations of the criminal law to include acts that were civil law violations as
well as those that were “socially injurious.” Scholars who focus on political corruption have made
similar calls to go beyond legal definitions.

Passas (1998, pp. 44–45) argues that political corruption comprises “public officials acting in the best
interest of private concerns, regardless of, or against, the public interest. Therefore, corruption can
be defined as the covert privatization of government functions.” Kaufmann and Vicente (2011) make
a similar case and contend that corruption need not be exclusive to acts that are illegal.

Like Passas (1998) and Kaufmann and Vicente (2011), Douglas and Johnson (1977, p. 4) also endorse
a more inclusive definition. In fact, they argue that the term political corruption is itself limiting, and
they propose that official deviance be used instead for two reasons: first, there is a wide range of
officials performing governmental functions, including many who are not necessarily deemed to be
“political” by others or themselves; second, corruption tends to connote “material” and monetary
exchanges for desired outcomes, yet “most people are more concerned with usurpation of power by
officials than with their material corruption.” To capture this sentiment, they therefore prefer the
term deviance because it is more general and encompassing.
In contrast to definitions that extend beyond legal categories, Zimring and Johnson (2005, p. 796)
argue that embracing the legal component is crucial when conceptualizing political corruption, much
as Tappan (1947) argued many decades ago with crime, more generally. They define corruption as
“the illegal use of power for personal gain,” and they maintain that the legal threshold allows for
clearer analytical specification. Zimring and Johnson (2005) further note that laws reflect local
norms, which makes them the ideal dimension in which to examine corruption comparatively.
Whereas Zimring and Johnson differ sharply from others on whether or not criminologists should
focus on legal conceptualizations, they are similar in that most works in this area emphasize the
misuse of power for personal gain.

State Crime

Chambliss (1989, p. 184) defines state crime as “acts defined by law as criminal and committed by
state officials in the pursuit of their job as representatives of the state,” and he adds that state crime
does not include acts “that benefit only individual officeholders.” State crime is therefore something
that involves the state or its actors, and it is done to benefit more than just the individuals who are
connected to its perpetration.

One possible point of contention concerning the above definition, though, pertains to restricting
state crime to only those acts that are defined by law as criminal. Others argue that state crime can
also include actions that are “deviant, abusive, harmful . . . [or] wrongful” (Ross, 2015, p. 499). Put
directly, similar to political corruption, one can think of state crime as something that extends
beyond legal definitions—particularly given that state actors have the power to define what is legal
and illegal (discussed in more detail later). As such, a more inclusive definition might simply specify
the prerequisite conditions that ought to be present to consider something a state crime—namely
that (a) those committing the crimes are state actors or entities and (b) some kind of harm results
from these actors’/entities’ actions (or inaction).

In conceptualizing state crime, one factor to consider is the role of the state in said criminal activity
—is it explicitly involved or implicitly involved? Put differently, some state crimes may be state-
initiated, while others are state-facilitated (Kramer & Michalowski, 1990). Another related factor is
the nature of the state. Friedrichs (2010) identifies four different types of states that may be
involved in state crimes: a criminal state, a repressive state, a corrupt state, or a negligent state.
There is some overlap between these two typologies in that criminal or repressive states may be
more likely to initiate crimes, whereas a negligent state, for instance, may tend to facilitate crimes.

The typology of Friedrichs (2010) is also useful in thinking about the connection between political
corruption and state crime. State crime can be thought of as being connected to distinct from
political corruption, depending on the circumstances. As noted above, Friedrichs identifies a corrupt
state as one type of state that may be engaged in state crime; the other forms may not necessarily
hinge on corruption as an element (e.g., a repressive state). But it is also easy to imagine scenarios in
which political corruption can lead to state crime—or crimes that involve collusion between the
state and other entities such as corporations.

State-Corporate Crime

Any consideration of state crime would be incomplete without mentioning state-corporate crime. A
frequently cited definition asserts that state-corporate crimes are “illegal or socially injurious actions
that result from a mutually reinforcing interaction between (1) policies and/or practices in pursuit of
the goals of one or more institutions of political governance and (2) policies and/or practices in
pursuit of the goals of one or more institutions of economic production and distribution” (Aulette &
Michalowski, 1993, p. 175). Note that here, much like with political corruption and state crime, it is
not just legality that is a factor—socially injurious actions are also considered.

