Elite Criminality, Psychopathic Power, and the Mafia State

• In Event: From Boardrooms to the Bench: Theories of Elite Criminality, Neutralizations, and Offenders

Abstract

The Trump presidencies provide fertile ground for analyzing elite white-collar criminality, state corruption, and the erosion of democratic institutions. This paper revisits offender- vs. offense-based definitions of white-collar crime, arguing that the roles of status, power, and privilege in Sutherland’s conceptualization are essential to understanding elite political and governmental criminality. We incorporate insights from emerging research suggesting that trait theories of crime (e.g., psychopathy and low self-control) also apply to white-collar offenders. Drawing on frameworks of non-issue making, trivialization, and criminal neutralization, the paper examines how systemic strategies including the normalization of condemning the condemners, the weaponization of legal mechanisms, and the tactical deployment of disinformation are used to neutralize condemnation and deny accountability. The paper explores how psychopathic power—manifested in authoritarian tendencies, rejection of oversight, and overt defiance of democratic norms—enables the establishment of what scholars have termed a ‘Mafia State.’ The analysis indicates that a “one-size-fits-all” conceptualization of white-collar crime as proposed by offense-based definitions, fails to account for the distinct nature and extent of elite political criminality.

Authors

• Henry N. Pontell, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / University of California, Irvine

• Adam Kavon Ghazi-Tehrani, Indiana University

• Christopher Contreras, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Robert Tillman, St. John's University