Table Of ContentCorrupt Capital
This book offers a deep dive into the social, political, and economic forces
that make white-collar crime and corruption a staple feature of the nightlife
economy. The author, a former bouncer-turned-bartender of party bars and
nightclubs in a large U.S. city, draws from an auto-ethnographic case study
to describe and explain the routine and embedded nature of corruption and
deviance among the regulators and the regulated in the nightlife environment.
This text offers a contemporary and incisive theoretical framework on the
criminogenic features and structural contradictions of capitalism. The author
both describes and explains how the dominant political economy is rife with
structural contradictions that, in turn, generate various manifestations of
white-collar crime, organizational deviance, and public corruption. The author
uses the bar and nightlife environment to empirically anchor these claims.
Methodologically, the research is innovative in advancing inquiry into ethically
and logistically challenging environments. The style of writing and framing of
the text is one that punches upward and avoids the voyeuristic and reductionist
tropes historically associated with “dangerous fieldwork.”
Through a range of disciplinary perspectives, C orrupt Capital offers both
scholarly rigor and inviting prose to advance our understanding of crimes of
the relatively powerful and powerless alike. An accessible and compelling text,
this book will appeal to readers in criminology, sociology, law and society,
political science, and all those interested in learning about the relationship
between power, law, and routinized corruption in the nightlife economy.
Kenneth Sebastian León is an Assistant Professor of Latino and Caribbean
Studies and a faculty affiliate of the Criminal Justice Program at Rutgers
University – New Brunswick. He specializes in crimes of the powerful,
empirically studying how criminal justice policies contribute to racial capitalist
harms and state-corporate crime. Previously, León was a Visiting Assistant
Professor in the Department of Sociology at George Washington University
(GWU) and a contracted researcher of transnational organized crime at the
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs – National Institute
of Justice (2016–2017). León serves as the Managing Editor for the J ournal of
White Collar and Corporate Crime, a peer-reviewed publication affiliated with
the American Society of Criminology.
Crimes of the Powerful
Gregg Barak
Eastern Michigan University, USA
Penny Green
Queen Mary University of London, UK
Tony Ward
Northumbria University, UK
Crimes of the Powerful encompasses the harmful, injurious, and victimizing
behaviors perpetrated by privately or publicly operated businesses, corpora-
tions, and organizations as well as the state mediated administrative, legalistic,
and political responses to these crimes.
The series draws attention to the commonalities of the theories, practices,
and controls of the crimes of the powerful. It focuses on the overlapping
spheres and inter-related worlds of a wide array of existing and recently devel-
oping areas of social, historical, and behavioral inquiry into the wrongdoings
of multinational organizations, nation-states, stateless regimes, illegal networks,
financialization, globalization, and securitization.
T hese examinations of the crimes of the powerful straddle a variety of related
disciplines and areas of academic interest, including studies in criminology and
criminal justice; law and human rights; conflict, peace, and security; economic
change, environmental decay, and global sustainability.
S tate Crime and Civil Activism
O n the Dialectics of Repression and Resistance
P enny Green and Tony Ward
S tate Violence, Torture, and Political Prisoners
O n the Role Played by Amnesty International in Brazil during the
Dictatorship (1964–1985)
R enata Meirelles
C orrupt Capital
A lcohol, Nightlife, and Crimes of the Powerful
K enneth Sebastian León
F or more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Crimes-of-the-Powerful/book-series/COTP
Corrupt Capital
Alcohol, Nightlife, and Crimes
of the Powerful
Kenneth Sebastian León
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Kenneth Sebastian León
The right of Kenneth Sebastian León to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-18581-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-19698-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Disclaimer
This book makes reference to Metropolis East, a medium- to large-sized city
located in the Eastern Standard Time Zone of the United States. Publicly
available information from various jurisdictions is used to provide supporting
evidence and supplemental context. Any resemblance between Metropolis East
and specific people, places, or practices is purely coincidental.
I n memory of Bill Chambliss and Steven “Wizard”
Broderick
Contents
List of tables viii
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xi
1 Alcohol, nightlife, and crimes of the powerful 1
2 Science, politics, and imperial criminology 25
3 White-collar crime and corruption: back to basics 50
4 Getting behind the bar . . . and staying there – on studying
the nightlife economy 70
5 Metropolis East money games 98
6 Corrupt capital 117
Epilogue 144
I ndex 146
Tables
0.1 A sample of guiding texts on crimes of the powerful xiii
4.1 Occupational roles included in the study 73
5.1 Crimes of the marginally powerful, or blue-collar crimes 105
Acknowledgments
When Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up” plays on my computer, a few people
immediately come to mind. The largest share of credit and blame goes to
Maya P. Barak, whose friendship is responsible for converting an obscure idea
into a dissertation proposal. I am indebted to Ed Maguire, who supported
my research and graduate school trajectory and set an example for the kind
of dissertation adviser I hope to be. David Friedrichs and Gregg Barak each
provided invaluable subject matter expertise, personal guidance, and profes-
sional mentorship in ways that made this book possible. This project has been
my attempt to honor the influence of Bill Chambliss, who passed away during
my doctoral studies and whose mentorship and writing still guide me to this
day. When Bill died, I might have been academically lost at sea had it not been
for Ivy Ken and Marty Schwartz. Ivy and Marty shepherded my path in a way
that validated my own intellectual struggles and curiosities. They knew many
of my biographical and personal quirks and biases and encouraged me to always
play to my strengths and take stock of my limitations. Fran Buntman, Maranda
Ward, and Daniel Martinez also inspired and supported me in ways that made
my book and academic journey both possible and enjoyable. Thank you to Ana
Castro, Jon Gould, Shelley Morris, David Pitts, Vicky Wilkins, and the faculty,
administrators, and support staff of the American University (AU) School of
Public Affairs and the Neil and Ann Kerwin Doctoral Fellowship, which gen-
erously supported this research. A special shout-out is owed to my colleagues in
the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Program in Criminal
Justice at Rutgers University for giving me the professional space to see this
project through to completion, and for providing a stimulating and supporting
intellectual environment for me to continue developing as an interdisciplinary
scholar. Pernille Chambliss, Carlos Decena, Laura Gimenez, Robert Holup,
Ivan Marchena, Lauren Martin, Jody Miller, Juan Osuna, Mariana Pereira, and
Normandie Peterson each offered critical forms of advice, encouragement, and
wisdom that helped me navigate different phases of this work. Many thanks to
the Editorial Team at Apex CoVantage, Jennifer Bonnar, Brian Craig, Bharat
Bhatt, and Janani Thirumalai, and to Penny Green, Tony Ward, Jake Rain-
bow, Jessica Phillips, Tom Sutton, and the Routledge Series on Crimes of the
Powerful team for their support, enthusiasm, and understanding of the various
challenges inherent in writing my first book.
