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The corruption devil

THE interplay between a person's inherent corruptibility and the situations and contextual factors which can affect  that individual's integrity to make him or her more likely to behave in a corrupt manner is relevant in South African society today.

My favourite Calvin and Hobbes cartoon involves Calvin innocently saying to Hobbes: "Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, destruction and corruption of man?" To which Hobbes wryly replies: "I’m not sure that man needs the help."

It’s an interesting philosophical journey from that point onwards into the time old argument, which pits a person’s inherent nature against the contextual and situational factors in which they are raised and live, to explain the development of their character and personality - and how this can all go wrong.

As a forensic clinical psychologist, a large part of my professional experience lies in the field of civil and criminal law and one of my current foci involves assessment and understanding of the broad types of individuals who engage in fraudulent activities and the extent to which individual personality pathology plays a role in contributing to white-collar crime.

This is in order to aid in the identification and reduction of this activity in the workplace and within organisations. My work involves the identification of risk in organisations at the individual and group level, both at recruitment and selection as well as ongoing performance management stages.

I also engage in debt counselling for groups and individuals, and in advising on and structuring disciplinary and rehabilitative interventions for companies with regards to fraudulent behaviour and white-collar crime.

My experience and current research with regards to fraudulent behaviour indicates that one can group these offenders into two broad categories.

The first involves individuals who act corruptly on account of variable situational factors, and the second involves individuals who display features associated with an inherent dysfunctional personality.

The first group are individuals who are generally people with integrity and who would have a history of predominantly legal and moral behaviour. These are individuals who get into situations which increase their vulnerability to commit a white-collar crime.

These may include the development of a substance or gambling problem or living beyond their means and getting into severe debt.

The second group involves individuals who display consistent and chronic patterns of psychopathic personality features or personality features associated with a personality disorder.

The most prevalent personality disorders associated with this group are narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder.

When an individual commits a crime of this nature, it is useful for the organisation in which he/she is employed to understand which group he/she falls into in order to manage the person or situation in an appropriate way, as well as to identify possible future risks for the organisation itself.

When proactively profiling risks within an organisation with regards to fraudulent activities, different methods are essential in order to tap the potential challenges and dangers across both broad groups in order to identify vulnerable individuals as well as vulnerabilities within the organisational structures, processes and mechanisms.

Given the substantial increase in white-collar crime figures in South Africa over the last 10 years, it is essential to address this intensively and consistently if we are to prevent an erosion of the collective confidence in the standard and prevalence of moral and ethical behaviour in South Africa, and halt the further spread of fraudulent and corrupt activities which have such considerable financial and economic costs.

To complicate this scenario further, public perception and trust in the governmental and state sphere with regards to modelling a more rigourously ethical behaviour that conforms to a higher standard has ebbed considerably.

There has been a drastic reduction in confidence that the South African public has regarding the incorruptibility of societal structures and processes. This has in turn filtered through to a dangerous complacency and normalisation of the status quo.

Something has to be done to stop this.

 - Fin24

*Dr Giada Del Fabbro is a clinical and forensic psychologist, currently working in private practice. Views expressed are her own.

She will be examining the interplay between inherent corruptibility and the situations and contextual factors which may affect integrity and morality in the context of white-collar crime at the upcoming EthicsXchange on November 5 in Cape Town.

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