Corporate Investigations, Corporate Justice and Public-Private Relations

Towards a New Conceptualisation

Clarissa A. Meerts

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030265168
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This bookseeks to understand the investigation and settlement of employer/employee disputes within companies. Itargues that there is effectively no democratic knowledge about, or control over, corporate security, due to companies' preference for private, out-of-court settlements when faced with norm violations raised by employees. This book fills the knowledge gap by providing an overview of the corporate security sector including legal frameworks and an analysis of the role and powers of private investigative services, inhouse security, forensic accountants and forensic legal investigators.It draws on close observation, case studies and interviews with practitioners in and around the industry. Corporate Investigations, Corporate Justice and Public-Private Relations also looks at public-private relationships in this sector to propose policy remedies applicable to all corporate security providers, regardless of the disparate professional backgrounds and skill-sets of their staff.

© The Author(s) 2019

C. A. MeertsCorporate Investigations, Corporate Justice and Public-Private RelationsCrime Prevention and Security Managementhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26516-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction, Theory and Research Questions

Clarissa A. Meerts¹

(1)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands

Clarissa A. Meerts

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

1 Introduction

There are many examples to be found of criminal acts occurring inside organisations. The following are all cases in which internal norm violations have led to considerable damage to both the organisations involved and society: allegations of accounting manipulation by employees of payment processing company Wirecard in Singapore (Financial Times, 2019); a large-scale fraud in which the municipality of Rotterdam has been defrauded for millions of euros—the Waterfront-affaire (Gemeente Rotterdam, 2017); ING Bank’s involvement as a facilitator of the laundering of millions of euros (Vermeulen, 2018); a large-scale real estate fraud in which a pension fund and others have been defrauded for millions of euros—the Vastgoedfraude (van de Bunt et al., 2011); and the payment of multiple bribes and large-scale corruption in multiple countries by SBM Offshore (Functioneel Parket, 2014). Interestingly, the first line of investigation in these cases was not the criminal justice system—instead, internal investigations were done by corporate investigators. These are all examples of cases in which an official report has been made to the authorities. However, many cases that are investigated by corporate investigators never reach the criminal justice system (Williams, 2006a). Although traditional criminology is well aware of the issue of the dark number of crime—the fact that much criminal occurrences will not become known to the state (or to criminologists for that matter)—it is usually assumed that the crimes that remain unreported also remain un-investigated. As this book will show, this is not necessarily the case.

The prevention and repression of crime is traditionally seen as a task exclusively reserved for governments (Boutellier, van Steden, Bakker, Mein, & Roeleveld, 2011). As Max Weber (1946) noted, the monopoly over the legitimate use of force is the essential tool of governance of states. As a result, criminology has traditionally been mostly concerned with state activity in the reduction and management of crime. From a historical perspective, it has been argued by Garland (2001) and Wood and Shearing (2007: 7) that although ‘the governance of security has for some time been regarded as the primary responsibility, and indeed exclusive responsibility, of state governments [this] has not always been the case. From a historical perspective this way of doing is very new indeed – it constitutes no more than a hiccup in history’. The argument is that the prevention and reduction of crime has historically been a shared responsibility and that we are in recent years moving back towards that ‘normal’ situation. In their discussion of an emerging plethora of public-private arrangements, van de Bunt and van Swaaningen (2005) argue that in this process, market rationales have permeated the criminal justice system as well.

A long list of publications over the years shows that the focus has been broadened to (critically assess the contribution of) regulatory agencies (see, e.g., Mancini & van Erp, 2014), civilians (see, e.g., van Steden, 2009) and private security firms (see, e.g., Gurinskaya & Nalla, 2018; South, 1988; White, 2014). As Jones and Newburn (2006) put it, there is a growing academic recognition for the pluralisation of policing. It is now commonly recognised that police forces are not the only players in the security field. Multiple state actors outside the criminal justice system may play an important role in crime control: regulatory agencies, special investigative units within ministries and the input of local government are just some examples (van de Bunt & van Swaaningen, 2005).¹ In addition to state-provided security services, there now is a substantial private security industry as well. In specific places, such as the Port of Rotterdam, public-private security-scapes emerge (Eski, 2016). Services provided by this private sector range from guarding and surveillance, to technical equipment services (van Steden & Huberts, 2006). These are the types of activities that usually come to mind when one refers to ‘private security’. A ‘very distinct sector within the security industry’ is formed by private investigators (ibid.: 21). This book is concerned with private investigators, or more accurately corporate investigators. On the one hand, this means that the book focuses on a smaller group: i.e. only those investigators whose clientele consists of (public sector and commercial) organisations, excluding the detectives working for private citizens. On the other, as will be explained below when the research is outlined, my understanding of corporate investigators is wider than in most studies (including a range of different actors, see below).

