Crimes of the Powerful

FaculteitFaculty of Law, Economics and Governance

NiveauMaster

Studiejaar2026-2027

Beschrijving

Course goals

After this course:

The students have knowledge and understanding of the different types of the crimes of the powerful, including state, corporate and white collar crimes, their nature and the motivations of actors involved, and the nature of victimization.
The students have gained insights into specific forms of these crimes, including genocide, war crimes, state violence, political corruption, corporate violence and fraud, and financial crimes.
The students are able to analyze and critically reflect on the different approaches to tackle, respond, control or prevent different crimes of the powerful.
The students are able to present the outcome of research on the topic, both orally and in written form.

Content

There is a growing concern about the crimes of the powerful (Pearce, 1976), i.e. crimes and harmful acts committed by people of high social status for personal or organizational gain. Despite it is widely accepted that these crimes and harms inflicted by ‘trusted criminals’ produce by far the highest and most insidious levels of victimization – in terms of number of fatalities, injuries, illnesses and economic losses – criminology still devotes 5% of its time writing, researching and teaching on the crimes of the powerful (McGurrin et al., 2013). The course will have three modules. The first module (3 lectures) serves as a theoretical framework of the types of crimes dealt in this course. The concept of crimes of the powerful will be discussed in the first lecture. Different crimes and harms perpetrated by state officials (state crime), including genocide, war crimes, state violence and terror and political corruption will be tackled in lecture 2. Lecture 3 will focus on the crimes committed by legitimate entrepreneurs and organizations (white collar and corporate crimes) and particularly by large corporations, reviewing the explanatory theories at micro and macro level, crime and harm typologies, and the extent and nature of victimization. The second module (3 lectures) will deal with concrete types or cases of crimes of the powerful. Lecture 4 will focus on financial crimes, including the so-called ‘crimes of globalization’ by world financial institutions. Lecture 5 will highlight different forms of serious fraud by organizations, while lecture 6 will focus on gendered forms of (institutional) violence. Finally, a third module in this course (2 lectures) will deal with the main responses (regulation, compliance, criminal law, naming and shaming, CSR, etc.) to tackle different crimes of the powerful (lectures 8 and 9).

Place of the course in the curriculum:

Elective course in Master Global Criminology

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