The state can play any number of roles in state-corporate crime. An insightful typology developed by
Kauzlarich and colleagues (2003) outlines four possible roles for the state, along with examples of
crimes/outcomes: omission-implicit (e.g., inequality), omission-explicit (e.g., regulatory failure),
commission-implicit (funding unethical experiments), and commission-explicit (e.g., genocide).

The key element in all of the above roles, however, is the interaction between the state and
economic entities, as in Aulette and Michalowski’s (1993) oft-cited definition. Put directly, things like
political corruption and state crime do not exist in a vacuum. Just as political corruption can be
linked with state crime, state crime can involve perpetrators within and outside the state, morphing
into state-corporate crime.

Perpetrators

One of the key challenges in examining political corruption and state crime is determining who
exactly the perpetrators are. With other types of crime (e.g., street crime), it is relatively obvious
who the perpetrators are, in part because it is specific individuals who are committing a given crime.
With political corruption and state crime, however, determining the perpetrators is not nearly so
straightforward. This is due, in part, to the fact that entire organizations/entities can be involved in
these crimes rather than just individuals.

Individual Versus Organizational Perpetrators

Although most research in criminology tends to study situations in which individuals are
perpetrators, some scholars have argued that “organizations, not just individuals, commit deviant
acts” (Ermann & Lundman, 1978, p. 55). This is a very important insight, as it broadens the net in
terms of who can be considered a perpetrator. This becomes especially important when looking at
something like state crime.

Although the state is made up of myriad individuals serving in a variety of capacities, state decisions
are normally collective in nature, and state actions are typically carried out by agencies with the
authority to do so. For instance, policy is made by legislative bodies (e.g., Congress); laws are
enforced by agencies (e.g., the DEA). As such, when decisions or actions of the state cross into
corrupt and/or criminal territory, it may be collectivities—organizations, agencies, or even the state
itself—who are the perpetrators.

The idea that collectivities engage in political corruption and/or state crime fits well with the
typologies outlined in the literature review. For instance, in the complicity continuum of Kauzlarich,
Mullins, and Matthews (2003), explicit omission might involve state agencies failing to perform their
regulatory functions; explicit commission would involve the state itself engaging in crimes. This
overlaps well with the typology of Friedrichs (2010), which identifies a number of state types that
may engage in political corruption (e.g., a corrupt state) or state crime (e.g., a criminal state).

The Role of Networks and Exchange

Social networks and their associated exchanges help move political corruption and crimes of the
state from the individual level to the organizational level. Take campaign contributions, for instance.
Campaign contributions are typically given in person to a political candidate, which establishes a
social tie (Clawson, Neustadtl, & Weller, 1998). Something of value—campaign money—has also
been given in the process. If the candidate happens to win office, she or he may feel compelled to
“return the favor” due to the principle of reciprocity (Cialdini, 2001). So, when a contributor requests
help (e.g., a “yea” vote) on a future piece of legislation, the politician may feel obligated to do so.
Research has shown that this happens with surprising regularity and involves large swaths of
politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike (Peoples & Sutton, 2015). These exchanges, in
aggregate, help shape legislation and tilt laws in favor of moneyed contributors rather than the
public as a whole (Gilens & Page, 2014).

There are some interesting things to note about the example of campaign contributions influencing
votes. First, it is not usually a quid pro quo exchange. Politicians typically do not make explicit
promises to do things in exchange for contributions (there are exceptions, of course). Instead, they
provide help in the future on a to-be-determined issue or bill. Given that there typically is not a quid
pro quo exchange involved, these situations do not fit standard legal definitions of bribery. But in the
words of Russell Long, “[t]he distinction between a campaign contribution and a bribe is almost a
hairline’s difference” (Kaiser, 2009, p. 18). More importantly, whether technically a bribe or not,
campaign contributions can lead to corruption—both in the public’s perception and in reality.

Opinion polls consistently show that people believe money influences politics (NYT/CBS, 2015).
These views can erode the public’s confidence in the state. This is evident in the abysmal approval
ratings for Congress, which reached record lows of approximately 10% in recent years (Gallup, 2016).
These views can also lead people to believe that political bodies such as Congress have become
corrupt (see, e.g., a CNN poll in 2006). But have they become corrupt? Citing the “competing
dependencies” that campaign contributions create, Lessig (2011) argues that institutions such as
Congress have, in fact, become corrupt. This leads directly into the final item of note about
campaign contributions influencing votes: it is ultimately at the institutional and/or organizational
level where this plays out.

