Criminology of Corruption

The essence of this book is to apply relevant sociological and criminological theoretical approaches to the problem of corruption. The inspiration behind this book comes from Huisman and Vande Walle (2010) and the aim is to produce a text that I hope is useful to both those with knowledge of sociology and criminology and those with knowledge of corruption but rarely both. Most theoretical approaches that explain corruption fall under the disciplines of political science and economics with some reference to sociology and/or criminology. This book is an attempt to address this imbalance. This is not a criticism of the corruption literature but a contribution to the debates regarding international corruption. As such, this book expands on the theoretical frameworks currently used in the corruption literature and helps broaden the discussion on why and how individuals, organizations and states commit corrupt acts. Political science and economics focus on the measurement of corruption and on strategies of prevention and view offenders as mostly rational actors. This echoes some criminological approaches—such as rational choice (Wilson and Herrnstein 1985) and routine activity (Cohen and Felson 1979), but these, in both the corruption and criminology literature, do not really focus on why individuals and organizations resist corruption, since acts are considered only as rational and self-interested. In the literature on rational criminological approaches and corruption the primary focus is on making it difficult for such acts to occur by changing processes and structures to prevent access to openings and avenues of corruption.

In this chapter I emphasize the usefulness of sociological and criminological theoretical approaches to help explain corruption. This chapter therefore draws on the sociology/criminology literature, placing corruption into a social and political context which highlights the complex nature of what ‘corruption’ is or how it is defined and viewed depending on the academic discipline. In attempting to define any concept, act or term and articulate it in such a way that it is understood, particularly for those unfamiliar with the field of study, is a difficult task. This is particularly so with corruption (Heywood 2015). Any definition, as noted by Philp (2015), can have two elements: it can articulate the import and use of a word, and it can act as a tool to help explain its meaning; the social sciences are primarily concerned with the latter. Understood as a tool, a definition aims to identify a set of criteria that suggests necessary and sufficient conditions for an act to occur. These criteria, however, differ depending on the focus of the discipline and also the theoretical approach.

It was discussed in Chap. 2 that no international consensus existed concerning a definition of corruption. This makes the subject difficult to study empirically. Furthermore, there are also often no witnesses who are unaware they are a victim of corruption. However, understanding the level of corruption is important; if corruption can be measured, regardless of how approximate the data might be, it can be learned which factors are potentially involved in any reduction of its incidence (Collier 2000; Heywood 2015). Measurement is therefore critical, providing some benchmark of progress, understanding its extent, and identifying what effective factors reduced its rate of incidence, if any. This chapter therefore examines the various efforts that have been made, both historically and contemporarily (Hough 2015), to gauge the prevalence of corruption, its impact on people and the effectiveness of anti-corruption initiatives and reforms.

In this chapter we primarily focus on the work of Sutherland (1939, 1947), Coleman (1992) and Ashforth and Anand (2003) and on the notion of differential association; we will also make reference to other useful theoretical approaches. Differential association emphasizes that criminality is learned in interaction with others in a process of communication, which is learned from observations of what are referred to as definitions favourable to the violation of law(s). This process includes the techniques, motives, drives, rationalizations and attitudes towards set criminal actions. For a person to commit corrupt/criminal acts there needs to be a culture of dominant attitudes that justify and rationalize corrupt/criminal acts as an acceptable way to behave. This approach could be a universal description of the aetiology of all criminal behaviour, but a key point of differential association is that all criminal behaviour is learned in a process of social interaction.

The work of Merton (1938) and his explanation for the causes of crime built on the work of Durkheim (Jones 2006), who suggested people experience anomic thoughts in times of social and economic turmoil. While human wants such as food and shelter (see Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) have remained static sudden changes in social structure lead to the decline in social regulation and hence increase social unrest. For Merton, however, a lack of legitimate opportunity for success in pursuit of the ‘American Dream’ and the ultimate aim of wealth meant that for those unable to attain this expected aim an illegitimate route to success potentially beckoned. This condition was or is a permanent part of capitalist society and not a sudden change to the social and economic fabric of society as presented by Durkheim. Acquiring wealth in the USA was and perhaps still is portrayed as more than ambition: it is equated with personal value and social status (Jones 2006). It was the disjunction between culturally induced appetites for wealth and the chances of success that brought about strain. It is this strain of cultural aims of material wealth and available avenues for it to be legitimately achieved that is the thrust of this chapter, with a focus on Merton (1938), Agnew (1992), Schoepfer and Piquero (2006) and Langton and Piquero (2007).

Sometimes presented as part of a chapter on social control in text books I have instead dedicated a separate chapter here to the concept of drift and techniques of neutralization that have relevance in explaining corruption. As with control theory (see Chap. 7), Sykes and Matza (1957) sought to explain why people that lived predominantly in slums in the USA had a lack of legitimate economic opportunity and were surrounded by crime yet moved away from delinquency and acts of crime as they matured. Was delinquency a period of transition from adolescence to adulthood, or some temporary aberration? Do we therefore drift in and out of delinquency and crime? If this was the case how did people that mostly, but not always, conform to the law deal with this? Sykes and Matza (1957) explained this by suggesting that conventional social norms consisted of learning excuses or ‘techniques of neutralization’ which permitted violations in certain cases without rejecting conventional behaviour completely. It is this drift and the techniques of neutralization which is the focus of attention here, but where useful I also refer to Dittenhofer (1995) and Zeiltin’s (2001) syndrome of injustice and dissatisfaction.

