Organised Crime & Crime Prevention - what works? - Scandinavian ...

NSfK’s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998
crime - not years after they have occured - but as they are happening. This has meant that the
whole culture of investigation has changed in cases of white collar crime. The new
requirements have resulted in that the police are much more active in their controlmechanisms.
Instead of inviting the suspected white collar criminal politely to come to
answer some questions, the police arrest them for interrogation. They are using more coercive
means (e.g. house search, seizure of property), they are using intelligence to reveal crimes.
The co-operation of officials has become quite routinized and effective. In addition the police
the tax- and some other authorities arranged a massive advertising campaing against the black
economy.
At the same time, some high officials have been aquitted from white collar crime. One of the
most scandalous event was that the husband of a member of the supreme court was dismissed
from accustations of tax evation on the basis of the “small amount of the evaded tax“. This
has caused another kind of image of control: citizens are claiming that the criminal justice
systems favours those in high places and the whole integrity of the supreme court has also
been questioned. Furthermore, an ex-ministers (“Uffe“) compensations for civil damages
related to the bank crisis were adjusted drastically by the present minister of Finance, and the
damages were considered tax-deductible. When this became public knowledge, the Minister
of Finance gave her resignation. These scandals have had their role in preassuring the police
to get better results in the investigation of white collar crime.8
All in all, white collar criminals have been forced to face similar kind of intensity of reactions
of the control system as “traditional“ criminals have done for ages.
3. Images of control - Images of reactions towards it
Along with the new and intensified control mechanisms of white collar crime, another
relatively new phenomena in the finnish legal culture has aroused. The people who are
suspected of white collar crimes are constantly lodging complaints or pressing charges against
the police claiming e.g. that there are grounds for disqualication or that there are procedural
faults in the preliminary investigation. They have expressed that they do not trust the police.
On the other hand, the police claim that in many cases the reason for the defendants´ reactions
is that they are trying to prolong the process, and are trying to take the attention away from
the real matter. It is quite interesting how how these legal practices are constructed from
different points of view.
3.1. Business world and enterpreneurs
The representatives and associations of enterpreneurs have reacted strongly: they are
describing the new control policies with words like “police-state“, “miscarriage of justice“
“political percecution“, “unneccecary shaming“ etc. E.g. the enterpeneurs association
announced heavily in the mass media that based on their research on the actions of tax
authorities, they have come to the conclusion that most of the audits had been arbitary,
included several kinds of illegalities, and caused unneccecary banctrupcies. An investigative
journalist questioned these results, and looked into the actions of tax authorities. According to
his investigation, the images given by the enterpreneurs association have not described
rightfully the present reality of control, and uses words like “enterpreneurs delusion“ and
“enterpreneurs media game“. According to him, the tax authorities have “stepped on some big
8 Immedityly after the “Uffe“ scandal, a special group of ministers was established to think on measures against
white collar crime. They gathered 50 suggestions from the field to change laws and to make control more
effective.
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