In the work of Peoples and Sutton (2015), it was not merely a handful of individual lawmakers (“a
few bad apples”) who were influenced by their contributors—a statistically significant percentage of
lawmakers were engaged in this behavior. Additionally, this happened within the context of social
networks such that pairs of lawmakers would vote “yea” together on legislation based on their
mutual ties to contributors. In other words, there was a culture of collusion and influence-peddling
that permeated Congress—it had become a corrupt institution. And again, as noted earlier, the work
of Gilens and Page (2014) suggests that the result of this is policy that favors elites over the rest of
society.

The example of campaign contributions nicely demonstrates that offending is not limited to the
individual level. Moreover, it also shows how it can be difficult in practice to determine who the
perpetrators are when political corruption and crimes of the state occur. These complications
ultimately underscore the importance of conceptualization, as an individualistic and purely legalistic
view of crime would not apply to this kind of situation. Similar difficulties emerge when trying to
identify the victims of these complex offenses.

Victimology

Victims are often afterthoughts in the study of crime, and this is particularly the case when it comes
to white collar offending. This is also true of political corruption and crimes of the state, where
victims have received scant attention. There are several reasons why.

From a conceptual standpoint, the lack of agreement on what constitutes an offense or perpetrator
ultimately results in a lack of consensus on who is victimized. Moreover—and irrespective of how
offenses might technically be defined—these acts may feature actors who derive mutual benefits
from the arrangement. It is therefore highly unlikely that one of these actors will feel victimized and
contact authorities (Zimring & Johnson, 2005).

Visibility is another consideration. Ross (1907) suggested that “criminaloids” take efforts to avoid
targeting their own communities when offending. It may also be very difficult in some cases to
identify victims or connect victimizations to the situations that caused them. The number of victims
(or potential victims) can further complicate matters. It may be quite challenging to determine how
many people are adversely impacted by a given policy or action and to what extent they are
affected: it could be a relatively small number of people, it could be entire cultures or societies.
Likewise, there may be significant lag time between these acts and their effects. Moreover, the
complexities associated with organizational forms of offending might make it impossible to either
detect harms that have been perpetrated or connect perpetrated harms to the actors that caused
them. This is particularly likely when offenses transcend national or other jurisdictional borders. The
disconnects between actors, actions, and consequences resulting from political corruption and
crimes of the state likely result in these forms of victimization being less visible than the temporal
and visceral victimizations that are characteristic of street crime.

An additional consideration for victimology surrounding political corruption and state crime is
power. It was previously noted that corrupt exchanges are unlikely to result in the involved actors
feeling victimized given that they each benefit from the transaction. However, it may be that more
peripheral actors perceive themselves as victims but feel powerless in the situation. For instance, the
previous section outlined what appears to be open corruption perpetrated by Congress. Zimring and
Johnson (2005, p. 804) argue that conspicuous offending serves as “. . . an advertisement of the
corrupt actor’s power.” To the extent that this is the case with political corruption and crimes of the
state, victims may feel helpless to seek voice for their experiences—especially when the very entities
that are supposed to help them are the ones committing the offenses.

We can and should ask what the victimology of political corruption and state crime looks like.
Unfortunately, the broader conceptual challenges that have previously been noted preclude us from
coming to a definitive answer, though a few observations are instructive. First, the victimizations
that stem from these forms of offending are often qualitatively different from the individual
victimizations that commonly occur within the context of street crime. On a related note, the scale
of victimization resulting from these acts is potentially far reaching given that these harms are often
perpetrated by organizational actors. Lastly, the systematic, organizational, and structural forces
that often render victims invisible and disempowered can ultimately prevent us from knowing much
about them, furthering their invisibility.

Social Control Mechanisms

With most crimes, there are clear-cut sanctions in place to regulate/control their incidence. With
political corruption and state crime, however, things are much blurrier. There are two likely reasons
why this is the case: (1) as noted earlier, state crimes are complicated in that neither the
perpetrators of these crimes nor their victims are readily identifiable, and (2) it is the state that is
normally in a position to regulate/control crime, and, thus, it has a conflict of interest in
regulating/controlling itself. Of course, this does not mean that there are no efforts to control state
crime—there are (see, e.g., Ross, 2000). It does mean, however, that efforts to control state crime
face a number of challenges.

Challenges Related to Perpetrators/Victims

The fact that there is gray area with regard to conceptualization, and therefore identification, of the
perpetrators and victims of state crimes makes it difficult to control these offenses. This is due to
both practical considerations and issues of power.

