A Current and Future Challenge to Contemporary Policing: The Changing Profile of Crime and the Police Response. Examples of Policing Fraud in Two Police Jurisdictions: England and Wales and South Korea

Abstract

This article adds to a growing volume of literature that examines the state of the response to fraud by law enforcement in England and Wales. It highlights the failure to meet the expected standards of service for the victims of these crimes, police decision-making which is too often dismissive of fraud and quick to withhold resources, and ineffective criminal investigations because of a fundamental deficit in the skill-set needed to catch the offenders. These failings are writ large against a backdrop of crime statistics which show that more people experience fraud and cybercrime than any other type of crime. The gap between problem and answer, in simple terms, comes down to the predominance of a ‘new’ type of crime that calls for a radical transformation in structures, workforce, and culture, but which the police continue to manage with structures and resources that are largely unchanged. The global nature of the...