Public and Private Policing of Financial Crimes: the Struggle for Co-ordination

The purpose of doing this is to move our attention, both theoretically and empirically, away from looking solely at the police as deliverers of “policing” and more in the direction of the web of police, non-police agencies (like financial regulators and departmental investigators in the UK), global and local private interveners (like payment card systems, banks, and insurance companies). Design/Methodology/Approach: Interviews with high officials and operational public and private sector personnel, principally in the UK but also in continental Europe, North America and Australasia. Findings: This paper deals with the evolving shape of the control of financial crimes, especially frauds. Most policing activity in the area of UK public sector fraud is undertaken not by the police but by departmental investigators; most frauds against business come to the attention of the police via corporate actors; while frauds against the public may be reported direct, or via intermediaries like credit card issuers. It is difficult for public sector bodies to escape their narrow departmental orientations in developing “joint working ” in public-public partnerships. Public-private partnerships have been developing rapidly in dealing with volume frauds such as payment card and insurance frauds, but less rapidly in more elite white-collar crime areas such as management fraud, which are less predictable and where elites resist accountability. Practical implications: It is misconceived to look only at public police activity when assessing the scope and impact of fraud control. The research shows that considerable efforts are made by the police and different parts of the public and the private sector in the UK to harmonise intelligence, but scarcity of investigative resources means that both the private and public sectors are frustrated in getting action on their intelligence products. UDC: 343.37:351.74/.7