The ‘folk devilling’ of professionals as crime enablers: the fraud-corruption-money laundering connection

• In Event: Money laundering: the role of facilitators and financial intermediaries

Abstract

The term ‘crime enablers’ has important cultural resonance. In routine activities and situational crime prevention models, all elements that permit crime could be viewed as ‘enablers’, but the term in practice carries an element of culpability that more commonly refers to active stimulation of crime. This paper examines the meaning of ‘enablers’ and its empirical referents in the context of political pressures and counter-pressures to ‘responsibilise’ the legal and accountancy professions in relation to bribery, fraud and money laundering. It argues that whatever is done in the preventative space to require professionals to ask more challenging questions of their actual and potential clients before they act for them or refuse to do so, the evidence base for criminal culpability of more than a minority of professionals is weak, and that the unqualified globalisation of such accusations ignores variations in professional and general culture. It examines different layers of culpability that are ignored in the creation of ‘folk devils’ in pressures for reform when combating bribery, fraud and money laundering.

Author

• Mike Levi, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University