Fraud and pandemics
Prof. Russell Smith1, Professor Michael Levi2
1Flinders University, Kyneton, Australia
2Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
This paper presents some of the key findings from a report, Fraud and its relationship to pandemics and economic crises: From Spanish flu to COVID-19, published by the Australian Institute of Criminology in May 2021, and updated to December 2021. The paper draws out the common characteristics of frauds associated with pandemics, and identifies risks unique to pandemics and financial crises, beginning with the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, as the closest to COVID-19 in the modern era. It identifies some novel crime types and methodologies that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia and the United Kingdom that were not seen in previous pandemics. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications for prevention, resilience and for private and public policing and criminal justice in Australia. It stresses the need for plans for future pandemics and economic crises to include provisions for better early monitoring and control of fraud and procurement corruption.
Biography:
Dr Russell G Smith has qualifications in law, psychology and criminology from the University of Melbourne and a Ph.D. from King’s College London. He was a solicitor and then a lecturer at the University of Melbourne before taking up a position at the Australian Institute of Criminology where he is now an Honorary Fellow having recently retired after almost 25 years, most recently as Principal Criminologist. He is also now a Professor in the College of Business, Government and Law at Flinders University, and is a Fellow and former President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology.
Recent Posts
- From Robo-Debt to Robo-Deport: Automating the criminal deportation machinery
- Victims’ Needs in the Post Atrocity
- A Safe Haven? Women’s Experiences of Violence in Australian Immigration Detention.
- Teaching & learning criminology for the 2020s and beyond
- The Administrative Appeals Tribunal: The Experiences of Migrant and Refugee Women who are Victim-Survivors of Family Violence
Archives
Categories
- A closed mouth catches no flies: How tertiary prevention of sexual violence and abuse can inform primary and secondary prevention
- Bail & Illusions of Justice
- Before we get to court
- Border Policing and Migration
- Border violences and control
- Borders & Risk
- Carceral Borders
- Changes in ‘youth crime’ – perceptions and realities
- Changing perspectives on ‘youth’ and young people
- Children & young people in custody
- Children in state care
- Coercive Control
- Communication underpins access to justice
- Community
- Concurrent Panel
- Consequences of Invasion
- Corrections and Penology
- Courts and Sentencing
- Crime and Media
- Crime and the City
- Crime in the Pacific
- Crime Management
- Crime Prevention
- Cultural Criminology
- Curabitur acconvallis
- Cybercrime
- Cybercrime victimisation
- Development & Prevention of Youth Crime & ASB
- Digital Criminology
- Digital innovations in Offending and Control
- Encountering Crime in Everyday Publics
- Encounters with Crime and Justice in the Pacific Islands
- Ethics & Integrity: Police Training
- Everyday experiences of the internal border
- Expanding Criminological Frames: Global/Local
- Extending Punishment
- Family and Intimate Partner Violence
- Family Violence
- Forensic Criminology
- Gender and Crime
- Gender-based Crime in a Digital Age
- Getting the evidence: Police interviewing practices
- GPS geospatial tools and surveillance
- Green criminology
- Hidden punishment – fines and infringement notices
- Highlighting harm and resisting incarceration
- Illicit Drugs & Alcohol
- Immigration & Human Rights
- Improving prison practices
- Indigenous Criminology
- Inflicting Trauma
- Informing sentencing practice and policy
- Innovation in sentencing
- Innovative Data & Methodology
- Innovative Justice
- Innovative Justice and Desistance
- Inside and Outside the Prison
- Institutional Abuse
- Institutions of Harm and Victimisation
- Integer sempermolestie
- Intelligence & Organised Crime
- International dimension in sentencing
- Intimate Partner violence risk and security: Securing women's lives in a global world
