Search results

A significant number of criminal and deviant acts are investigated by nonpolice actors. These include private investigators who charge fees for their services, professional services firms such as firms of accountants who also charge fees, in-house investigators employed by private organisations and in-house investigators of public sector organisations who are not sworn police officers. Some of these investigators, such as private investigators, have been exposed in unethical activities such as illegal surveillance and blagging to name some. In this respect, this study aims to uncover the ethical orientations of investigators using cluster analysis.

This study is based upon an online survey of private investigators predominantly in the UK, i.e. investigators beyond the public police. An innovate statistical inferential analysis was used to investigate the sample which resulted in the development of three ethical orientations of such investigators.

Based upon a survey response from 331 of these types of investigators this study illustrates the extent they engage in unethical activities, showing a very small minority of largely private investigators who engage in such activities.

A unique feature of this study is the use of an innovative statistical approach using an unsupervised machine learning model, namely, TwoStep cluster analysis, to successfully group and classify respondents based on their ethical orientation. The model derived three types of ethical orientation: ethical, inbetweeners and risk takers.

The public fascination for private investigators has led to an abundance of imagery in popular culture media. This study aims to examine the views of practising private investigators regarding their professional images of dirty work.

To fill the gap in the literature, this study used data collected from semi-structured interviews with 33 industry practitioners from 3 Australian states. The paper investigates private investigator’s perceptions about themselves/job roles and the public perceptions of private investigators in Australia. Interviews were recorded and transcripts created. A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts was undertaken.

Private investigators were drawn from a range of professions, including public policing and government regulation. The findings indicate that the reality differs from the images typically portrayed in popular culture. Interviewees discussed the contrasts between media images and reality, providing a more complex portrayal of private investigation and what private investigators find satisfying and challenging about their work.

This study is helpful for improving the understanding of private policing, the media views of policing, those who conduct work within an environment considered to be tainted and their views of self.

Using a qualitative research design, this paper offers insights into the challenges facing private investigators and how they reconcile being in a tainted occupation with providing a necessary service to the community.

The purpose of this study is to identify the attributes – skills, education and qualifications – required to be a contemporary corporate investigator.

To address heretofore unexplored areas in the literature, this study used data collected from semi-structured interviews with 33 corporate investigators in Australia.

This paper highlights the complexities that surround corporate investigations and identifies nine attributes critical for investigative success. The findings identify some commonalities with police–detective skills and suggest that the corporate investigator needs the skills of an accountant and a lawyer to complement these investigative skills.

Studies of private investigators are rare as such; therefore, this paper fills a gap in academic literature by examining the skills necessary to conduct private investigations of corporate and white-collar crime.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the investigative interviewing processes in the context of financial frauds, as experienced by corporate investigators.

A diverse sample of 33 corporate investigators individually participated in in-depth interviews.

This study examined perceptions of investigative interviewing of those undertaking fraud investigations. The corporate investigator’s response indicated understanding of the necessary skills required to conduct interviews. The findings suggest that the investigator agreed on the interviewing skills that are required to conduct interviews; however, upon reflection, they may not use the skills during interviews.

This study is the first to reveal limitations in corporate investigators’ investigative interviewing and fills a gap in the academic literature by examining corporate investigators’ beliefs and practices in conducting their private investigations of corporate and white-collar crime.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence police officers’ tendency to cooperate with private investigators.

A questionnaire survey method was used on a sample of 377 police officers in South Korea.

The findings suggested that, unlike previous literature, police officers’ rational choice (cost vs benefit calculation) was the most important factor, and characteristics of cases also significantly influenced police officers’ tendency to work with private investigators. Also, officers’ job assignment was relevant, unlike the organizational cultural context for cooperation.

Prior studies have continuously emphasized the importance of cooperation between public police and private police (particularly private investigators) in order to enhance effectiveness in crime fighting and the preventive functions of policing. However, the studies have not produced empirical evidence as to how cooperation between the two sectors could be enhanced. This study fills this void in the literature.

In this chapter, we first argue for a green criminological perspective on culture as well as nature, as those concepts are framed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Second, from within this green criminological perspective we discern a neocolonial hegemony in the resource extraction from developing countries that is represented by international trafficking markets in looted cultural heritage and poached wildlife. In other words, developed nations benefit from these trades while developing nations suffer, and governance regimes attempting to control these global criminal trades prioritise the rational interests and cultural norms of the more powerful market nations over the local interests and cultural histories of communities at the source of the chain of supply. Finally, our third argument is that the emerging intellectual framework of sustainable development, as represented in the UN's goals, may provide a perspective on the issue of trafficking culture and nature that can push back against the neocolonial hegemony of international criminal markets such as these.

Presents recent research on private detectives in the UK which raised fascinating differences between British and American investigators. Not only are these evident from analysis of their roles, responsibilities and histories, but also in cultural representations of private investigators in literature, film and factual reporting in the mass media. How private investigators are portrayed in the two countries raises interesting questions about public and private policing and differing attitudes to the politics of order maintenance. Explores private investigators’ British and American history, both in fact and fiction. Develops an original perspective on individual and collective approaches to policing and justice.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the legitimacy of private policing of financial crime by fraud examiners.

The literature on fraud examiners is interpreted in the legitimacy context.

A number of critical issues based on the institutional theory and social psychology issues are discussed that question the legitimacy of private policing of financial crime.

There is a need for regulation of the private fraud examination industry.

A number of legitimacy issues should be addressed by financial crime specialists.

Victims of private investigations require regulation of the investigation industry.

Criteria for police legitimacy are applied to the private sector.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which contemporary organisations are imposing their own private sanctions on fraudsters.

The research draws on primary data from interviews with counter fraud practitioners in the UK, secondary sources and case examples.

Such developments have been stimulated, at least in part, by the broader limitations of the criminal justice system and in particular a “fraud bottleneck”. Alongside criminal sanctions, many examples are provided of organisations employing private prosecutions innovative forms of civil sanction and “pseudo state” sanctions, most commonly civil penalties comparable to fines.

Such changes could mark the beginning of the “rebirth of private prosecution” and the further expansion of private punishment. Growing private involvement in state sanctions and the development of private sanctions represents a risk to traditional guarantees of justice. There are differences in which comparable frauds are dealt with by corporate bodies and thus considerable inconsistency in sanctions imposed. In contrast with criminal justice measures, there is no rehabilitative element to private sanctions. More research is needed to assess the extent of such measures, and establish what is happening, the wider social implications, and whether greater state regulation is needed.

Private sanctions for fraud are likely to continue to grow, as organisations pursue their own measures rather than relying on increasingly over-stretched criminal justice systems. Their emergence, extent and implications are not fully understood by researchers and therefore need much more research, consideration and debate. These private measures need to be more actively recognised by criminal justice policy-makers and analysts alongside the already substantial formal involvement of the private sector in punishment through prisons, electronic tagging and probation, for example. Such measures lack the checks and balances, and greater degree of consistency as laid out in sentencing guidelines, of the criminal justice system. In light of this, consideration needs to be given to greater state regulation of private sanctions for fraud. More also needs to be done to help fraudsters suffering problems such as debt or addiction to rebuild their lives. There is a strong case for measures beyond the criminal justice system to support such fraudsters to be created and publicly promoted.

The findings are of relevance to criminal justice policy-makers, academics and counter fraud practitioners in the public and private sectors.