Do daily newspapers of former West and East Germany cover crime in a different way?

The question investigated in the presented paper is whether crime is discussed differently in the media of former East and West Germany, how it is weighted and whether the real crime situation provides an explanation for any differences in press coverage. The study showed that there are no significant differences in the press coverage and that violent crime is not overrepresented. Coverage of offences like robbery, damage to property, sexual assaults or bodily injury, which are also categorized as violent crime, was of average frequency, so that again there was no overrepresentation in the newspapers of the two cities compared in this study (Stuttgart and Dresden). Surprisingly, sexual offences such as rape or sexual abuse played a minor role in the daily newspapers. Further interesting results of the analysis were that offences in the field of "intelligent crime" (e. g. white-collar crime) were of no importance in the print media, whereas the number of reports on crimes for which the general public assumes a higher probability to become a victim itself (e. g. burglary and robbery) was disproportionately high in relation to the recorded number of cases. Reports on drug offences played a more important role in the newspapers analyzed by us than violent crime.     

Mortgage fraud: A risk factor analysis of affected communities

Mortgage fraud is a fast-growing form of white-collar crime that has received much press coverage in the United States of America. Mortgage fraud has an adverse effect on individual homeowners, communities, and many indirect victims of the crime. While past research has focused on the personal motivating factors behind the commission of white-collar crime, this particular article reviews several facets of the crime itself and explores the potential neighbourhood risk factors that help attract the crime. From a national perspective, mortgage fraud seems to occur more frequently in neighbourhoods that have low socioeconomic indicators. These associations become even more pronounced when the degree of fraud occurrences within the community is factored in as a variable. Upon disaggregating the data according to region, the fraud indicator variables also display differing trend levels, perhaps indicating that as mortgage fraud practices begin to mature within an area, its community dynamics tend to change as well. The article concludes with recommendations for policymakers, community organizations, and law enforcement officials as to how to address mortgage fraud once it appears within a community, and also addresses future avenues of research for what is largely an untapped area of financial crime research.     

Assessing Newspaper Coverage of Corporate Violence: The Dance Hall Fire in Qoteborg, Sweden

The media disproportionately focus on conventional crime while neglecting the impact of corporate misbehavior. The present research examines U.S. newspaper coverage of a deadly fire at a dance hall in Goteborg, Sweden. This particular incident facilitates an examination of how newspapers treat issues involving culpability of conventional offenders (arsonists) and white collar offenders (the owners of the nightclub and the promoters of the dance). It was found that newspapers disproportionately focused on the direct harm associated with the fire, and generally neglected the role played by the organizers/promoters. Suggestions are offered regarding the need for more complete media coverage of crime, particularly white collar crime. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A Survey of Reasons for the Under Reporting of Cheque Fraud: Examples from Australia

Fraud is generally defined as the practice of obtaining credit and property from another by means of deception. When the object of deception used is a valueless cheque, then the conduct is called ‘cheque fraud.’ Cheque fraud is a crime; but unlike other types of crime, such as crimes involving force, cheque fraud is under reported to the police. The reasons for the under reporting are diverse and mean that only about 15% of all offences come to the attention of the police. An Australian study conducted to survey reasons for this under reporting revealed that a major factor affecting victims' reactions to cheque fraud was their ignorance of police functions and an uncertainty whether the passing of valueless cheques could constitute a crime. The results of this study are reported herein.     

Crime News Trends in Finland: A Review of Recent Research

In this article, we present findings of crime media research conducted in Finland during recent years. As this body of research has mainly been published in Finnish, the core results have not been available for international audiences until now. The amount of crime news reporting has consistently increased both in the newspapers and in television news broadcasts during the last decades. A series of representative surveys also show that the majority of people read and view crime news on a regular basis and are thus constantly exposed to these media messages. We conclude our article by contrasting crime news trends with the development of fear of crime in Finland, and by discussing possible links and explanations to the relationship.     

集资诈骗罪的司法困境与罪群立法完善

集资诈骗罪一方面被认定为特殊诈骗罪,与诈骗罪表现为一般与特殊的关系,另一方面又被当作“加重型”非法吸收公众存款罪。因此在刑事司法过程中出现了“骗”与“被骗”的构成要件缺失却依然构成集资诈骗罪、非法吸收公众存款罪中的“欺骗”与集资诈骗罪中的“诈骗”混淆不清、两罪以“非法占有目的”为区分标准的主观化趋势的问题,从而导致“非法占有目的”在被扩大化的同时又被弱化,进而造成集资诈骗罪被矮化、限缩。应从金融秩序法益的立场,回归集资诈骗罪的金融犯罪属性,重塑诈骗罪与集资诈骗罪的关系,明确“欺骗”“诈骗”的同质性,增设“骗取集资款罪”,调整非法吸收公众存款罪的规制范围,构建体系化的集资诈骗罪罪名群,化解集资诈骗罪刑罚供应过度与不足并存的尴尬。     

