els. Finally, in 2016, the United States Department of Justice implemented a policy change that requires person-first language when describing offenders: instead of “convicted felon,” one would say “person with a felony conviction” (Denver et al., 2017). This change in language is meant to reduce the chance of a label sticking to an individual. As history has shown, labels often do not stick to powerful offenders (Gottschalk, 2016). This is where theories regarding crimes of the powerful come into play. Crimes of the Powerful ​Background Crimes of the powerful are ill-defined, as the powerful are the ones who define crimes and decide punishments, and they are not likely to punish themselves or their cohorts. Theorists have tried to conceptualize crimes of the powerful through anomie (normless corporations) and control (general theory of crime) (Ruggiero, 2015). Sutherland has been frequently cited for his definition of crimes of the powerful that considers crime as a norm infraction: The essential characteristic of crime is that it is a behavior which is prohibited by the state as an injury to the state…The two abstract criteria… as necessary elements in a definition of crime are legal descriptions of an act as socially harmful, and legal provision of a penalty for the act (Sutherland, 1949, p. 9). Sutherland’s definition includes corporations as recidivist offenders, with privilege instigating the learning processes that lead to crime (Ruggiero, 2015). ​Despite the difficulties and ambiguities in its conception and definition, crimes of the powerful have merit in considering structural power theories of crime. Hagan and Thio assert that those with power and privilege have>