The conception of organisational fraud: the need for rejuvenation of fraud theory

Purpose This paper aims to challenge some of the underlying concepts about causation of fraud and in doing so enriches knowledge and insight into the management of fraud. Design/methodology/approach This study is a part of fieldwork carried out in Indonesia. Findings Organisational fraud is an exceptional type of crime. Hence, the underlying antecedents and consequences of fraud in organisation are distinct from other crimes, especially violent crimes. The underlying logic in criminological and sociological theories and literature cannot fully explain the causal factors of fraud in the organisation. This leads to a theoretical discussion about the reconstruction of the fraud theory. Implications and suggestions for further studies are discussed in this study. Originality/value This study provides a new understanding of fraud and its antecedents and consequences. In doing so, it examines the long-standing debate in criminology and sociology about the theories concerning crime causation, as these areas provide the underlying logic of fraud theory.

What Factors Predict the Self-Identification of Drug Dependency Among Australian Police Detainees? Prevalence, Correlates, and Implications for the Criminal Justice System

The drug-crime nexus has received interest from both drug-crime scholars and public policy experts internationally. While there is little disagreement that drug use is linked to higher rates of crime, causation remains hotly contested. One area of emerging interest is the confounding influence of “identity” in shaping long-term behavioral drug use and criminal trajectories. In this study, we explore the prevalence with which recent drug-using police detainees self-identify as drug-dependent and, using logistic regression, model self-identification as a function of one’s demographic, and drug-use profile. We find that being female and younger is associated with an increased odds of self-identifying oneself as dependent, controlling for drug use variables. Of the five drug types, primary heroin users are the most likely to self-identify, whereas cocaine, cannabis, and amphetamine users are less likely. To end, the potential implications of these results are discussed, and future research avenues are explored.

Repositioning the Victim in Victimology through Theory: The Concentric Model

This work examines the inadequacies of the current victimological and criminological theories for not giving the rightful focus to the victim as their subject matter. The two predominant strands of current theorizing, ‘native’ and adapted perspectives were questioned for blaming the victim for his victimization or attributing his predicament to socio – structural variables, instead of the crime perpetrator. The legal status of the victim is not considered by both perspectives: hence, the paper proposes a concentric model, which seeks to restore the victim to his rightful place within the criminal justice system. The victim is appropriately portrayed as an inactive player in crime causation, who is at the receiving end of the activities of outlaws. New concepts, ‘former normal’, ‘victim status’ and ‘victimal’ state are introduced to properly capture the ‘alterative’ harm offenders inflict on their victims, some of which many never recover from. It attempts a reconstruction of the process of victimization, and with the aid of two empirical case studies, demonstrates the possibility of discovering the pattern of offender victimization through mass studies of crime victimization data. Results from the studies can be used to formulate strategies to halt crime and break the cycle of victimization. The model holds great promise for research and policy on prevention of victimization and victim support and treatment in the criminal, or any alternative justice system.

Breaking Down the Pseudo-Pacification Process: Eight Critiques of Ultra-Realist Crime Causation Theory

This paper critically examines ultra-realist criminology’s two central crime causation theories: the breakdown of the pseudo-pacification process and special liberty. We identify a number of shortcomings in these theories pertaining to (1) their explanation of gender-related disparities in criminal offending; (2) their explanation of violence reduction through Freudian notions of drives, libidinal energy, and sublimation; and (3) their explication of crime as an expression of capitalist values. Fundamentally, we suggest that in treating political economy as the underlying source of all causative power in society, both theories engage in what Margaret Archer terms ‘downwards conflationism’. To this end, ultra-realism offers what we term a ‘direct expression theory of crime’, in which crime is a synecdoche and direct unmediated expression of political-economic conditions alone. Drawing on Margaret Archer’s realist social theory, we conclude by sketching out several potential principles of an ‘indirect expression theory’ that avoid the shortcomings of ultra-realism in explaining the complicated relationship between political economy and crime.

Stability Matters

With regard to crime, stability does not imply once a crook always a crook, that levels of crime or problem behaviors remain at the same rate over time and do not fluctuate, or that crime is caused only by variation in self control. It does mean that some characteristic or characteristics of the person cause crime rate differences over large periods of time. This chapter reviews and critiques developmental criminology and longitudinal studies of crime causation. It provides a critical evaluation of the use of the concept of stability in research about crime and on how prior record and early childhood effects have been misspecified in criminology. In addition, it critically evaluates the turning points, transition, and desistence research. Critiques of tests of the self-control concept in developmental and life-course research are presented. The role of individual differences in sociological theories of crime and delinquency and common problems with inferences from longitudinal data are discussed.

Self Control, Social Control, Morality, and Opportunity in a Choice Theory of Crime

Control theory is consistent with the notion of situational crime prevention and many of the ideas that support it. This chapter discusses several contemporary issues in control theory, including the connection between self-control theory and social control theory, the connection between morality and crime, and the role and conception of the opportunity or situational factors in a choice theory of crime causation. It is concluded that self and social control are the same theory operating under common logic, assumptions, and terms. Efforts to show them as competing are misguided. How situational causes are integrated into control theory and the connections among belief, morality, and self control are explored.

Situational Action Theory: Toward a Dynamic Theory of Crime and Its Causes

Situational Action Theory (SAT) is a general, dynamic, and mechanism-based theory of crime and its causes. It is general because it proposes to explain all kinds of crime (and rule-breaking more generally). It is dynamic because it centers on analyzing crime and its changes as the outcome of the interactions between people and their environments. It is mechanism-based because its explanation focuses on identifying key basic processes involved in crime causation. SAT analyzes crime as moral actions and its explanation focuses on three basic and interrelated explanatory mechanisms: the perception–choice process (the situational mechanism) that explains why crime events happen; selection-mechanisms that explain why criminogenic situations occur; and mechanisms of emergence that explain why people develop and change their crime propensities (psychosocial processes), and why places develop and change their criminogeneity (socioecological processes).