With regard to practical considerations, there are problems that emerge when it is unclear who the
perpetrators or victims are with a given crime. When the perpetrators cannot be concretely
identified, questions arise that are difficult to answer: Who should be prosecuted for the crime?
What should the sanctions/penalties be? How should the penalties be applied? This is compounded
by the fact that, as noted above, those who engage in state crime are often large organizations. How
does one go about prosecuting an organization or an entire government? When the victims cannot
be identified, again difficult questions come up: Who can make legitimate claims of harm? How
should they (or their loved ones) be compensated?

With regard to power, it is well established that powerful entities in society escape prosecution—or
receive more lenient sentences if they are prosecuted—than less powerful individuals. This is
certainly true of white collar and corporate crime; it is likely true of state crime as well. A less-often-
acknowledged reality, though, is that powerful entities can even tilt the laws in their favor (what
Lukes, 1974, refers to as the “second dimension of power”) to allow for activities that in most other
contexts would be considered illegal.

This reality of powerful entities tilting the laws in their favor might partly explain why these powerful
entities are not prosecuted for their crimes—their activities may not technically be illegal if they
have succeeded in getting the laws changed to allow these activities. A great example from the
corporate world is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (to be described again shortly), which
repealed provisions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act by allowing banks and investing firms to merge. In
so doing, it allowed entities such as Citigroup to legally proceed as merged corporations—the 1999
Act is sometimes referred to in critical circles as “the Citigroup Relief Act”—even though their
existence would have been illegal anytime in the 66 years preceding the Act.

When thinking about the state, the ability to shape and tilt laws is even more important. After all,
state entities (e.g., legislatures) are literally the very bodies that craft and pass laws. They are
therefore in the perfect position to tilt laws in their favor (or exempt themselves from laws that
might typically apply to other individuals or entities). This is, however, a clear conflict of interest, as
is self-regulation.

Conflicts of Interest in Lawmaking and Self-Regulation

As noted above, the state is responsible for writing and passing laws. It is also tasked with defining,
regulating, and controlling criminal behavior. But what if the state or its entities are the ones
engaging in crime—can the state be trusted to regulate itself?

Congress presents an interesting case study. Many of the organizations meant to limit congressional
deviance are themselves controlled by Congress. For instance, internal ethics committees (e.g., the
House Committee on Ethics) are responsible for addressing questionable activities among individual
members of Congress. The Federal Election Commission (FEC), which is funded by Congress and
whose members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, is responsible for
monitoring and enforcing campaign finance laws. Even campaign finance laws—and other laws
affecting Congress—are themselves written and enacted by Congress. Simply put, Congress gets to
set the very rules by which it is governed and accordingly has significant power over how these rules
are enforced.
Congress is just one example; there are many others one could explore. The common thread,
however, is that state organizations and agencies often lack truly independent mechanisms of
regulation. Granted, some might argue that even auditors and regulators are self-interested
individuals who might be susceptible to bias (e.g., Rose-Ackerman, 1999), it is nonetheless true that
the lack of external oversight means that these entities are charged with “regulating” themselves.
Combined with the fact that some of them get to literally make their own rules (see, again, the
example of Congress), this means that things such as corruption, deviance, and crime can go virtually
unfettered. These organizations and agencies are above the law; the rules and norms of society do
not apply to them. The end result is that they can offend with impunity and potentially harm the
very individuals they are supposed to protect: the people.

Broader Societal Consequences

Although there are some who could cite Merton’s (1938) classic work on anomie to contend that
deviance can occasionally carry positive functions for society, there is ample evidence that political
corruption and state crimes have a largely adverse impact. As noted above, the number of people
affected can vary: in some instances, it is a relatively small percentage of the population; in other
cases, it is entire cultures or societies.

The Adverse Impact of Political Corruption

In terms of political corruption, there are a number of adverse impacts on society. As already noted,
policy reflects the preferences of elites rather than the general public (Gilens & Page, 2014). This
results in tax codes that benefit corporations (Clawson et al., 1998), sometimes to the detriment of
the rest of society (e.g., cutting programs for the poor). Additionally, corporations with connections
to politics seek out “government contracts, regulatory waivers, and government subsidies” (Godwin
& Seldon, 2002, p. 205), many of which they succeed in obtaining. For instance, Halliburton profited
nicely from its connections to the presidential administration during the Iraq War, securing lucrative
“no-bid” contracts (Rothe, 2006).

