ABSTRACT
Whereas the previous chapter offered a structural critique of criminological and academic inquiry, this chapter focuses on the applicability of existing perspectives in explaining white-collar and corporate crime – which are two major categories of criminological phenomena that fall under the purview of crimes of the powerful. Criminological theory has historically served to convert institutional and socio-political influences on human behavior into psycho-social, cognitive, and physiological pathologies. In other words, criminological theory has overwhelmingly highlighted factors at the level of individuals and groups, as opposed to environmental, ideological, and structural forces. When taken together, criminological theory functionally represents a tautology, whereby we can always explain criminal behavior by playing a game of theoretical roulette: Maybe the explanation will be at the level of peers, parents, psychological traits, decision-making, or subculture. After covering the trajectories of white-collar and corruption scholarship, I critique some of the tautological features of criminological theory. I conclude the chapter with by emphasizing how structural contradictions theory and ultra-realism offers a compelling alternative to dominant criminological theories.