Mortgage origination fraud and the global economic crisis

Research Summary The study outlined in this article analyzed the responses of 23 subjects previously and currently employed in the subprime lending industry to understand the implications and role of white-collar crime in the contemporary subprime mortgage crisis and to document the rationalizations that offenders use to explain their involvement in mortgage-related crimes. The subjects represented five sectors of the primary mortgage market, including brokerage, lender, escrow, title, and appraisal offices. Secondary sources of data for the study included media accounts, government reports, and industry studies. The research findings detail accounts of mortgage frauds in the subprime lending industry that resulted from inadequate regulation, the indiscriminate use of alternative loan products, and the lack of accountability in the industry. Policy Implications The study results suggest that the problem of mortgage origination fraud would be prevented best by major reform of financial policies and lending practices that characterize the subprime mortgage industry. Several broad recommendations are proposed in this article that highlight the need to recognize the potential for insider fraud, to enhance government regulation and oversight, to tighten loan qualification requirements, and to increase standards of underwriting. Observations are offered concerning the need to highlight white-collar crime in understanding the global financial crisis and to preventing future debacles.     

Studying the correlates of fraud victimization and reporting

Little is known about the correlates of white-collar victimization, and even less is known about white-collar crime reporting. In this article, the extent to which predictors of fraud victimization are the same as the predictors of fraud reporting is examined. Using a national sample of fraud victims, these findings were consistent with prior research in that involvement in risky behaviors and age were found to be important predictors of fraud victimization. Additionally, the specific factors that are influential in predicting fraud victimization appear to vary across offense type. Unfortunately, little was revealed regarding the predictors of the official reporting of fraud victimizations. Future research needs to further unravel the importance of risky behavior in both victimization and reporting, as well as to focus on a broader array of white-collar crimes.     

金融凭证诈骗罪若干问题的思考

金融凭证诈骗罪在司法适用和理论研究上均存在一些争议和难点。主要结合司法实践中出现的一些案例,针对金融凭证范围的界定、本罪客观方面的行为方式、本罪与贷款诈骗罪及盗窃罪的认定等问题,进行了探讨。     

论信用证诈骗罪

信用证诈骗罪侵犯的主要客体是国家对信用证的管理制度,在实施骗取信用证进行诈骗时,公私财物的所有权仅是一种选择客体。客观方面表现为《刑法》第１９５条规定的四种方式。信用证诈骗罪在某些情况下也存在既遂、未遂之分。应当区分本罪与伪造、变造金融票证罪的界限。对盗窃他人信用证后又加以使用、利用信用证诈骗银行“打包贷款”的行为应按本罪论处。     

Victims’ motivations for reporting to the ‘fraud justice network’

ABSTRACT

It is well-established that (online) fraud has one of the lowest reporting rates across all crime categories. However, there is a large gap examining why some victims choose to report online fraud offenses. Therefore, this paper examines the under-researched group of online fraud victims who reported their crimes to authorities. Based on interviews with 80 victims across Australia, who lost at least AUD10,000 to online fraud, this paper demonstrates two motivations behind reporting: a sense of individual justice, and an altruistic notion of protecting others. The paper also highlights the negativity associated with the reporting process. The paper uses these findings to determine what can be learnt from the victims who were willing to report. It concludes with a discussion of the challenges evident in seeking to improve the confidence of victims reporting to authorities.     

Online victimization risk and self-protective strategies: developing police-led cyber fraud prevention programs

ABSTRACT

The prevalence and impact of cyber fraud continues to increase exponentially with new and more innovative methods developed by offenders to target and exploit victims for their own financial reward. Traditional crime reaction methods used by police have proved largely ineffective in this context, with offenders typically located outside of the police jurisdiction of their victims. Given this, some police agencies have begun to adopt a victim focused, crime prevention approach to cyber fraud. The current research explores with a sample of two hundred and eighteen potential cyber fraud victims, the relationship between online victimization risk, knowledge and use of crime prevention strategies. The study found those most at risk of cyber fraud victimization despite accurate perceptions of risk and knowledge of self-protective behaviors in the online environment underutilise online prevention strategies. This research has important implications for police agencies who are designing and delivering cyber fraud education. It provides guidance for the development of effective prevention programs based on practical skills development.     

