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Recent analysis has estimated that white-collar crime costs the UK up to £60 billion annually and yet detection rates run at around 5% with convictions low and sentences often reduced. City accountants claim that fraud, which costs the country at least £20 billion each year, is now at its highest ever level and may treble during the recession.
There has been a tradition of leniency towards white-collar crime, with issues of class, perception, and status all playing a role in how corporate, professional and “middle-class” crimes are investigated, judged and punished.
But, in the wake of the financial crisis and the scandal of MPs expenses, as the recession continues and assumptions of middle-class honesty falter, will we see a shift in public, corporate, police and judicial attitudes to white-collar crime?
As times grow ever more harsh and the public purse is squeezed, can crimes which deplete pension funds and rob the public of tax revenues really be seen as “victimless”?
Can we afford to continue to ignore the true social cost and significance of white-collar crime?
Speakers: Sir Ken MacDonald QC, Matrix Chambers and former Director of Public Prosecutions; Professor Gary Slapper, Director of the Centre for Law, Open University; Jonathan Aitken, Chairman of the Prison Reform Working Group, Centre for Social Justice.
Chair: Laurie Taylor, presenter, BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed.
 Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #rsacrime
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