The Fraud Pandemic

This book provides the first in-depth scholarly analysis of fraud, the highest volume crime in England and Wales, addressing the challenges faced in building a principled criminal law response by presenting an innovative normative analysis.
The UK is now in a pandemic of fraud. There were 4.6 million fraud offences recorded in the year ending March 2021, accounting for 42% of all crime committed against individuals. Fraud is now the highest volume crime in England and Wales; its incidence in the first half of 2021 was described by UK Finance as a 'national security threat'.
The book provides the answers to key questions, such as:
- How can the rapidly changing nature of fraud be understood and mapped by criminal lawyers?
- How does fraud connect to economic crime more broadly?
- Is the current landscape for criminalising fraud fit for purpose, in the light of changes to the nature and complexity of wrongdoing?
- What are the principled limits to using Artificial Intelligence technologies to detect and to penalise fraud?
- Which principles should inform fraud criminalisation and governance following the COVID-19 pandemic, to meet the challenges of a digital age and a stretched criminal justice system?

Jennifer Collins is Associate Professor in Law at the University of Bristol, UK.