Duties to Distrust: The Decentring of Economic and White-Collar Crime Policing in Sweden
British Journal of Criminology
Published online on July 15, 2015
Abstract
This article examines a general trend towards the ‘decentring’ of the policing of economic and white-collar crime in Sweden in recent decades. As a theoretical point of departure, we discuss how the ‘decentred policing’ concept can link the theoretical approaches of regulation and policing studies. We then analyse five empirical cases in which private actors have been given duties and incentives to report others’ crimes, in order to give a detailed account of the expansion and effects of the decentring of business and finance policing. The five cases concern the policing of bankruptcy crimes, money laundering, company management crimes, market abuse and insider dealings, and illegal cartels. The article ends by discussing some possible causes and consequences of this tendency.