Asset Recovery: Substantive or Symbolic?

The arrival of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 was widely regarded as contributing a significant weapon to the armoury deployed in the fight against crime. For a government focused on proving the adage ‘crime does not pay’, it provided extensive powers of asset recovery. However, the agencies tasked with recovering those assets have had mixed success with the much maligned Assets Recovery Agency being disbanded and its role absorbed within the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the issues that have arisen in connection with the UK asset recovery regime asking if this approach was ever meant to make a substantive contribution to reducing criminal activity or if it was only ever merely symbolic, to be used as a means of legitimising government action that was grounded in the imagery of threat. In order to achieve these objectives, the paper draws on asset recovery data and information on agency costs for both ARA and SOCA. This data is sourced from both published sources and from information supplied to the author by these agencies.