When corporations secure special benefits due to their campaign contributions and connections
with politicians, the public can be adversely impacted. This was especially true in the lead-up to the
housing crisis and the resultant Great Recession in 2007. We now know that there were two key
pieces of legislation passed in 1999 and 2000 that helped lead to the Great Recession (The Gramm-
Leach-Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, respectively). They allowed banking
and investing firms to merge and ensured a virtually unregulated market for risky investments such
as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Evidence is beginning to suggest that campaign
contributions significantly influenced the passage of both bills (Peoples, 2012). Although some
businesses and firms initially made handsome profits from the activities allowed by these bills, these
same activities introduced so much structural risk that the integrity of the system itself became
compromised and the economy collapsed. The result—trillions of dollars in losses, with millions of
people losing their jobs and their homes.

The Adverse Impact of State (or State-Corporate) Crime

In terms of state crime, adverse impacts on society are similarly pronounced. Again, as noted at the
beginning of this section and above, the number of people impacted can vary. Additionally, as noted
in the typologies reviewed above, the involvement of the state (implicit versus explicit) can fluctuate
depending on the situation. Nonetheless, the negative effects are significant and sometimes even
result in death.
A number of examples can fit around the theme of regulatory failure resulting in harm or death. For
instance, the Challenger space shuttle disaster likely stemmed, in part, from a breakdown in proper
safety protocol (Kramer, 1992). This resulted in the loss of astronauts’ lives and a period of national
shock and mourning.

There are other examples of regulatory failure at the nexus between corporations and their (lack of)
regulation by the state. For example, stronger regulatory controls could have prevented the fire at
the Imperial Foods chicken plant (Aulette & Michalowski, 1993) and the ValuJet crash in Florida
(Matthews & Kauzlarich, 2000). These incidents resulted in 25 and 110 deaths, respectively.

Other examples can fit around the theme of the state itself acting as a criminal agent. These
examples would fit under the explicit commission category of the complicity continuum (Kauzlarich
et al., 2003) and would involve a repressive or criminal state (Friedrichs, 2010). The Holocaust stands
out as perhaps the quintessential example of the state acting as a criminal agent. In the Holocaust,
over 6 million Jews were killed at the hands of the Nazi government. Any situation, though, in which
the state sanctions mistreatment and/or murder (e.g., displacement, slavery, mass executions,
genocide) would fit here. It is not a stretch to say that in such cases the state has committed “crimes
against humanity,” which have been prosecuted in international criminal courts (e.g., during the
Nuremberg Trials). Of course, this ultimately takes us full circle and back to the conceptualization
challenges introduced at the beginning of this article.

Conclusions and Future Directions

The state is supposed to protect the people. Sadly, it sometimes does just the opposite—it becomes
corrupt and/or engages in criminal activity, thereby harming the people instead. Although political
corruption and crimes of the state have historically been understudied by criminologists (much like
with white collar and corporate crime), this is beginning to change. A distinct literature has more
recently begun to coalesce around corruption and state crime, with high-profile calls for more work
in this area (e.g., Chambliss, 1989).

The key debates and unresolved issues in this growing literature revolve around definitional and
conceptual problems and, by extension, questions such as: What is political corruption, What is state
crime, Who are the perpetrators, Who are the victims, and What are the implications for social
control and broader society? The challenge of resolving these complex questions is further
exacerbated by the fundamental nature of political corruption and state crime: not only are those
who are committing these crimes powerful individuals or entities, they are also often literally in a
position to define whether or not their activities are legal (and, by extension, how to regulate these
activities, if at all).

The criminology literature is replete with debates over how crime should be defined. Much of the
controversy has been centered on whether or not criminologists should adopt state definitions of
crime. As noted earlier, Sutherland (1945) thought of crime as going beyond state- defined violations
of the criminal law. Schwendinger and Schwendinger (1970) believed that state definitions of crime
expressed and reinforced the interests of those with power, and toward this end they called for
criminologists to use human rights violations rather than state definitions as the standard for what
constitute crimes.

A possible solution to the difficulties of defining the parameters of political corruption and state
crime is to follow the above-noted pioneers in thinking beyond the limited scenarios outlined in
criminal law. In other words, we can perhaps include acts that are civil law violations, as Sutherland
did, as well as those that are, to use his words, “socially injurious.” Future work in this area could
continue with this more inclusive approach to what may be defined as political corruption and/or
state crime.

