The ‘fraud justice network’ and the infra-structure of support for individual fraud victims in England and Wales
| Author | Jacki Tapley,Chris Lewis,Mark Button |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895812448085 |
| Published date | 01 February 2013 |
| Date | 01 February 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
13(1) 37 –61
© The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895812448085
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The ‘fraud justice network’
and the infra-structure of
support for individual fraud
victims in England and Wales
Mark Button, Jacki Tapley and Chris Lewis
University of Portsmouth, UK
Abstract
This article explores the infra-structure of support for victims of fraud in England and Wales
using a new model for examining support through what the authors call a ‘fraud justice network’,
which acknowledges the multiple state and private systems of justice alongside the criminal justice
system that fraud victims interact with. Using evidence from interviews with victims the article
explores the different levels of support for fraud victims at the reporting, reported and criminal
justice stage and how the different systems within the ‘fraud justice network’ impact upon this.
Finally the article briefly assesses Action Fraud which has been launched by the National Fraud
Authority as a means of addressing some of the gaps in support for victims.
Keywords
Action Fraud, fraud, fraud justice network, support, victims
Introduction
Fraud is a crime that has received relatively little attention compared to other volume
crimes (Croall, 2007; Doig, 2006; Levi, 2008). It covers a very wide range of behaviours
and has been defined by Wells (1997: 2) as, ‘any crime which uses deception as its prin-
cipal modus operandi’ and thus embraces a wide range of deviant behaviours by indi-
viduals and organizations some of which are not always criminal but ‘morally dubious’
(Karstedt and Farrall, 2006). Fraud can also be a multi-dimensional crime committed
by generally law abiding corporations against individuals or other corporations, by
Corresponding author:
Mark Button, Centre for Counter Fraud Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, PO1 2HY, UK
Email: mark.button@port.ac.uk
448085CRJ13110.1177/1748895812448085Button et al.Criminology & Criminal Justice
2012
Article
38 Criminology & Criminal Justice 13(1)
organized criminals against individuals and corporations and by individuals against other
individuals or organizations to name some of the most salient (Croall, 2007; Levi, 2001;
Whyte, 2007). The focus of this article will be individual victims of fraud, although in
defining the ‘fraud justice network’ a broader range of frauds will be considered. It will
also focus upon victims targeted by other individuals, professional fraudsters and organ-
ized crime, rather than some of the many individuals who are defrauded by corporations
(Whyte, 2007).
The design and parameters of the research set by the funders meant that victims tar-
geted by legitimate corporations were unlikely to be interviewed. Victims of unethical
conduct by lawful corporations may or may not be fraud in a criminal or even civil case.
Some of the victims may also not even realize they are victims of fraud, rather they think
it was incompetent practice. This means many would not have reported or been recorded
as victims on some of the many lists the authors secured access to target victims for this
research. This is clearly a gap in the research which requires further attention by future
researchers. This could perhaps be construed in a Marxist analysis as an attempt to ignore
certain types of ‘fraud’ conducted by corporations. However, it is the authors’ view that
the funders sought to secure valuable data in an area where there has been little research
and the victims this research dealt with were the highest priority having in most cases
clearly been the victims of a criminal act of fraud. Second, pursuing the victims of cor-
porate misbehaviour would open up a very wide range of contested issues, not least
many corporations strongly defending the position that what they did was not fraud.
The term ‘individual victims’ of fraud, rather than ‘consumer fraud’, is also used
throughout this article. ‘Consumer fraud’ would suggest much more attention to the
misbehaviour of legitimate corporations and it would also neglect some frauds against
individuals. For instance ‘advanced fee frauds’, which over 70,000 per year in the UK
are estimated to fall for (OFT, 2006), usually involve the offer from a ‘corrupt’ official –
usually in Nigeria – to deposit a large sum of money in the victim’s bank account –
which never transpires – in return for help in administration fees and/or banking details
supplied by the victim. If they were real this would essentially be an attempt at money
laundering rather than the purchase of consumer goods or services.
Fraud victims have been largely neglected by researchers (Levi, 2001) with only lim-
ited academic interest in individual or consumer type frauds (see Kane and Wall, 2006;
Karstedt and Farrall, 2006; Levi, 2008; Shichor et al., 2001; Shover et al., 2003) or more
wider corporate victimization (Croall, 2007; Snell and Tombs, 2011; Tombs and Whyte,
2007). This is despite growing evidence of the substantial harm that fraud inflicts upon
society. Indeed, fraud could have cost the UK at least £38 billion in 2010 (National Fraud
Authority, 2011) and globally the figure could be as much as £2.74 trillion (Gee et al.,
2009). There are also substantial numbers of members of the public who have become
victims of fraud. The 2010–2011 British Crime Survey found that 5.2 per cent of bank,
debit and credit card users had been a victim of card fraud in the previous 12 months
(Chaplin et al., 2011). The Office of Fair Trading (OFT, 2006) has commissioned research
which has found 48 per cent of the UK population have been targeted with a scam and 8
per cent have fallen victim. In the USA in 2005 46.5 per cent of households and 36 per
cent of individuals had experienced a ‘white collar crime’ victimization in the last year
and 62.5 per cent during their lifetime (Kane and Wall, 2006). The vast majority of these
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