CRIME IN HIGH PLACES

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-6136(2000)0000002015
• Pages: 281-300
• Published date: 20 December 2000
• Date: 20 December 2000
• Author: David O. Friedrichs

CRIME IN HIGH PLACES: A

CRIMINOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON

THE CLINTON CASE

David O. Friedrichs

ABSTRACT

Crime in high places – including alleged presidential crime – has been

largely neglected by criminologists. A newly emerging integrative

criminology, as articulated by Gregg Barak, provides one point of

departure for exploring crime in high places. In the present article some

dimensions of a traditional criminological approach are identified and

discussed. The case of President Clinton is explored as a means of

demonstrating both the value of and the limitations of a criminological

analysis of crime in high places. It also reveals some of the benefits and

costs of exposing such crime. A deeper understanding of crime in high

places requires an integrated criminology drawing upon traditional

criminological concerns as well as insights from many different dis-

ciplines.

INTRODUCTION

The relative neglect of crime in high places by criminologists is surely one of

the most enduring paradoxes of the discipline.1Some dimensions of this

paradox are addressed here.2The case of President Clinton – a case of various

alleged crimes – serves as a focus for illustrating some of the key issues

Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Volume 2, pages 281–300.

Copyright © 2000 by Elsevier Science Inc.

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ISBN: 0-7623-0680-7

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involved. Insofar as the president may be said to occupy ‘the highest place’ in

American society his case has both unique elements and elements in common

with other cases of crime in high places.

Why is crime in high places – and presidential crime in particular – so

neglected by criminologists? Some criminologists have attended to presidential

crime – e.g. William Chambliss (1988), David Simon (1996) and Frank Hagan

(1997) – although much of what is written about such crime (or alleged crime)

takes the form of exposing and discussing specific cases and circumstances.3I

have in earlier work attempted to identify the reasons for the general neglect of

crime in high places, but briefly stated this neglect can be attributed to:

ideological resistance; professional socialization; lack of payoff in career

terms; absence of funding; methodological barriers; and the ultimate complex-

ity of such crime (Friedrichs, 1995, 1996a). Much of the alleged wrong-doing

of the president and others in high places may be viewed as something other

than crime. In this same vein, one response to the allegations of presidential

wrong-doing is to view such wrong-doing as a proper concern for journalists,

political scientists, and historians, but not for criminologists. Possibly this low

level of attention assumes that criminological analysis has little if anything to

add to an understanding of such wrong-doing that cannot be gained from other

disciplinary vantage points. Nevertheless it is intrinsically remarkable if

criminology has a bottomless well of analysis applicable to the delinquency of

inner city youths and relatively little to contribute to the analysis of crimes of

the most powerful adults in our society. Of course we have by now a substantial

literature on white collar crime, and some work on state crime or governmental

crime, but a far more modest literature on crime at the very top (e.g. see

Friedrichs, 1996b, 1998). Yet the direct and residual costs of crime in high

places are immense.

INTEGRATING CRIMINOLOGY AND DISINTEGRATED

CRIMINOLOGY

Can crime in high places be understood, or explained, by criminological

theory? Virtually all broad surveys of criminological theory begin with an

acknowledgment of the almost bewildering number of different theories. The

testing of at least many of these theories has been a major criminological

exercise through much of the 20th century. Toward century’s end an

intensification of efforts to integrate different theories has taken place (e.g.

Arrigo 1995; Bernard & Snipes, 1996; Messner, Krohn & Liska, 1989;

Vaughan, 1997).4Gregg Barak (1998), in Integrating Criminologies, provides

us with arguably the most thorough effort at integration to date. I take the

282 DAVID O. FRIEDRICHS