RT Article
T1 The Dark Figure and the Cyber Fraud Rise in Europe: Evidence from Spain
JF European journal on criminal policy and research
VO 26
IS 3
SP 293
OP 312
A1 Kemp, Steven
A2 Miró Llinares, Fernando
A2 Moneva, Asier
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1733972889
AB A reduction in property crime has been a central feature of criminological discussion in the last 25 years, and numerous studies have used police statistics to identify a drop throughout the Western world. However, fraud, which is included in a broad definition of property crime, has typically not been considered in the analysis. This study examines fraud in the Spanish and European context to further understanding of its nature, prevalence, evolution and role in the overall panorama of property crime. Furthermore, the present study explores the extent to which we are experiencing widespread fraud underreporting to police and the implications of this for crime control policy. To this end, the present paper analyses secondary data provided by the Spanish Ministry of Interior, Spanish and European central banking authorities as well as large-scale victimization surveys from a number of European countries. In contrast to other property crimes, the findings indicate that cyber fraud is rising and that reporting is considerably lower. Some of the main reasons for reporting or not reporting fraud victimization are also identified. The dark figure of fraud suggests the design and evaluation of policing and crime prevention policies based solely on police statistics may be inadequate.
K1 Dark figure
K1 Cyber fraud
K1 Crime trends
K1 Crime drop
K1 Evidence-based prevention
K1 Crime reporting
DO 10.1007/s10610-020-09439-2