White Collar Crime: Hard lines
The White Paper "One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organised Crime" is a strange document. It announces the creation of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which has been tasked with defeating organised crime and given commensurate powers, yet it seeks views on these...
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| Published in: | The Lawyer 2004-11, p.30 |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | The White Paper "One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organised Crime" is a strange document. It announces the creation of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which has been tasked with defeating organised crime and given commensurate powers, yet it seeks views on these apparently settled proposals. The proposed changes are highly relevant to commercial/white collar crime. The creation of the SOCA seems a sensible consolidation. A cohesive national organisation with specialist independent prosecutors has the potential to engage in effective, intelligence-led detection and prevention of serious crime. It is disappointing, however, that there is no discussion at all as to the impact of the SOCA on existing agencies and police forces, nor of its accountability or independence. Many of the specific proposals concerning organised crime in the White Paper reflect the Government's openly stated desire of shifting the balance of the criminal law away from defendants. |
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| ISSN: | 0953-7902 |