By Oliver Bennett MBE, Ali Shalchi

The precise scale of economic crime in the UK is unknown, but it could run to tens or hundreds of billions of pounds per year. The extent of these crimes – which include money laundering, fraud, and corruption – led the Intelligence and Security Select Committee in its July 2020 report on Russia to note that London is considered a ‘laundromat’ for corrupt money. In December 2019 the Treasury Committee found various regulatory and legislative failings in the way in which these crimes are being tackled. It urged the Government to make improvements to the supervisory system and to introduce new powers to combat economic crime. A February 2022 Treasury Committee follow-up report concluded that the Government was still not prioritizing economic crime sufficiently. In 2019 The Financial Action Task Force (the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog) praised the UK’s efforts on the issue, but also found failings and identified a lack of resources for investigating these crimes. The Economic Crime Plan The Government agrees about the need to tackle economic crime, which it says causes “much harm to individuals and communities and damage to legitimate business and the UK’s reputation.” It set out its overall approach to tackling the issue in its July 2019 Economic Crime Plan. The Plan covers the years 2019-2022 and draws together all the work being conducted by the public and private sector. A number of the 52 actions contained in the plan may involve future legislative reforms, including changes to: • the Proceeds of Crime Act to improve how the proceeds of crime can be confiscated; • corporate criminal liability, to punish and prevent economic crimes when committed on behalf of or in the name of companies; • block company stock exchange listings on national security grounds; • improve transparency over UK property ownership; • Companies House powers to enable it strike off from its register dissolved or inactive limited partnerships. Progress with the Plan In February 2022, the Royal United Services Institute said that 40% of actions in the Plan had been completed, 17% were in progress, 23% were overdue, and 19% of actions had no due date. The Government says it is “on course to deliver 49 of the 52 actions” in the Plan. The Treasury Committee has recommended that the Plan be adapted and renewed for a further three years.   

London: UK Parliament, House of Commons Library, 2022. 22p.

By Richard Garside and Roger Grimshaw

A unique overview of the main criminal justice institutions across the three UK jurisdictions of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the combined jurisdiction of England and Wales.

• How are the main UK criminal justice institutions organised?

• How did they develop over time into their current form?

• How are they held to account?

• How can ordinary citizens challenge them and influence their work?

These are the main questions covered in Criminal justice systems in the UK.

No gold standard

Across the UK, there is no single, UK-wide criminal justice model; no ‘gold standard’ arrangement. Three criminal justice jurisdictions, with different histories, structures and operations, cover the United Kingdom: the combined jurisdiction of England and Wales, and the separate jurisdictions of Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

The diverse UK criminal justice arrangements, the result of distinctive histories, cultures and politics, offer a variety of operational and reform options.

Criminal justice systems in the UK takes the varieties of criminal justice across the UK as its starting point, drawing out similarities, and identifying contrasting arrangements across the UK's nations and regions.

Criminal justice systems are under constant scrutiny. Calls for improvement and change are never far away. This report outlines a number of key mechanisms currently available in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom to hold these institutions to account and to press for change and reform.

Report structure

Criminal justice systems in the UK is divided into four main chapters, covering the police, prosecution, courts and prisons. Each chapter examines the main mechanisms for accountability and change:

• Governance

• Inspection

• Complaints

• Citizen accountability

Each chapter examines how these four main mechanisms operate across the three UK jurisdictions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

London: Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2022. 56p.

By Adam Clark

This briefing provides an overview of cybersecurity in the UK. It explains the nature of the cyber threat, including how cyber attacks work. It describes the policy and regulatory frameworks, as well areas of reform such as 'ethical hacking'.

Research Briefing

London: House of Commons Library, 2024. 68p.

 By Lara Apps and Andrew Gow  

Gender at stake critiques historians' assumptions about witch-hunting as well as their explanations for this complex and perplexing phenomenon. The authors insist on the centrality of gender, tradition and ideas about witches in the construction of the witch as a dangerous figure. They challenge the marginalisation of male witches by feminist and other historians. The book shows that large numbers of men were accused of witchcraft in their own right, in some regions, more men were accused than women. The authors analyse ideas about witches and witch prosecution as gendered artefacts of patriarchal societies under which both women and men suffered. They challenge recent arguments and current orthodoxies by applying crucial insights from feminist scholarship on gender to a selection of statistical arguments, social-historical explanations, traditional feminist history and primary sources, including trial records and demonological literature. The authors assessment of current orthodoxies concerning the causes and origins of witch-hunting will be of particular interest to scholars and students in undergraduate and graduate courses in early modern history, religion, culture, gender studies and methodology.

Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003. 201p

Edited by Jude Browne and Maeve McKeown

What is Structural Injustice? is the first edited collection to bring together the voices of leading structural injustice scholars from politics, philosophy and law to explore the concept of structural injustice which has now become a central feature of all three disciplines and is considered by many to be a ‘field of study.’ The volume features specially selected original and essential works on structural injustice. The volume provides a range of disciplinary, ontological and epistemological perspectives on what structural injustice is and includes feminist and post-colonial theories to interrogate how structural injustice exacerbates and reproduces existing inequalities and relations of power. This book aims to become a touchstone text for those interested in the different ways we can understand structural injustice, how it manifests, how it relates to other forms of injustice, who is responsible for its redress and the different ways we might go about it. This book will appeal to a wide audience of students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, as well as the general academic population, experts on structural injustice, interested practitioners in politics and members of the public.

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2024. 305p.

By Amber Evans, Strategy & Insight Manager | Fernanda Reynoso-Serna, Analyst | Freya Smith, Analyst | Dr Ellie Brown, Head of Strategy | Sophie Davis

Most people are more worried about being affected by online fraud than other crimes, such as knife crime, burglary and sexual offences, according to a new large-scale survey – which also highlights the emotional impact of being an online fraud victim. The research, funded by the Dawes Trust, was based on a nationally representative sample of over 3,313 adults across England and Wales as part of a survey conducted by data organisation WALR. The vast majority of those polled, 92%, said online fraud was a very big or quite big problem in the UK. When asked what crimes they were most worried about being affected by, 55% said online fraud, 44% burglary and 47% knife crime. The poll also found that younger people (aged 18-34) were most likely to be affected by online fraud, with 32% reporting having been a victim in the last twelve months compared to 16% of over-35s. However, half of those questioned believed the elderly were most at risk. Of those who had been victims of online fraud: 20% said their physical health had suffered, 32% reported a psychological impact, 42% were affected financially, 47% experienced an emotional impact, including feeling embarrassed, angry or ashamed. 23% of all victims said they had experienced anxiety, 12% experienced disturbed sleep and 11% experienced depression as a result of the online fraud. The survey also shows that just over half of victims reported the fraud to either the police or Action Fraud. Victims were more likely to contact their bank (41%) than to go to the police (32%) or Action Fraud (28%), the UK’s national fraud reporting centre.

London: Crest Advisory, 2023. 32p.