The purpose of this article is to highlight the use of the term “corruption crimes” as a term situated between conceptual illiteracy and instrumentality. Within this framework, the epistemological implications of the use of this term are examined, along with related conceptual misformulations such as “criminological times of corruption” and “major corruption”, which fall within the same framework of conceptual illiteracy. The analysis demonstrates that these terms do not merely constitute lexical inaccuracies, but rather conceptual constructions of theoretical and methodological distortion, arising either from an inability to distinguish between concepts or from the pursuit of specific instrumental objectives. In this sense, a scientific approach to the phenomenon of corruption requires disengagement from such schemata and the reorientation of analysis to the level of its forms and their impacts on social coexistences. 

Keywords: Phenomenon of corruption, forms of corruption, conceptual illiteracy, homo corruptus, social coexistence, corruption crimes, epistemology.