Breaking news: How local TV news and real-world conditions affect fear of crime

Many Americans report that they are fearful of crime. One frequently cited source of this fear is the mass media. The media, and local television news in particular, often report on incidents of crime, and do so in a selective and sometimes sensational manner. This paper examines the role of the media in shaping crime fears, in conjunction with both demographic factors and local crime conditions. Unlike most previous research in this area, which typically focuses on only one medium, the present study examines the effects of several—local and national television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet. The findings address four theoretical perspectives on the relationship among the media, real-world conditions, and fear of crime.     

The effect of social support on fraud victims' reporting behavior: A research note

Little effort has been made to understand white-collar crime victims, and little is known about the factors that influence reporting behavior among these victims. In this paper we use the concept of social support to explain responses to fraud, one form of white-collar crime. Results show that social support in the form of information from others influences whether fraud victims report their victimizations. Fraud victims' responses parallel those of street crime victims in that both types of victims respond according to the direction of social support they receive from family and friends.     

Financial Crime Today: Greece as a European Case Study

In this article a spectrum of financial crime, ranging from Customs violations, EU-fraud, tax evasion, Stock Market fraud, illegal use of intellectual property, electronic and Internet crime, to environmental pollution, illegal trafficking of personal data, and corruption is illustrated by examples from Greece. Needless to say, that the phenomenon of corruption and financial crime is creating problems not only in Greece, but also in other European countries and at higher financial levels.     

A comparative study of British and German press articles on ‘organised crime’ (1999–2009)

Organised crime is the topic of many popular fiction teledramas and films, such as The Sopranos, The Godfather and Goodfellas. The relationship between fiction and fact is delicate. We argue that the same can be said for the influence of the press. How far does the press construct, rather than objectively recount an image of organised crime? We extracted 389 British and German articles from national newspapers that reported organised crime between 1999 and 2009, from the Lexis Nexis (now Nexis UK) database and the online archives of a number of German newspapers. We then analysed them using quantitative and qualitative methods of textual analysis. In this article, we analyse the British and German press discourses on organised crime between 1999 and 2009, to identify their rhetoric and compare their reporting. To do this, we will 1) define terms and explain our methodology; 2) provide a general overview of statistics; 3) provide two specific analyses of reporting of organised crime and 4) discuss our findings.     

Differentiating identity theft: An exploratory study of victims using a national victimization survey

Despite the widespread attention given to identity theft, there is much confusion on how best to define and measure it. Recent attempts to measure its extent through victimization surveys or law enforcement files have varied considerably in the types of crimes included as identity theft. Some studies include credit card fraud, while others exclude it. This inconsistency in data collection has made it difficult to assess properly the extent of the crime. The current study uses data from the National Public Survey on White Collar Crime to determine the degree to which including credit card fraud as a type of identity theft affects victim profiles encompassing demographic characteristics, risky activities, and reporting decisions. Specifically, we compare victim profiles for victims of existing credit card fraud, new credit card fraud, and existing bank account fraud. Findings from our exploratory study suggest that including existing credit card fraud may obscure the fact that those who are female, black, young, and low income are disproportionately victimized by existing bank account fraud, which is the type of identity theft most financially damaging and most difficult to clear up for individuals.     

有价证券诈骗罪的疑难问题探讨

刑法第197条的伪造、变造的有价证券,仅指伪造、变造的国家发行的债券等资本证券,包括国家发行的彩票;伪造、变造的无客观对应的国家有价证券,属于伪造、变造的国家有价证券;“使用”是指按照有价证券的功能,将伪造、变造的国家有价证券作为真实有效的有价证券行使的行为;“使用”必须具有欺骗性质,将伪造的、变造的国家有价证券出售给知情的对方的,成立倒卖伪造的有价票证罪;金融机构工作人员使用伪造、变造的国家有价证券兑换现金的,应分清不同情形处理;一般主体与金融机构工作人员相勾结使用伪造、变造的国家有价证券,在无受骗者的情况下,应认定为贪污罪或职务侵占罪的共犯。     

金融凭证诈骗罪疑难问题探析

金融凭证指银行及银行类金融机构依法办理银行业务所使用的结算凭证;伪造、变造的金融凭证除形式要件虚假之外还包括有权制作人或无权制作人违法制作不实内容、形式要件真实的金融凭证。"使用"只指直接兑现金融凭证记载的财产权利,不包括用其质押、展示等间接使用。使用作废金融凭证或只是冒用他人真实有效的金融凭证诈骗不构成金融凭证诈骗罪。采盗窃、抢劫、抢夺等手段获真实有效金融凭证冒用取财以其手段行为定侵犯财产罪。内外勾结利用职务之便使用伪造、变造的金融凭证取财应以主犯人身份构成的罪名定性。