The role of the Chamber of Commerce is to act on behalf of its members at local and national levels.

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INTRODUCTION

The role of the Chamber of Commerce is to act on behalf of its members at local and national levels.  Their role is to act as the voices of businesses, to give businesses access to information and help businesses improve security.  The Chamber of Commerce can provide training for businesses to enhance staff awareness.

This report aims to highlight to the Chamber of Commerce how its member’s ways in which crime prevention could be improved to protect companies and businesses.  Each year billions of pounds are lost through crime at the workplace, either through staff embezzlement or fraud or through things like shop lifting and credit card and cheque fraud. We will look at each of the types of crimes individually.

Conklin (1977) gave the following definition of business crime:

        

“Business crime is an illegal act, punishable by a criminal sanction, which is committed by an individual or a corporation in the course of a legitimate occupation or pursuit in the industrial or commercial sector for the purpose of obtaining money or property, avoiding the payment of money or the loss of property, or obtaining business or personal advantage” (Box: 1995: pg 20)

WHAT DEFINES CRIME AT THE WORKPLACE?

To understand what crime at the workplace means we will look at the types of crime which occur in the workplace and how each affects those involved, both directly and indirectly:

The definitions of workplace crime we will look at in this report are:

  1. white collar crime
  1. corporate crime
  2. organised crime

White Collar Crime:

White collar offences are quite often committed by those who hold a fairly high status, or enjoy a certain level of trust within a company they are employed by.  Their legitimate employment makes it possible for these white collar criminals to commit certain types of crime; these crimes often involve embezzlement of company funds and fraud.

SUCH FRAUDSTERS INCLUDE:

  • Nick Leeson: Jailed for his part in the collapse of the Bearings Bank, Leeson fraudulently embezzled around 1.3bn and was given a jail sentence of six and a half years.
  •  Robert Maxwell: accused of fraudulently using his Mirror Group employees pension fund to prevent the collapse of his own business empire.  Maxwell mysteriously drowned shortly after these allegations, and after his death and collapse of the business, debts amounted to around £2 billion, leaving people without the security of theirs pensions.
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White collar criminals can sometimes be seen to be ‘pilferers’ or ‘fiddlers’, because the crimes they commit may be something as simple as helping themselves to ‘a little something extra’ to give their pay packet a boost.  Though what they take might seem to be of little consequence at the time, these ‘little misdemeanours’ certainly mount up and eventually costs companies millions every year.

It must be noted though that not all white collar crime takes place within a workplace by members of its staff, white collar crime is also carried out by people who consider themselves middle ...

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