Home page How a Government Act is Stimulating Crime A poorly thought out Act The recent Fraud Act which entered into effect in early 2007, classified ID fraud as a criminal offence but even although any such criminal act involves the direct interests of citizens, the Government has passed over the responsibility of reporting such crime to the police to the intermediation companies i.e. banks or credit card companies. This is a typical act of the promotion of a more efficient "handling of crime" on a centralized basis through law and regulatory procedures. But this process is flawed because it provides the financial intermediaries with decision making power and discretion to decide, on their account, what will be reported as a crime to the police and which crimes will be ignored. Abandonment of the citizen This "efficient" process creates an unacceptable state of affairs since this also involves the all important issue of the expectations of appropriate treatment of members of the public who have been exposed to the initial loss. Initially they are left in the situation of dealing with the credit card company who determine "who is responsible" for the event which will have stolen money from the citizen's bank or credit card account. This has a destructive effect on social comity by forcing people onto the sidelines and in the hands of non-legal authorities. On the other hand, following this Fraud Act, members of the public are having to endure sometimes quite rude police officers who in their police station reception areas, and in front of other members of the public, are beginning to lecture individuals who have suffered such criminal events, on how this is no longer a police responsibility. This leaves the citizen with a feeling of abandonment of the very forces they have come to understand are there to protect them. False statistics an abandonment of duty of care In discussing this matter with members of the public it becomes quite evident that British citizens see that this process is resulting in an encouragement of fraud associated with personal upset and inconvenience. The police are begining to cold shoulder them. The recording of the crime itself lies in the hands of credit card companies. The citizen also appreciates that with the very high annual charges on credit cards the credit card companies can afford not to investigate what they determine to be minor fraud; classified as a crime nonetheless. The determination of what is a minor fraud is strictly related to the value of the fraudulent transactions. Thus the credit card companies have taken on a legal responsibility of shaping National crime statistics and which will change according to the the margins or profits of the credit card companies. The decisions on what are crime statistics and what we do about crime, are becoming function of the management criteria of corporations. No doubt the Government is happy to see the crime statistics on fraud falling because they have authorized the operation of a fraudulent crime reporting system managed by the financial determinants of private companies. The citizen can only see this as an abandonment of the duty of care of Governance, police and investigative forces. Marginalization of the rule of law This development represents a proactive Government action to marginalize the rule of law. Indeed the Fraud Act has led to an effective judge- and court-proofing of crime. The all important role of the community conscience in the form of a jury is shoved even further into the background. The degree to which people are escaping justice is now determined by the financial interests of the credit card companies. Since crime is a crime this Government Decree of the enforced abandonment of duty on investigative services such as the police is aiding and abetting crime. The criminal envelope conveniently defined for the criminals Whenever the criminal or amateur crime fraternity realise that they can abuse the public up to the limits where "nothing will happen", then such crime will spread within this envelope. The problem is that the credit card companies and banks are hopelessly uncoordinated so where gangs are running multiple schemes and involving their carrying multiple IDs themselves 1, each of which falls within the envelope, then citizens can be exposed to robberies exceeding several thousands of pounds with no investigations taking place. As a result the rights of citizens to be protected effectively from what is an unacceptable level of tolerance of crime levelled against them through ID impersonation and fraud are being severely undermined. Shabby governance in supporting corporatism strengthens the criminals at the expense of the citizen The Fraud Act is clearly sets out the playground within which criminals can play at our expense. By encouraging under-reporting of crime the investigative authorities and the whole legal system of the country is maginalized leaving the citizen looking on in amazement as the Government blusters that it is "tough on crime". Ways forward There are two ways out of this mess which could initiate a process which could assist the people of Britain. One is to investigate several of the so-called "smaller crimes" and process the individuals involved and give widespread publicity to these facts. This should help deter others considering such crime; at the moment there is no such deterrent at all. Although this would be a "high cost" action when considering the individual cases the overall deterrent should result in far more significant savings to the industry 2. The other action is that the Government has a duty to enforce a more honest and complete reporting of crime by providing a direct incentive for credit card companies to follow up with investigation, a state of affairs currently abandoned by this Government. The most effective way to achieve this is to reduce the legal margins on credit card finance as well as the introduce tighter limits between income and credit limits which credit card companies are permitted operate under. This would increase the significance of many credit card crimes to the credit card companies themselves. They would then be forced to reclassify a large proportion of cases which are currently are "not worth" following up to a classification of those "needing solution". If these are not followed up this would affect the end of year performance for their shareholders. Insurance premiums paid for by credit card companies for such eventualities should also come from profits as a discount on dividends. In this way the performance of credit card companies would be better reflected in their end of year results. This would help focus the attention of the management of these organizations to solving credit card crime both through technical as well as investigative means as well as enforce discretionary limitations on their aggressive "selling of debt". This could help improve the state of crime in this country to more realistic and tolerable levels because the public would see that all crimes are recorded and all crimes will be investigated, this is a minimum condition any rational elected assembly, such as the House of Commons, should see as a priority in its duty to protect the interests of the people. Not giving the credit card companies a strong incentive to counter such criminality could result in a better performance of the credit card companies in financial performance as well as in upholding the rule of law. 1 Information provided by uninvestigated case of around £10,000 which took place in Portsmouth, Hampshire UK recently and where the person who carried out the crime is clearly identified and had false IDs with which she opened bank accounts into which she paid fraudulent acquisitions. Hampshire Police have failed to follow up this crime which also involves robbery of cheques even although this falls outside the Fraud Act specifics and the guilty party has been clearly identified. Note: the obtaining of false EU Member State ID cards is extremely easy in London where the police continue to fail to control this fraudulent activity. 2 The elasticity of incidence of crime is directly related to the willingness and ability of investigative authorities to follow up and prosecute effectively. The more successful prosecutions are within the lower value crime categories, in financial terms, the broader the impact of such prosecution in creating a disincentive for such crime since people sense that "they may no get off with it". If investigative authorities are marginalised by Acts of Government then it is self-evident that criminals know that their escaping prosecution is a certainty.