A similar solution could be applied to the challenges of determining who perpetrators and victims
are with political corruption and state crime: cast the net broadly to be as inclusive as possible. In
the case of perpetrators, it is important to remind ourselves that “organizations, not just individuals,
commit deviant [or corrupt/criminal] acts” (Ermann & Lundman, 1978, p. 55). Researchers should
therefore expand their parameters accordingly. In thinking about victims, casting the net widely can
be very helpful as well. As with white collar and corporate crime, the cost of state crime to society in
terms of economics, health, and even life are likely very great.

Lastly, in terms of the control of state crime, it is again the case that broader, more inclusive
approaches are potentially warranted. As Ross (2015) notes, existing approaches include more
typical institutional approaches (e.g., internal and external control mechanisms) plus alternative
approaches (e.g., resistance by victims, activists, and oppositional groups). Given the unique positon
of the state to write its own rules and regulate itself, the most effective approaches may well be
those that do not rely on conventional institutional controls. Instead, alternative approaches
involving the public may be more effective in the long run.

In reality, though, research on political corruption and state crime needs to move beyond
definitional and conceptual issues and focus on the broader processes and ramifications of these
crimes. In terms of processes, political corruption and crimes of the state are ultimately linked
through exchange and relationships among actors. Social network analysis may therefore provide a
methodological tool through which scholars can better trace the trajectories of these crimes and
connect the individual to the organizational level (Peoples & Sutton, 2015).

In terms of ramifications, visibility is critical. With political corruption and state crime, the
complexities and powerful actors associated with these acts can result in these offenses going
unnoticed or being deliberately hidden. This is why it is critical to follow the call of Chambliss (1989)
and conduct more criminological research on crimes of the state (and associated themes). More
research on these topics—through both quantitative studies and, importantly, qualitative case
studies (Kramer, Michalowski, & Kauzlarich, 2002)—would further increase the visibility of these
offenses and give voice to their many, sometimes invisible, victims.

Further Reading

Chambliss, W. J. (1978). On the take: From petty crooks to presidents. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.Find this resource:

Chambliss, W. J. (1989). State-organized crime—The American Society of Criminology, 1988

presidential address. Criminology, 27, 183–208.Find this resource:

Clinard, M., & Yeager, P. C. (1980). Corporate crime. New York: Free Press.Find this resource:

Domhoff, G. W. (2014). Who rules America? The triumph of the corporate rich (7th ed.). Boston:
McGraw-Hill.Find this resource:

Douglas, J. D., & Johnson, J. M. (1977). Official deviance: Readings in malfeasance, misfeasance, and
other forms of corruption. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.Find this resource:

Ermann, M. D., & Lundman, R. J. (1978). Deviant acts by complex organizations: Deviance and social
control at the organizational level of analysis. The Sociological Quarterly, 19, 55–67.Find this
resource:
Friedrichs, D. O. (2010). Trusted criminals: White collar crime in contemporary society (4th ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Find this resource:

Heidenheimer, A. J., & Johnston, M. (Eds.). (2002). Political corruption: Concepts and contexts (3d
ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Find this resource:

Johnston, M. (2005). Syndromes of corruption: Wealth, power, and democracy. New York: Cambridge
University Press.Find this resource:

Kauzlarich, D., Mullins, C. W., & Matthews, R. A. (2003). A complicity continuum of state crime.
Contemporary Justice Review, 6, 241–254.Find this resource:

Peoples, C. D., & Sutton, J. E. (2015). Congressional bribery as state-corporate crime: A social
network analysis. Crime, Law and Social Change, 64(2–3), 103–125.Find this resource:

Rose-Ackerman, S. (1999). Corruption and government: Causes, consequences, and reform. New
York: Cambridge University Press.Find this resource:

Rosoff, S. M., Pontell, H. N., & Tillman, R. (2014). Profit without honor: White collar crime and the
looting of America (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.Find this resource:

Ross, J. I. (Ed.). (2000). Controlling state crime. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Find this
resource:

Sutherland, E. H. (1983). White collar crime: The uncut version. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.Find this resource:

Tunnell, K. D. (Ed.). (1993). Political crime in contemporary America: A critical approach. New York:
Garland.Find this resource:

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Chambliss, W. J. (1978). On the take: From petty crooks to presidents. Bloomington: Indiana
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Clayton Peoples

Department of Social Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno

James E. Sutton

Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

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