What is it about?
Crimes of the powerful often contains elements of corporate, business and political crime, and "classic" organised crime. Crimes of the powerful is a new term in criminology that we defined as harmful acts of individuals or groups, the prerequisite for which is a greater amount of socio-economic and/or political power in relation to their victims. Cases involving corrupt political and economic elites demonstrate that criminal power-holders are united by the mutual threat of exposure, as the deviousness of each part of the 'network' is known to the others.
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Why is it important?
Crimes of the powerful is a concept that builds on Sutherland's legacy of research on whitecollar crime. Crimes of the powerful is not understood as conventional crimes (robbery, murder, rape, etc.) committed by "high-status individuals of respectability"1, but as harmful behaviours whose prerequisite for perpetration is abundant social, economic and/or political power. Crimes of the powerful can only be understood if and only if research is willing to study harmful practices, whether they are formally criminalised or not. By analysing sources used in article we have also come to intriguing insights on crimes of the powerful from a wide variety of other fields of knowledge, such as economy, political theory, legal theory, sociology, as well as philosophy and ethics.
Perspectives
This article is mainly intended for criminologists, but we believe that also professionals from others field of knowledge, such as legal and political theorists, economists, philosophers and sociologists can benefit from it, as well as the general public, who is without a doubt greatly affected by the behaviour covered in this article. It is therefore essential that the 'little man' also becomes familiar with the concept and scope of crimes of the powerful, as it has a profound impact on everyone's daily life.
Bojan Dobovsek
Univerza v Mariboru
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Crimes of the Powerful, Science Art and Religion, June 2025, Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishing,
DOI: 10.5005/jp-journals-11005-0101.
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