Most research on private security focuses on the sector more generally, including private investigators as just another form of private security (see, e.g., Shearing & Stenning, 1983). The rise of private forms of security provision is often seen as a (direct) result of increasing demands on public police in a time of neo-liberalisation of social policy (Jones & Newburn, 2006). Adding the growth of semi-public places, mass private property and risk awareness (Beck, 1992) to these trends, one should not wonder that private security is booming. ‘Despite talk of public monopolies and the like most jurisdictions have generally housed a variety of policing bodies’ (Jones & Newburn, 2006: 6). Public-private relationships in the field of security are often conceptualised along these lines. Theoretical concepts such as privatisation and responsibilisation are then used to indicate that either the state privatises some of its activities to private parties, or the state mobilises private actors for the fight against crime (Garland, 2001). In that broad tradition, public law and public law enforcement bodies and strategies—police , prosecutors and criminal courts, and/or administrative agencies—are taken as conceptual starting points (see, e.g., Fijnaut, Muller, Rosenthal, & Van der Torre, 2007; Janssen, 2011). Relations between the public sector and private security are then posed in terms of cooperation by the latter with the former (Cools, Davidovic, De Clerck, & De Raedt, 2010; Dorn & Levi, 2009; Hoogenboom, 2009; Hoogenboom & Muller, 2002). Whether or not this is the right way to conceptualise private security more generally is not a question to be answered in this book. However, it is argued that for corporate investigations specifically, these notions fail to provide a correct conceptualisation.

The book² examines the rather under-researched field of corporate investigations (Walby & Lippert, 2014). Although interesting work has been done on different components of the corporate investigations sector (e.g. Gill & Hart, 1997; Hoogenboom, 1988; Nalla & Morash, 2002; van Wijk, Huisman, Feuth, & van de Bunt, 2002; Williams, 2005), there exists a rather limited body of work on the corporate investigations sector as a sub-sector of the private security sector (Meerts, 2016). The aim of this book is therefore twofold: first, to provide a comprehensive overview of the corporate investigations industry, mapping the sector and its legal frameworks (Chapter 2), its activities (Chapters 3 and 4) and its relationships with the criminal justice system (Chapter 5). All of this has implications for the theoretical conceptualisation of corporate investigations, which leads to the second aim of this book: providing an innovative theoretical framework which can be used to conceptualise the corporate investigations industry.

Research focused on corporate investigators and corporate justice is highly relevant to criminology in multiple ways. First, the corporate investigations sector, like criminology, is highly interdisciplinary. Professionals with different backgrounds work as corporate investigators, all bringing their specific expertise with them. This means that the research subject and the analysis of that subject benefit to a great extent from an interdisciplinary approach, combining social sciences with law. Second, although the attention for social control originating from other sources than the police is growing, little research has been done as yet on corporate investigators and corporate justice. It is, however, a booming sector which provides services that may affect both individuals and society. Creating a better understanding of this sector is therefore important. Third, the theoretical notions used for public-private relations may be in need of some adaptations with regard to their applicability to specific parts of the private security sector such as corporate investigations. It is argued that criminology, in trying to fit everything into a state-centric discourse, is overlooking some important characteristics of private security.

To achieve a better understanding of the corporate investigations sector, the following research questions are used as a guide for the research:

Central Research Question

What is the corporate investigations industry, how can its shifting relationships with law enforcement be conceptualised and what is its significance for the wider society?

In particular:

1. 1.
   What are the raison d’être and methods of corporate investigators in providing corporate justice?
2. 2.
   How does this stay within—or breach—regulatory/legal frameworks?
3. 3.
   How wide, in practice, is the sphere of discretion for corporate investigators, either to act alone, without informing public law agencies, or to inform and possibly to task them?
4. 4.
   When, how and why does separate working change into case-sharing? How does this reflect the public and private interests at stake?
5. 5.
   What are the consequences of the flexible relationship that corporate investigators have with law enforcement actors?

The research questions as presented above, motivating the research, were defined in 2011 and have been subject to development during the research process. Therefore, the research questions are put into context in this first section. Research question 1 is used to explore the corporate investigations market and to determine the day-to-day business of corporate investigators. This question is answ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction, Theory and Research Questions
• 2. Legal Frameworks
• 3. Corporate Investigations
• 4. Corporate Settlements
• 5. Public-Private Relations as Coexistence
• 6. Discussion
• Back Matter