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The mammoth proportions of Public Expenditure, its accountability, its control, must be one of the biggest problems any government has had to meet. Despite all its counselling to the public spenders, its massive efforts to scale down the spending, there is extremely little to show for it. The Departments and State Services have become so large, they have outgrown government control; they are in fact forms of government in themselves. When a body established with a definite role becomes so big and powerful, as many of the authorities in the country have become, they tend to resent any form of control over them. History has many such examples in one form or another. Where an ocean divides them, the subordinate power may seek a separate nationhood for itself, as the American colonies did a couple of centuries or more ago. They chose the right moment to rebel when the home government sought to pass on extra levy on the importation of tea, which the Colonists turned into a slogan “no taxation without representation”. The truth, however, was they had outgrown the mother country and saw themselves as a new nation in a new land immensely rich in natural resources, riches all theirs for the taking. Much of the old country understood their aspirations and in the final settlement, the British were more than generous to them.

This paper seeks to explore the perceptions of both staff and patients to the involvement of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) as a response to physical assaults committed by patients. Even though the ‘zero tolerance’ policy advocates the prosecution of perpetrators of violence, problems can arise when attempting to take legal action against psychiatric patients as the displaying of violent behaviour can be due to their mental illness. Nevertheless, the impact of an assault on victims, including both patient and staff members, can be detrimental. To the best of the author's knowledge these issues have not been investigated in a women's enhanced medium secure service (WEMSS). The conclusions drawn from this research are that the majority of respondents perceived the involvement of the CJS as crucial to maintaining high levels of morale among patients and practitioners, as well as assisting in deterring patients from committing subsequent assaults. However, police reports illustrated reluctance on the part of the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to prosecute inpatients.

‘Recovering the Proceeds of Crime’, a report by the Performance and Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office, observed that, historically, there have been very few prosecutions for money laundering in England and Wales. Indeed, in the 12‐year period 1987 to 1998, there were only 357 prosecutions. By way of comparison, in 1995 there were 2,034 prosecutions for money laundering in the USA alone. Given that it is generally accepted there is a significant amount of money laundering in the UK, why is the number of prosecutions so low? There are, arguably, four principal factors which have an impact on the prosecution rate for any criminal offence and each of the four affects the prosecution rate for money laundering.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of a time‐based activity‐based costing (ABC) information system in resource planning (ABP) in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of England and Wales, a public service organisation in the United Kingdom, for the period of 2000‐2005. The aims of the study are to provide a technical review of the ABP application and to explore roles of the ABP system in achieving a “fairer” internal resource allocation and an improved understanding of business processes.

The CPS's experience of adopting an ABP system is explained through the use of a case study involving interviews, observations, work shadowing and archival data over a period of six years, 2000‐2005. The longitudinal nature of the study has enabled the researchers to align the outcome of ABP adoption with concurrent organisational changes.

The study reveals that the growing understanding of the intrinsic links between business processes and the ABP information and its rationale, which remains unchanged throughout various phases of organisational changes, has promoted a sense of stability amongst CPS staff members.

This study provides an in‐depth understanding of the practical use of ABP and its evolving roles in the face of the changing organisational environment.

This research discusses the prerequisite of the ABP system, a time‐based ABC system, and the evolving roles of ABP from a cost‐effective planning tool to a stability mechanism in face of constant organisational changes. This experience is invaluable to companies and practitioners seeking to implement a cost‐effective planning tool.

This article seeks to provide an insight into the work of an expert witness working in drug trials in Crown courts.

The approach is a case study of a single expert witness, drawing on experiences over several years.

The evidence produced in court is subject to the personal limitations and organisational constraints of the experts involved. Prosecution often relies on unreliable and secretive sources. It is important to increase transparency and for a robust challenge to be made to some claims. Many experts are former police officers who are rarely objective or neutral, hence the need for independent experts from within the field.

Personal experience cannot always be generalised so limits the information presented in this case study.

The role of expert witness is a career development opportunity for people working in the drugs and alcohol field.

It is important to understand the subjective way in which testimony and evidence is produced.

This paper gives a rare insight into a key aspect of the legal process.

The Corporate Veil is seen not only as a means of limiting individual civil legal liability but also criminal liability. This paper seeks to highlight that this philosophy is fast approaching breaking point, and practices which once may have been considered “just business” are now considered criminal. Innocuous companies, their directors and officers have all of a sudden become sitting ducks for criminal prosecution and asset seizure. Corporations potentially risk metaphorical death sentences: their human controllers being labelled and treated as common criminals and accordingly disgraced, incarcerated and confiscated of a lifetime of accumulated wealth. This paper targets the “directing minds and wills” of companies and aims to invoke thought and action on redefining the notion of corporate compliance.

An analysis of recent innovations in mostly UK law regarding fraud and money laundering, with historical comparisons to show the changing community and legal perceptions – “the evolution”. There is also case study analysis and recent examples of community attitudes towards recent high‐profile commercial prosecutions.

