... two influential sources. Firstly they are, statistics on offenders recorded by the police and secondly, statistics on known offenders. The police are heavily dependent on the public to bring crime to their attention and therefore recorded it statistically. (Koffman, 1996: 3) However, of all comparable BCS crimes in 1997, only 44% were said by their victims to have been reported to or become known to the police. The majority of crimes are not reported to the police at all. (BCS 98 p.19) People are not willing to report crimes to the police due to various reasons: firstly, an awareness problem. Some individuals, organisations or government bodies may not be aware that a crime has been committed against them. The ingenuity of the fraudster, the complexity of the act, lack of knowledge and vigilance of the victim can make the crime invisible. (Jupp et al., XX: 7) Secondly, the normalisation problem. ...

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