For a Greater Emphasis on Prevention in Dealing with Economic Crime

Abstract

In the Republic of Slovenia since the beginning of 1990s, the Government has produced varions strategic documents on "fighting" economic crime. From 1997 on, successive strategies emerged aimed at suppressing this kind of crime. The authors find it symptomatic that strategies do not analyse the causes of this kind of crime nor do they deal with the genesis of various kinds of economic crime. It cannot be a surprise that the problem remains chronic or, according to public opinion and other indications, even gets worse.

The improved strategy will have to reflect the interdisciplinary analysis of the causes, phenomenology and "perpetrators" of economic crime. Together with the optimization of the repressive response of the criminal law, it needs to stress the importance of preventive measures. Vast literature on prevention of economic crime stresses the preventive potential of situational prevention, corporate governance, corporate culture, selection and education of personnel and so forth.

A more comprehensive strategy against economic crime will have to define measures of its own success or failure and guarantee a proper balance between the drive for effectiveness and efficiency and the protection of human rights.