Book Review: Confiscation and the Proceeds of Crime
| Author | David Kirk |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201830306700309 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOI( REVIEW
Andrew
R. Mitchell,
Susan
M. Taylor
and
Kennedy
Talbot,
Confiscation
and the
Proceeds
of
Crime,
3rd
edn
(Sweet
&
Maxwell:
London,
2002)
looseleaf, £175, ISBN 0 421
782005
It
is
tempting
to conclude
that
if
an
Act of
more
than
400 sections is
needed
to define
the
outwardly
simple procedure for legally parting a
criminal from his ill-gotten gains,
the
scheme is
both
doomed
to,
and
deserves to, fail. The Act in question,
the
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, is
the
latest in a depressingly long line of statutes seeking to deal
with
this
issue,
and
time will tell
whether
it will cure all
the
ills of previous
attempts
(the Criminal Justice Act 1988,
the
Drug Trafficking Act 1994,
the
Proceeds of Crime Act 1995,
the
Terrorism Act 2000,
the
Anti-
Terrorism, Crime
and
Security Act 2001, to
name
but
the
Acts currently
in force). The third edition of Mitchell, Taylor
and
Talbot
on
Confiscation
and the
Proceeds
of
Crime
is a welcome guide
through
the
maze,
but
with
a'Law as of' date of 1
June
2002, it was unable to provide coverage of
the
new
Act. Although
the
current
legislation will
continue
to
have life
long after
the
implementation
of
the
new
Act,
the
fact
that
this edition
does
not
deal
with
the
2002 Act makes it a book
'in
waiting'.
The
authors
therefore
had
two
big problems in preparing
their
third
edition: first, to get
any
edition of
the
book off
the
presses before it is
rendered
redundant
by yet
another
attempt
by
the
Home Office legis-
lators to perfect
the
law in this area. Secondly, providing a
coherent
account of
the
succession of confiscation
and
forfeiture Acts,
without
leaving
the
practitioner or
student
stupefied
with
transitional provi-
sions, relevant dates, time limits on postponed determinations
and
other
bewildering procedural thickets.
They
have
partially solved
both
these problems by
the
wise decision
to go into looseleaf format,
although
whether
any
reasonably intelligent
person will
have
the
time
and
precision to keep up
with
the
updating
and
filing of
the
anticipated avalanche of releases is a
matter
for debate.
We
are
promised inserts
once
the
2002 Act is in force 'probably in early
2003'.
The problem of
coherence
is
more
intractable,
and
will become even
more
so
when
the
2002 Act is in force. The usefulness
and
quality of this
edition of Mitchell, Taylor
and
Talbot will be sorely tested by
the
need to
weave
the
new
legislation (and its inevitable successors) into
the
old.
There will have to be a significant additions to
and
rewrites of large
chunks
of
the
text. Nevertheless, as
the
Preface rightly points out, since
'the
current
law will
continue
to apply for quite some time', practitio-
ners will be extremely grateful
to
have a full account of it. They will also
eagerly await a full exposition of
the
workings of
the
new
Act.
While
the
authors
lament
that
'confiscation
and
forfeiture
remain
as
yet considerably
underused
tools', all criminal practitioners will
know
269
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