The Savings and Loan Scandal of the 1980s was the biggest crime ever perpetrated in the United States. While several studies have examined the causes of the crime ( e.g., deregulation, increase of insurance coverage to $100,000, fluctuations in the economic markets, greed), few scholars to date have studied state intervention in the industry after the crime had been committed. We explore the questions of when and how state managers intervene in the actions of the powerful by supplementing state theory with the literature on the social construction of social problems.