The case for economic criminology

Abstract

This paper sets out the case for economic criminology. It argues ‘economic criminology’ is more than just a prefix that brings scholars and papers together exploring economic crime. The paper argues that crimes associated with economic criminology are a significant societal problem that deserves the attention of scholars to understand these problems and develop solutions. The paper illustrates the pool of those studying economic crimes is much wider than criminology, which is very distinct from traditional volume crimes. Indeed, the vast majority of research emanates from beyond ‘criminology’. This paper therefore argues ‘economic criminology’ can act as catholic paradigm to bring together the many disciplinary silos studying economic crime and that this is a natural development of criminology.

Keywords

• Economic criminology
• Economic crime
• Fraud
• Corruption