Violating trust: a study of court verdicts in cases of gambling-driven economic crimes in the workplace. Issue 2 (3rd July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Binde, Per; Cisneros Örnberg, Jenny; Forsström, David
• Is Part Of: Nordic journal of criminology. Volume 23:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 212
• Page End: 230
• Publication Date: 2022-07-03
• Subjects: Crime -- problem gambling -- workplace -- gender -- embezzlement -- fraud; Criminology -- Periodicals; Crime prevention -- Periodicals; Crime -- Periodicals; Criminology; Crime prevention; Crime; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 364.05
• DOI: 10.1080/2578983X.2022.2139473
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2578-983X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This study investigated trust-violating economic crimes committed in businesses and at public and non-profit organizations by employees with problem gambling. Verdicts delivered by the Swedish general courts over a five-year period (N = 283, 884) were subject to a keyword search, and verdicts matching the search criteria (n = 1, 232) were examined in detail, identifying 62 such cases. A notable finding was that middle-aged women with no previous criminal record were overrepresented compared with women in national statistics on crimes in general. Non-profit organizations and public services were relatively ineffective in detecting gambling-driven trust-violating crimes. The implications of our findings for criminological theory are discussed; the results lend support to Donald Cressey's theory of trust-violating crime as driven by a non-shareable problem and agree with the 'fraud triangle' conceptualization. We conclude that although these gambling-driven crimes are relatively rare, the risk of them occurring should not be ignored by businesses and organizations as the consequences can be severe and, for small businesses, sometimes devastating.