Confronting the Growing Challenge of Economic Crime

In this edition of the University of Portsmouth's Interdisciplinary Webinar Series, Leïla Choukroune, Professor of International Law and Director of the Thematic Area in Democratic Citizenship hosts a presentation by Professor Mark Button, Director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Portsmouth.

New ways of measuring crime have illustrated significant changes in the profile of crime during the last two decades; largely as a consequence of some of the extensive technological changes. Economic crimes such as fraud, corruption, money laundering, IP crime and certain cyber-dependent crimes have been found to be far more numerous and costly to society than the traditional volume crimes of burglary, theft and robbery. The state policing structures dealing with these changes, however, have remained largely unchanged in the UK, with only relatively minor reforms, such as the creation of Action Fraud. Filling some of the gap, private policing, which has had a longstanding role in this area, has flourished further.

In this presentation Professor Mark Button will explore the changing nature of crime and the structures of policing directed at them. Some of the significant questions of accountability and justice of a plural response are raised, alongside more radical questions of whether the structures of state policing and governance of the private sector in the UK need to be radically reconfigured. In doing so, Professor Button will explore some of the more fundamental ideas for reform that have emerged.

Watch 'Research Futures: The changing nature of crime and policing' on YouTube