white collar crime convictions

Indo404

http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/1353238368292611.html

Robert Dowds said: "Even after you take the time lag in prosecutions into account, it still does not explain why the conviction rate has fallen by so much in 6 years. Almost nine out of every ten white collar crimes committed in Ireland in recent years failed to result in a conviction and, based on these figures that I am referring to, white collar crime is growing in Ireland but convictions are falling.

How can he say that white collar crime is growing when there are less convictions?
And what worries me more is that so many people are prosecuted and turn out to be innocent.

zom

Less to steal - less thiefs. There is surely no climate for white collar crimes now in Ireland, not as it was 5 or 10 years ago.

Also have to take into account the fact that the ODCE (responsible for a lot a corporate criminal prosecutions) have been absolutely overrun with the Anglo investigation and therefore haven't really had as much time to dedicate to other issues.

Milk & Honey

The individual who was charged may have been acquitted but that does not mean there was a crime. If someone is charged with murder and acquitted it does not mean there was no murder. It may mean that the wrong person was charged.
In the case of white collar crimes there is certainly money missing.
There are difficulties with securing convictions for white collar crimes as there are with other crimes but there are features of white collar crimes which make it difficult to secure convictions.
1. The lack of sufficiently trained and experience investigators.
2. The lack of witnesses.
3. The lack of informants.
4. The difficulties with interviewing suspects in the short periods available.
5. The complicated nature of the crimes and the difficulties faced by juries trying them in understanding what has happened beyond reasonable doubt.
6. The problems associated with getting the full chain of evidence together.
7. The lack of a plea bargaining system.