Bill Cosby, Jimmy Savile and Gerrit Achterberg lived in different periods, in the US, UK, and the Netherlands. They were heroes because of what they accomplished during their professional careers but all three turned out to have committed serious crimes. Disclosure is painful, not only for the hero who comes to fall but also for the community that finds itself redefining moral standards when losing a celebrated insider. For this reason, the crimes of these three men have been concealed and kept secret for years. In comparing the three cases, this article tries to find out who decides on keeping the hero on his feet, how this is done, and if this changes over time.

In the introductory article of this special issue on the downfall of popular heroes, some relevant aspects in relation to the general theme are explored. Who are considered to be heroes and which elements are relevant to understand the process heroes may go through when they start sliding on the slippery slope, and, eventually, fall into the abyss of disgrace? What is the role that (social) media play in the demolition of their reputation and how do heroes perceive their own downfall and respond to it? The theoretical concept that is used in this article is Howard Becker’s master status and, in particular, the notion that the master status of a fallen hero surpasses and contaminates all other statuses, previously possessed by an individual.

The post-colonial re-evaluation of prominent figures in Dutch history has been resisted fiercely in the public sphere. This article raises the question how lives from the colonial era that are a source of national pride, but are also tainted by their implication in the history of slavery, colonialism and racism can be presented in a way that does justice to their historical context. Jacobus Capitein, who was first enslaved and later became an advocate for slavery in the 1740s, was initially regarded a hero in the eighteenth century, but has received a far more critical evaluation since the second half of the twentieth century. This article takes the way in which professional historians and heritage institutions have dealt with the complex and layered life story of Jacobus Capitein as a model for approaching the lives of the canonical figures of Dutch Atlantic history.

In criminology, it is generally assumed that the high social status of white-collar offenders prevents them of being targeted by criminal law enforcement. But when they do, they suffer greater social and economic damage because of this high social status. Empirical research on the consequences of criminal law enforcement and conviction for white-collar offenders is scarce, and limited to the US and the UK. This paper used biographies of convicted former executives in business and public office in the Netherlands, to analyse these consequences and the process of the ‘fall from grace’ of white-collar offenders. The consequences are described in four life-domains: health, the private sphere, the occupational sphere and the social sphere. The results show that Dutch executives, in line with findings for the Anglo-American white-collar offenders, experience status degradation and suffer much collateral damage of criminal law enforcement. After the initial horror of imprisonment, they endure prison life fairly well. Individual competences and remaining social and economic capital enable them to return to normal life, although they cannot return to pre-conviction levels of social status.

The relocation or destruction of the monuments of Soviet heroes in our times is in fact a process of replacement of one myth by the other. The commemoration of historical events has become the subject of struggle and manipulation of political power. The Soviet era is today the subject of divergent interpretations, ranging from nostalgia to denial, depending on the cultural, ethnic and socio-economic context in which these memories take place. In this article the processes are analysed, in which Lithuanians and Georgians change the meaning of symbols of their past in the attempt to redefine history and determine the fate of their fallen heroes.

It is common knowledge that the police in executing its duty as “rule enforcer” disposes of certain discretionary powers. Because of the heavy workload and the often ambiguous legislation, the police officer needs to decide on a selective basis when, how and towards whom he/she will act. These discretionary powers are present in proactive identity controls and already provoked strong reactions in the past. The media accused the police of over-controlling certain minority groups. With this ethnographic study into the Belgian practice of identity controls, in which we observe and interview police officers, we wish to get a better view of the way in which identity controls are executed. Although the research is still ongoing, we have already been able to establish that the decision-making process is based on a police feeling which police officers claim to have and which is formed by (a combination of) different triggers attracting their attention.

In this article, Cannabis Social Clubs (CSCs) are understood as being social movement organizations advocating for the legalization of a closed, cooperative and non-profit model for cannabis supply among adult users. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Belgium, this paper analyses how one becomes a leader of a CSC as well as the functional role assumed by those individuals. It further unveils how Belgian CSC leaders’ engagement in those organizations and in the wider cannabis movement is perceived. We identify and discuss the techniques employed by those key activists to manage cannabis-related stigma drawing on a framework developed by Lindblom and Jacobsson’s (2014). While CSCs might contribute to normalizing cannabis use and supply, our analysis suggests that CSC leaders face some degree of stigmatization, shifting between conformist and confrontational techniques to manage the perceived cannabis-related stigma. Building on the case of Belgian CSC leaders, this paper makes a contribution to the understanding of an under-researched movement, and the role of the leaders within it, expanding also the application of Lindblom and Jacobsson’s (2014) framework to a novel area of activism.

In the introductory article of this special issue on ‘moral entrepreneurs’ in the 21st century, we situate different notions of moral entrepreneurship. Particularly foregrounding Howard Becker’s definition, we discuss its origins and use in subsequent research. The question that we’ve put forward in the ‘call for papers’ for this special issue is to what extent the notion is relevant in contemporary research and who is considered as ‘moral entrepreneur’. The research papers discuss ‘entrepreneurial’ practices of university ethic commissions, medical professionals, police officers and the leaders of cannabis social clubs. We conclude that the underlying rationales and discourses of moral entrepreneurs that the authors identify, reflect contemporary neoliberal ideals.

