Iran's Criminal Policy on Economic Crimes

Abstract

This article examines Iran's criminal policy regarding economic crimes. The present research was conducted using a descriptive and analytical method. The expansion of economic crimes has hindered the government’s achievement of national objectives in the domain of economic security. Iran’s economic environment, due to numerous vulnerabilities, creates a more conducive ground for committing economic crimes compared to advanced economic systems. However, Iran’s criminal policy, especially its penal policy, lacks specific measures to address this category of crimes. Due to the absence of a structured penal policy, the generalization of economic crime instances, insufficient coverage of economic crimes, and the lack of specific criteria to distinguish these crimes from other offenses, this concept benefits actual economic criminals more than it does the legal system and society’s citizens. Findings indicate that Iran's criminal policy regarding economic crimes faces numerous challenges. Among the most fundamental challenges and ambiguities are the lack of a comprehensive and precise definition of the concept and purpose of economic crimes, the breadth of cases due to leniency in judicial approaches, the flawed adoption of penal policies and the degree of their appropriateness and effectiveness, the absence of a clear definition of economic crimes, multiple legislative bodies in the field of economic crimes, pluralism in judicial criminal policy, populist penal approaches in dealing with economic crimes, the absence of a cohesive and unified criminal policy, and the security-oriented nature of criminal policy in economic crimes. These are among the current challenges and issues in Iran's criminal policy regarding economic crimes.