Corporate Investigations, Corporate Justice and Public-Private Relations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. Introduction, Theory and Research Questions

   • Clarissa A. Meerts

   Pages 1-40

3. Legal Frameworks

   • Clarissa A. Meerts

   Pages 41-104

4. Corporate Investigations

   • Clarissa A. Meerts

   Pages 105-157

5. Corporate Settlements

   • Clarissa A. Meerts

   Pages 159-218

6. Public-Private Relations as Coexistence

   • Clarissa A. Meerts

   Pages 219-281

7. Discussion

   • Clarissa A. Meerts

   Pages 283-323

8. Back Matter

   Pages 325-353

   PDF

This book seeks to understand the investigation and settlement of employer/employee disputes within companies. It argues that there is effectively no democratic knowledge about, or control over, corporate security, due to companies' preference for private, out-of-court settlements when faced with norm violations raised by employees. This book fills the knowledge gap by providing an overview of the corporate security sector including legal frameworks and an analysis of the role and powers of private investigative services, inhouse security, forensic accountants and forensic legal investigators. It draws on close observation, case studies and interviews with practitioners in and around the industry. Corporate Investigations, Corporate Justice and Public-Private Relations also looks at public-private relationships in this sector to propose policy remedies applicable to all corporate security providers, regardless of the disparate professional backgrounds and skill-sets of their staff. 

• corporate security
• corporate investigation
• corporate crime
• private investigation
• forensic accountants
• forensic legal
• out-of-court settlement
• corporate settlement
• policing

“Corporate investigation has a large, growing share in law enforcement, yet it is rarely studied empirically or with refined theoretical concepts. Clarissa Meerts does both. This monograph offers a rare insight in the real world of corporate investigators and is intellectually challenging for criminologists and practitioners too” (Guus Meershoek, University of Twente and Police Academy, the Netherlands)

“Clarissa Meerts offers a comprehensive contribution to a much neglected and under-explored area of corporate investigations of internal norm violations. Her discerning analyses of corporate practices in matters of private justice and the linkages to the coexisting parallel universe of the public criminal justice system are insightful and comprehensive. Meerts takes the reader on a fascinating tour through a maze of protocols and tools corporate investigators have at their disposal to deal with violations against businesses many of which public sector agencies pay scant attention to” (Mahesh K. Nalla, Michigan State University, USA)

“Despite the burgeoning literature on plural policing, we still know very little about the private investigation of norm violations inside big corporations. It has remained a hidden from view and difficult to reach field of research. Clarissa Meerts' new book is therefore of great significance. It shines much needed empirical and theoretical light into the dark world of corporate investigation and corporate justice, in the process mapping out important new terrain in the plural policing landscape.” (Adam White, University of Sheffield,UK)

“Private fraud investigations have a considerable role in corporate crime control, yet they are highly non-transparent. Clarissa Meerts offers a timely and critical analysis of the practice of corporate investigations and its interaction with legal control, and thus provides much needed insight in the public impact of this private service.” (Judith van Erp, Utrecht University, the Netherlands) 

“Public-private cooperation has become a mantra across many fields of policy, industrial security included. In this outstanding study, Clarissa Meerts showsthat cooperation rhetoric runs ahead of reality, and for cogent reasons” (Nicholas Dorn, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, UK)

• Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  Clarissa A. Meerts

Clarissa Meerts is Assistant Professor of Criminology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her research interests primarily include corporate investigations, corporate settlements, public-private relationships, white-collar and financial crime and organised crime. 

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