Public–Private Cooperation in the Detection and Investigation of Criminal Offences in Italy

The knowledge held by private actors has always made an essential and indispensable contribution to the detection of crimes and illicit behaviours. This private participation in the authorities’ investigations can take many different forms: a victim’s complaint, collection of statements from persons with information on the facts, or the use of police informants – to mention but a few. In more recent times, however, the co-optation of private individuals seems to have taken on a role that is quite simply indispensable in the management of public affairs, including criminal matters, both in identifying objectives and in adopting measures or actual decisions. In particular, the involvement of private actors has grown ever broader and more structured in areas such as combatting crimes against the public administration, computer crime and financial crime. These older and newer cooperation mechanisms fall into numerous and varied categories. Yet all these mechanisms have at least one trait in common: they are structured to support information gathering on a systemic basis that goes beyond the personal relationship between investigator and individual. In the approving opinions of some, such a feature justifies including these mechanisms in a growing trend towards ‘externalisation’: shifting to the private sector certain investigative functions that were traditionally the domain of public authorities. The most advanced frontier of this phenomenon can readily be found in national and supranational policies for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). This area has drawn strength from outsourcing certain investigative activities to private individuals, particularly the collection of information on possible suspicious activities. Unsurprisingly, it is in this context that the phenomenon of so-called public–private partnerships (PPPs) is seeing broader application, from both a preventive and a repressive perspective. To assess the potential of these new forms of cooperation, however, it is essential to understand the current state of play in public–private interaction in the detection and investigation of crime. This report provides such an analysis with regard to the Italian legal framework