Cash from Criminals?

The county's Criminal Justice Board is understood to be the first in the country to make public the details of what criminals have been forced to repay.

Each month the Northamptonshire Criminal Justice Board web site will publish the top payments made under the Proceeds of Crime Act giving the offence, location and amount paid.

The Proceeds of Crime Act allows the Police, Crown Prosecution Service and the Courts to identify and order the repayment of the proceeds of crime.

It is not just cash, if crime has paid for a house, a car, a plasma screen TV or a pension plan then the courts order that the value of these assets must also be repaid. This means that criminals no longer come out of prison to the lifestyle they had previously. It also means that they are less likely to be seen as role models within their communities.

Chair of the Northamptonshire Criminal Justice Board Adrian Lee told Heart "I am delighted that people in Northamptonshire now have this chance to see that what we are doing, it is important that the public know that the decisions of the court are enforced and that criminals who have damaged their communities are being made to payback the profits of their crime."

Last year in Northamptonshire Criminals were forced to pay back £1.5 million pounds which were identified by the courts as being the profits of criminal activity.

Some of this money gets paid to victims in compensation payments, some gets put back into funding front line staff for the police and Crown Prosecution Service and some goes back into community projects.