Crime in the professions: An introduction

In recent times, the professions have been subject to a number of changes
and challenges. Many new occupations have sought and achieved professional
standing; competition policy has altered the way in which professionals are
required to behave toward other professionals and to members of the
community; new consumer-based regulatory structures have been established
to deal with complaints; professional work has lost some of its mystique due
to the routinisation of tasks and the increasing use of information technologies;
the service basis of professional work has been replaced by a largely
commercial one; and the boundaries between the professions have been
challenged through market forces and globalisation such that transnational
and multidisciplinary professional practices are now starting to emerge. In
all, these changes have given rise to what has been described as a 'crisis of
professionalism' (Hanlon 1999).