- Invisible powers to punish
- Judicial Supervision: Evidence current practice and implications for mainstream court settings
- Keynote Presentation
- Models
- Modern Slavery in Australia: exploring the limits & challenges of law
- National and international focus
- New & Old Constructs of Justice
- NGOs and Crime
- Non-governmental and voluntary sector organisations in criminal justice and drug policy processes
- Nunc idorcisit amet jus
- Oral Presentation
- Panel Session
- PANEL – Parental and close family incarceration
- Parental and close family incarceration
- PECRC Oral
- PECRC Poster
- Plenary Keynote
- Plenary Session
- Police Investigations
- Police Legitimacy
- Policing
- Policing and State Crime
- Policing and the Public
- Policing Culture
- Policing Dangerous Consumption
- Policing mental illness
- Policing Systems
- Policing: From prevention to crime control: National and International Perspectives
- Prisons
- Prisons from the inside
- Problems and Solutions in U.S. Criminal Justice
- Processes and Procedures of In/Justice
- Programs and populations
- Public confidence in sentencing
- Regulating Corporations and tackling corruption
- Regulation & State Crime
- Reoffending risk – bail gradual release community sanctions
- Restorative justice and diversion of young people
- Restorative Justice and Justice Reinvestment
- Risky bodies risky systems: Post-prison policy practice and experience
- Round Table
- See no evil hear no evil
- Segregation inequality and crime
- Sentencing
- Sex bodies violence
- Sex Gender and Violence
- Sexual Offending
- Sexual Offending and Abuse: From prevention to prediction
- Southern and comparative criminology
- Southern Criminology
- State Crime and Structural Justice
- State Recognition and Possibilities for Justice: Gender Identity and Victimisation
- Sub-Plenary Panel
- Substance Abuse
- Surveillance
- Teaching Criminology
- Technology -facilitated harms
- Terrorism and Counter-terrorism
- Terrorism and Radicalisation
- Terrorism Crime Space and Place
- The Rehabilitative Prison: an oxymoron or an opportunity to design prisons differently and reduce reoffending?
- Uncategorized
- Understanding Inequality and Challenging State Complicity
- Unlawful Migrant Labour
- Vestibulum consequat
- Vestibulum eutellus
- Victimology
- Victims & Offenders
- Victims and Trauma
- Visual and Sensory Criminology
- Visual Criminology: Policing the Image
- Vulnerable People and Human Rights
- White Collar Crime
- Women As Victims
- Working to support children and families of prisoners
- Working with young people reducing reoffending
- Wrongful Conviction
- Young people and violence victims and perpetrators
- Young People Crime and Justice
- “Police education: new models new approaches and emerging trends”
Recent Posts
- From Robo-Debt to Robo-Deport: Automating the criminal deportation machinery
- Victims’ Needs in the Post Atrocity
- A Safe Haven? Women’s Experiences of Violence in Australian Immigration Detention.
- Teaching & learning criminology for the 2020s and beyond
- The Administrative Appeals Tribunal: The Experiences of Migrant and Refugee Women who are Victim-Survivors of Family Violence
Archives
Categories
- A closed mouth catches no flies: How tertiary prevention of sexual violence and abuse can inform primary and secondary prevention
- Bail & Illusions of Justice
- Before we get to court
- Border Policing and Migration
- Border violences and control
- Borders & Risk
- Carceral Borders
- Changes in ‘youth crime’ – perceptions and realities
- Changing perspectives on ‘youth’ and young people
- Children & young people in custody
- Children in state care
- Coercive Control
- Communication underpins access to justice
- Community
- Concurrent Panel
- Consequences of Invasion
- Corrections and Penology
- Courts and Sentencing
- Crime and Media
- Crime and the City
- Crime in the Pacific
- Crime Management
- Crime Prevention
- Cultural Criminology
- Curabitur acconvallis
- Cybercrime
- Cybercrime victimisation
- Development & Prevention of Youth Crime & ASB
- Digital Criminology
- Digital innovations in Offending and Control
- Encountering Crime in Everyday Publics
- Encounters with Crime and Justice in the Pacific Islands
- Ethics & Integrity: Police Training
- Everyday experiences of the internal border