To conform and abide by the law(s) of a country was for many years considered an axiom in criminology. The focus was on explaining criminal behaviour as one possessed by evil spirits, biological defects, personality disorders, community social disorganization, subcultures of life and inequality of economic opportunity. However, the most important step in a solution to a problem is to ask the ‘right’ questions about it, and for many years, in attempting to explain ‘crime’, assumptions about human nature and social order considered conformity to be the natural order for the majority of its citizens, and thus focussed on non-conformity and the ‘problem of crime’ rather than why people adhered to the law (Lilly et al. 1989). The approaches that fall under the umbrella of control theory instead suggested that crime and delinquency is to be expected unless the sociocultural controls—family, teachers, police—are operating effectively in preventing crime (Reiss 1949, 1951; Nye 1958; Reckless 1967; Hirschi 1969; Hagan 1989). It is these approaches we now consider in trying to understand corruption.

Theoretical approaches attempting to explain crime as a biological, psychological or social problem associated with offenders often ignore the way crime, real or imagined, is constructed. Labelling (see Chap. 9) makes some attempt to correct this oversight by explaining the process and its consequences and appreciation for the way in which political interests and power affects social reaction, but does little to explain the struggles between individuals and/or sets of people in terms of power differentials. This chapter reaches beyond labelling and considers those theoretical approaches that fall under the umbrella of conflict. The sources of these conflicts, how they are developed and the elimination of them are all considered by drawing on the work of Bonger (1916), Sellin (1939), Vold (1958), Dahrendorf (1958), Turk (1969), Chambliss (1962), Quinney (1969) and Taylor et al. (1973). The main thrust of this chapter is explaining conflict under capitalism, which is what the above authors discussed rather than dictatorships or an absolute monarchy, even though there are power differentials in all systems and corrupt individuals and organizations.

For many of us the criminal justice system is seen as necessary for preventing crime; it is sometimes credited with reducing crime by deterrence, rehabilitation and incapacitation. Those embracing the theoretical approach of labelling are vigorously critical of this line of reasoning, and suggest that rather than prevent crime the criminal justice system is part of the problem by labelling people as criminals. This labelling helps anchor people in ‘criminal careers’ rather than restrain illegal conduct. The system of criminal justice and state intervention is considered to be dangerously criminogenic. Known as the ‘societal reaction’ to crime, it was made popular in the 1960s and early 1970s by Becker (1963), Erikson (1966) and Kitsuse (1964) and focusses on the social construction of crime, what is crime and how it is linked to societal reaction.

Martinson (1974: 25) declared that ‘with few and isolated exceptions, rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so far have had no appreciable effect on recidivism’. This ‘nothing works’ statement affected the claims that modern democratic states had the capacity to rehabilitate and/or treat offenders and recidivism. With officially recorded crime increasing the social/bio-psychological approaches that had dominated the discourse on crime for many years were challenged by ‘right realism’, which proposed that the causes of crime are within the individual rather than biological or caused by inequality in the social structure. Instead of theoretical debates on why people commit crimes (even though right realism is a theory as to why people commit crime) this line of thought favoured a pragmatic and realistic approach to crime prevention. The notion of individual responsibility therefore was embedded as a central tenet of a range of political and policy approaches associated with a conservative view of personal responsibility, behaviour and accountability, with the criminal law defined by the state and its composition as non-problematic with a focus predominantly on street crime. These views are expressed in what is referred to as socio-biological (Wilson and Herrnstein 1985), rational choice (Clarke 1980; Cornish and Clarke 1986) and stress that significant and meaningful reduction can be achieved by accepting and recognizing that crime is a quasi-economic endeavour. Since individuals are seen as rational, swift punishment, mostly incarceration, was suggested as it would deter and incapacitate offenders.

The whole of this chapter is dedicated to the theoretical approach which falls under the umbrella of right realism because of its potential to explain acts of corruption even though this was not its intended purpose. As with the work of Wilson and Herrnstein (1985), Clarke (1980) and Cornish and Clarke (1986) discussed in Chap. 10, routine activity developed under the same social and political circumstances that sought to explain criminal behaviour. The focus here is mostly on the work of Cohen and Felson (1979) but, where relevant, reference is made to other sources.

In Chap. 1 it was made clear that the essence of this book is to apply sociological and criminological theoretical approaches to the problem of corruption and produce a text that is useful to both those with knowledge of sociology and criminology and those with knowledge of corruption, but rarely both. A common theme has been that corruption is committed by individuals, multinationals and states, alone or in concert with one another. As such, it is hoped that the issues, debates and examples used will increase the analysis and criticism of corruption and the limited sanctions often employed to deter future acts.