Criminology

One of the crimes stated in the brief above is fraud which is a white-collar crime. A white-collar crime
is a crim committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of their
occupation, and it is evident from the brief above that Mr. S has been making fraudulent expense
claims for the last two years, and this criminal activity was being used to fund his gambling debts.
there are three main types of white-collar crime based on the offender which are: organised,
corporate, and professional. organised is when a criminal enterprise is set up to profit from largely
illegal activities, corporate is crimes which are committed by a company and finally professional is
crime committed by professionals for their own personal gain. the types of victims of white-collar
crimes are employees, for example 1,100 work deaths a year a caused by breeches in health and
safety law. Other types of victims are the public which are the largest group to suffer, the
government as tax evasion leads to less funding on public services, and finally consumers which is
mainly retired people who may have funds to invest in finance schemes. White collar crime typically
has low levels or public awareness, this is due to a lack of media coverage, for example there is
relatively low levels of prosecution because companies can avoid it by promising to fully corporate by
going through the serious fraud office. White collar crime also has low levels of public awareness
because it is underreported, this is because many victims won’t know that it is happening to them
and are unaware, this means that it can be hard to catch offenders if people don’t know what might
have happened to them. I think white collar crime is classed as being more deviant because although
it is against the law it isn’t viewed as being very serious like for example murder is. And so most
people would just frown upon white collar crimes rather than report them, this could also be due to
there not being much coverage around these types of crimes.

Another crime that is being committed in the brief is honour crime, and Mrs. S’ family don’t like her
husband because he is white, and her family are arranging to have Mrs. S killed. Honour crime
involves violence committed to defend the supposed honour of a family or community and the
violence is directed against the individual who is deemed to have brought shame against the family.
Honour crimes can include threatening behaviour, assault, wounding, burning, acid attacks,
abduction, rape, and murder. In the UK there are 12 honour killings a year. Crimes that also link to
honour crimes and are illegal are forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which can also
sometimes be described as an honour crime because it is aimed at controlling the sexuality of the
victim. The main offenders of this crime are the victims’ families, which can also be extended, and
members of the victim’s community. The victims of this type of crime are mainly young females and
come from ethnic minority groups. The level of public awareness is relatively low because the
communities involved may see honour crimes as justified, however the number of reports that the
police are getting is increasing, this is because forced marriage has become illegal in 2014, which has
raised public awareness, and now over 5,00 crimes are reported each year. However there have been
cuts to women’s aid charities and to support service which is making it harder for women to seek
justice or protection. I think that honour crimes are mainly viewed as criminal because, it is deemed
are a normal thing to do in other minority communities, and that women are expected to act in a
certain way and accept punishment if they fail to conform to the rules. However, in the wider society
it is deemed as deviant and is not accepted in more modern communities, as its not accepted that
families should be able to control women’s behaviour by using violence.