ABSTRACT
“There is no doubt that Capone was a powerful man” (Pearce 1976). I reached a similar conclusion that imperialism is the general character of criminality because what every criminal has in common is the power to invade the spaces of others (Agozino 2003). Box (1983) also demonstrated that power is more of a general cause of crime than poverty, contrary to the assumptions of conventional criminology. This chapter rethinks this innovative theory of crimes of the powerful from the race–class–gender articulation paradigm that is relatively neglected in the modes of production approach of Pearce. The chapter emphasizes the significance of the articulation or intersectionality perspective for the increased radicalization of theories of crimes of the powerful. If the theory of crimes of the powerful had gone beyond the analysis of class oppression to also interrogate racism and sexism, the result would have been a more robust theory. The chapter reviews the contemporary debates about crimes of the powerful and rethinks the policy implications of the theory of the withering away of the law for renewing the theory of crimes of the powerful. The chapter concludes by briefly recommending the Africana philosophy of non-violence as a suitable framework for penal abolitionism.