- Expanding Criminological Frames: Global/Local
- Extending Punishment
- Family and Intimate Partner Violence
- Family Violence
- Forensic Criminology
- Gender and Crime
- Gender-based Crime in a Digital Age
- Getting the evidence: Police interviewing practices
- GPS geospatial tools and surveillance
- Green criminology
- Hidden punishment – fines and infringement notices
- Highlighting harm and resisting incarceration
- Illicit Drugs & Alcohol
- Immigration & Human Rights
- Improving prison practices
- Indigenous Criminology
- Inflicting Trauma
- Informing sentencing practice and policy
- Innovation in sentencing
- Innovative Data & Methodology
- Innovative Justice
- Innovative Justice and Desistance
- Inside and Outside the Prison
- Institutional Abuse
- Institutions of Harm and Victimisation
- Integer sempermolestie
- Intelligence & Organised Crime
- International dimension in sentencing
- Intimate Partner violence risk and security: Securing women's lives in a global world
- Invisible powers to punish
- Judicial Supervision: Evidence current practice and implications for mainstream court settings
- Keynote Presentation
- Models
- Modern Slavery in Australia: exploring the limits & challenges of law
- National and international focus
- New & Old Constructs of Justice
- NGOs and Crime
- Non-governmental and voluntary sector organisations in criminal justice and drug policy processes
- Nunc idorcisit amet jus
- Oral Presentation
- Panel Session
- PANEL – Parental and close family incarceration
- Parental and close family incarceration
- PECRC Oral
- PECRC Poster
- Plenary Keynote
- Plenary Session
- Police Investigations
- Police Legitimacy
- Policing
- Policing and State Crime
- Policing and the Public
- Policing Culture
- Policing Dangerous Consumption
- Policing mental illness
- Policing Systems
- Policing: From prevention to crime control: National and International Perspectives
- Prisons
- Prisons from the inside
- Problems and Solutions in U.S. Criminal Justice
- Processes and Procedures of In/Justice
- Programs and populations
- Public confidence in sentencing
- Regulating Corporations and tackling corruption
- Regulation & State Crime
- Reoffending risk – bail gradual release community sanctions
- Restorative justice and diversion of young people
- Restorative Justice and Justice Reinvestment
- Risky bodies risky systems: Post-prison policy practice and experience
- Round Table
- See no evil hear no evil
- Segregation inequality and crime
- Sentencing
- Sex bodies violence
- Sex Gender and Violence
- Sexual Offending
- Sexual Offending and Abuse: From prevention to prediction
- Southern and comparative criminology
- Southern Criminology
- State Crime and Structural Justice
- State Recognition and Possibilities for Justice: Gender Identity and Victimisation
- Sub-Plenary Panel
- Substance Abuse
- Surveillance
- Teaching Criminology
- Technology -facilitated harms
- Terrorism and Counter-terrorism
- Terrorism and Radicalisation
- Terrorism Crime Space and Place
- The Rehabilitative Prison: an oxymoron or an opportunity to design prisons differently and reduce reoffending?
- Uncategorized
- Understanding Inequality and Challenging State Complicity
- Unlawful Migrant Labour
- Vestibulum consequat
- Vestibulum eutellus
- Victimology
- Victims & Offenders
- Victims and Trauma
- Visual and Sensory Criminology
- Visual Criminology: Policing the Image
- Vulnerable People and Human Rights
- White Collar Crime
- Women As Victims
- Working to support children and families of prisoners
- Working with young people reducing reoffending
- Wrongful Conviction
- Young people and violence victims and perpetrators
- Young People Crime and Justice
- “Police education: new models new approaches and emerging trends”
Category
- A closed mouth catches no flies: How tertiary prevention of sexual violence and abuse can inform primary and secondary prevention
- Bail & Illusions of Justice
- Before we get to court
- Border Policing and Migration
- Border violences and control
- Borders & Risk
- Carceral Borders
- Changes in ‘youth crime’ – perceptions and realities
- Changing perspectives on ‘youth’ and young people
- Children & young people in custody
- Children in state care
- Coercive Control
- Communication underpins access to justice
- Community
- Concurrent Panel