In this article, I am using Becker’s concept of moral entrepreneur to analyse the role of pain specialists in the labelling process, which has led to the normalisation of the use of opioid painkillers in the United States and ultimately to the death over 200.000 Americans. In general, the literature on labelling centres on crusading reformers, and the criminalisation and stigmatisation of transgressive behaviour. Here I will focus on the moral entrepreneurship of medical experts. What was their role in the normalisation process of opioid painkiller use and are there any similarities with the strategies of crusading reformers? My findings, based on qualitative analysis of documents such as newspaper articles and academic publications, show that, with two exceptions, pain specialists use the strategies of moral crusaders. First, in their narratives, pain specialists represented themselves as neutral objective experts without the emotional stance of moral crusaders. The second exception, which is related to the first, is that there was less emphasis in their narrative on creating villains, as they could not blame openly standard medical practice because they needed the support of the established medical world in order to normalise and legalise opioid painkillers.

For quite some years now, crimes of ‘the powerful’ have been studied by criminologists. While researching crimes of ‘the powerful’, researchers aim to maintain and safeguard their integrity and ethics. However, there seems to be a friction between, on the one hand, ethics of the researchers themselves and on the other hand, ethics (policies) of universities. Obviously, not only do they have to justify their actions and decisions to themselves and ‘science’ as a whole, they must justify their research to ethics committees (EC’s) of universities. It could result in complex and difficult situations when researchers suspect that EC’s themselves may be instruments and products of the powerful groups they are studying. In that case, EC’s might undermine ethics and research integrity themselves. What do certain EC- ‘conditions’ look like for research ethics and to which extent do they have to be adjusted or reconsidered when criminologists are researching ‘the powerful’? The key question that will be answered in this contribution is as follows: how can criminologist (re)act ethically responsibly when confronted with (un)ethical committees? To answer this and other relevant questions, after reviewing literature, we reflect on a biographical study of a legal arms trader. We then elaborate on the ‘ethics creep’ (Haggerty, 2004) that seems to haunt social sciences nowadays.

Most state-corporate crime research is focused on crime or harmful outcomes in or by democratic states. The goal of this article is to investigate the applicability of this concept to relations between economic actors and non-democratic state actors. The concept of state-corporate crime is applied to three contexts in which corporations have become involved in international crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Each representing a turning point in the academic and public perception of ‘business and human rights’, the contexts that are analysed are Nazi Germany (1993-1945), Apartheid South Africa (1948-1994) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; 1996-now). It is concluded that in non-democratic states with totalitarian of authoritarian regimes (such as Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa), the concept of state-corporate crime is applicable and explanatory. In such strong states, economic and state actors make use of mutual benefits while, on the whole, state-interests prevail. As a result, the harmful outcome of the dynamics between corporations and states can best be described as corporate facilitated state crime. In weak states (such as the DRC) economic actors are generally more powerful while their involvement in international crimes also runs via non-state actors. The blurred lines between economic actors and state actors (and their interests) makes it difficult to apply the concept, in its different forms, to state-corporate cooperation in weak states and ‘new’ wars.

Criminologists decided over the last few decades that it is important to study international crimes, meaning genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, from a criminological perspective. With the international community taking up the responsibility to protect populations from these crimes and the prominence of international criminal justice on the world stage, it is argued that international criminology should embrace international relations more as an important sub-discipline.

Generally, large listed companies and banks immersed in a ‘risk and win’-culture do not have to deal with ‘deprivation of resources’ which may trigger violations of the law. The anomie-theory of Merton does not seem to fit in this context. It is more obvious that the pressure to realize lofty ambitions is the trigger for potential violations of the law. I therefore work out a ‘post-Mertonian’ anomie-concept using the ‘European Durkheim’ to examine some excessive tendencies of an originally American ‘risk and win’-culture. The aim is to work towards an anomie-theory of power illusions that makes sense in the context of corporate crime. The leading question is: which anomic attitudes prevail in an over-ambitious corporate culture and which aspirations and rationalizations can be distinguished? It is argued that an approach focused on CEO-personality traits is too limited and that the sociological approaches of Durkheim and Shover offer many points of departure to construct a plausible anomie-theory. The dimensions of that theory have been taken from studies which focus at two criminogenic norm-systems: an ‘ethos of winning at any price’ and an ‘ethos of entitlement’.

This article starts off with an exposé of what ‘theoretical innovation’ means in the social sciences. The development of criminology is considered to be a result of (1) historical and cultural developments, (2) political-economic developments, (3) developments in other academic disciplines and (4) reactions to or specifications of other theoretical perspectives in criminology itself. Paradigm shifts in criminology are characterised by an individualistic and positivist aetiological turn in its early days; a sociological turn towards a ‘criminology of the lawmaker’ from the late 1950s on; and a return to positivism in the neoliberal and neoconservative turn of the 1990s. The new century ushers in a new epistemological break in criminology, in which globalisation, global warming, migration, human rights and the implications of cyberspace ‘force’ criminologists to overcome their anthropocentric and colonial character biases.