That there is a definite change in how the public, lawmakers and governments perceive corporate non‐compliance, to the extent that most breaches qualify as criminal offences and that due to mutual legal assistance and incentivisation schemes, the risks to corporations and its officers are extremely high and real.

Corporations will need to be genuine about legal compliance beyond merely espousing platitudes and motherhood statements and more towards reinventing the compliance paradigm. This means that merely concentrating on strict legal compliance will no longer suffice. Corporations will need to establish and regularly revisit their values, with more emphasis on embedding a culture of compliance that is attuned to domestic and international community values. To choose to ignore these needs, risks the very existence of the company and also its officers being ostracised both commercially and criminally.

Traditionally, papers on this topic tend to concentrate on strictly legal or managerial issues. This paper looks at the issue from a more criminological perspective whilst not compromising legal analysis and business pragmatism, thus allowing an integration of disciplines in a context that can be appreciated by lawyers, managers and social scientists alike.

This article argues that while the hate crime model has accelerated criminal justice agencies' understanding of the importance of the victim‐centred approach to investigating and prosecuting hate crime, at the same time it risks oversimplifying the victim experience. Recent reports published by the Metropolitan Police Service and the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggest that the victim experience of hate crime is very complex, with a number of impacts and risks at the intersections of identity. The concept of intersectionality, as explained by Horvath and Kelly (2008), is applied to identify some improvements that can be made in criminal justice policy to better recognise and address ‘what is really going on’ for victims of hate crime.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the limitations of training provided to accredited financial investigators, police officers generally, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judiciary in relation to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, money laundering, the investigation of financial crime and the options to recover the assets of criminals.

A literature review of the legislation and statutory instruments; training material; evidence provided to government committees; academic papers and journal articles was undertaken to identify the intention of the legislation and how this is manifested in the training of those responsible for dealing with money laundering; cash detention and forfeiture; restraint and confiscation.

The training provided to accredited financial investigators has failed to progress since the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 that legislated for its provision. It is limited to the use of the powers granted to financial investigators within the Act, ignoring the variety of roles in which an accredited financial investigator can be used, as well as the changing face of criminality generally and specifically in terms of fraud and money laundering and the predicate criminality behind it. Additionally, the training for the Crown Prosecution Service and judiciary is inadequate with insufficient lawyers and judges with expertise in Proceeds of Crime work. Suggestions for the improvement in training are made with a recommendation that the training be reviewed regularly to ensure currency and relevance.

This paper serves as a useful review of the existing training picture in financial investigation and identifies its limitations and areas for improvement. It is essential that financial investigation is not viewed as an inconvenience or a niche role and that it is considered essential to the investigation of organised crime, money laundering, acquisitive and economic crime.

The purpose of this paper is to expose the failure of the criminal justice system of England and Wales to provide an effective response to widespread fraud and to point to sources from which a new doctrine may be created. The author’s approach draws on public sources, in particular, recent Home Office publications, the work of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee and studies undertaken by the Mayor of London’s offices in 2014/2015.

The paper uses a critical assessment of the criminal justice system based on the author’s own experience as a fraud prosecutor.

Among the findings is that, while the failings of the current system have been apparent for some years, the extent and depth of the same failings have not been publicly realised, nor sufficiently acknowledged by the authorities. It has become obvious that the traditional response of the criminal justice system, when employed against fraud, will fail for want of anything corresponding to the resources required. A new doctrine will emerge as the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is revised and more flexibly employed. The Criminal Finances Bill also holds much promise, in particular, with its new offences akin to money laundering and the provision of powers of investigation at a significantly lower level of command among investigators. However, there remains an apparent reluctance in law enforcement to explain its methodology or to support reform, which would allow a fuller sharing of intelligence and appreciations of threats posed by fraud derived from intelligence with the financial services sector and the victim public.

The value of the paper is derived from the author’s long experience as a fraud prosecutor and as an adviser to the government, on fraud and organised crime, in a closely related jurisdiction with similar problems, but where greater success has been achieved, namely, Hong Kong.

The purpose of the paper is to describe the law‐scholarship scheme, which enables administrators and caseworkers at the Crown Prosecution Service to become lawyers.

The paper highlights the reasons the scheme was introduced, the way in which it operates and some of the outcomes. It emphasizes the role of e‐learning in implementation of the scheme.

The paper reveals that the law‐scholarship scheme has become a central plank of the CPS's equality policy, opening up the service and its legal work to people from any background. In the 2005‐2006 intake, 51 scholars were aged between 16 and 25, 140 aged 25‐34, 116 aged 34‐54 and one over 55. Around 70 percent of scholars are women and 30 percent from a black or ethnic‐minority group.

The paper emphasizes the importance of making the most of the talents of existing employees.

The paper demonstrates that, although the aim was for CPS staff to qualify as solicitors or barristers, the organization recognized that simply improving legal knowledge would benefit both staff and the service.