Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State: A Criminological Approach to the Problem of Power

In Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State, originally published in 1950, Alex Comfort discusses the relationship between crime and power, and traces the mechanisms which may lead to delinquent behaviour by those in office. In the early twentieth century, the literature of abnormal behaviour contained many hints of identity between the psychogenesis of crime and the psychogenesis of political power, and with the recognition of “war crimes”, and the possible criminality of governments,...