- Consequences of Invasion
- Corrections and Penology
- Courts and Sentencing
- Crime and Media
- Crime and the City
- Crime in the Pacific
- Crime Management
- Crime Prevention
- Cultural Criminology
- Curabitur acconvallis
- Cybercrime
- Cybercrime victimisation
- Development & Prevention of Youth Crime & ASB
- Digital Criminology
- Digital innovations in Offending and Control
- Encountering Crime in Everyday Publics
- Encounters with Crime and Justice in the Pacific Islands
- Ethics & Integrity: Police Training
- Everyday experiences of the internal border
- Expanding Criminological Frames: Global/Local
- Extending Punishment
- Family and Intimate Partner Violence
- Family Violence
- Forensic Criminology
- Gender and Crime
- Gender-based Crime in a Digital Age
- Getting the evidence: Police interviewing practices
- GPS geospatial tools and surveillance
- Green criminology
- Hidden punishment – fines and infringement notices
- Highlighting harm and resisting incarceration
- Illicit Drugs & Alcohol
- Immigration & Human Rights
- Improving prison practices
- Indigenous Criminology
- Inflicting Trauma
- Informing sentencing practice and policy
- Innovation in sentencing
- Innovative Data & Methodology
- Innovative Justice
- Innovative Justice and Desistance
- Inside and Outside the Prison
- Institutional Abuse
- Institutions of Harm and Victimisation
- Integer sempermolestie
- Intelligence & Organised Crime
- International dimension in sentencing
- Intimate Partner violence risk and security: Securing women's lives in a global world
- Invisible powers to punish
- Judicial Supervision: Evidence current practice and implications for mainstream court settings
- Keynote Presentation
- Models
- Modern Slavery in Australia: exploring the limits & challenges of law
- National and international focus
- New & Old Constructs of Justice
- NGOs and Crime
- Non-governmental and voluntary sector organisations in criminal justice and drug policy processes
- Nunc idorcisit amet jus
- Oral Presentation
- Panel Session
- PANEL – Parental and close family incarceration
- Parental and close family incarceration
- PECRC Oral
- PECRC Poster
- Plenary Keynote
- Plenary Session
- Police Investigations
- Police Legitimacy
- Policing
- Policing and State Crime
- Policing and the Public
- Policing Culture
- Policing Dangerous Consumption
- Policing mental illness
- Policing Systems
- Policing: From prevention to crime control: National and International Perspectives
- Prisons
- Prisons from the inside
- Problems and Solutions in U.S. Criminal Justice
- Processes and Procedures of In/Justice
- Programs and populations
- Public confidence in sentencing
- Regulating Corporations and tackling corruption
- Regulation & State Crime
- Reoffending risk – bail gradual release community sanctions
- Restorative justice and diversion of young people
- Restorative Justice and Justice Reinvestment
- Risky bodies risky systems: Post-prison policy practice and experience
- Round Table
- See no evil hear no evil
- Segregation inequality and crime
- Sentencing
- Sex bodies violence
- Sex Gender and Violence
- Sexual Offending
- Sexual Offending and Abuse: From prevention to prediction
- Southern and comparative criminology
- Southern Criminology
- State Crime and Structural Justice
- State Recognition and Possibilities for Justice: Gender Identity and Victimisation
- Sub-Plenary Panel
- Substance Abuse
- Surveillance
- Teaching Criminology
- Technology -facilitated harms
- Terrorism and Counter-terrorism
- Terrorism and Radicalisation
- Terrorism Crime Space and Place
- The Rehabilitative Prison: an oxymoron or an opportunity to design prisons differently and reduce reoffending?
- Uncategorized
- Understanding Inequality and Challenging State Complicity
- Unlawful Migrant Labour
- Vestibulum consequat
- Vestibulum eutellus
- Victimology
- Victims & Offenders
- Victims and Trauma
- Visual and Sensory Criminology
- Visual Criminology: Policing the Image
- Vulnerable People and Human Rights
- White Collar Crime
- Women As Victims
- Working to support children and families of prisoners
- Working with young people reducing reoffending
- Wrongful Conviction
- Young people and violence victims and perpetrators
- Young People Crime and Justice
- “Police education: new models new approaches and emerging trends”