Oliwia Kozica 1.2 writeup
Honour crime:
Crimes like honour crime usually go unreported, an example of a personal reasons of why honour crime goes
unreported can be through fear and shame. These two reasons interlink closely, a victim of this crime would be
brought to feel shame due to feeling like they have ‘dishonoured’ their family. As a consequence, this can lead to
secrecy and fear to report honour crime as it can be detrimental to their relationship with their family, even leading
to their homicide. Examples of honour crime include forced marriages, female genital mutilation and also rape in the
name of honour. These personal and sexual crimes can also be shameful for people so they don’t report it, this is
because they may not want others to know that they were vulnerable.
A social and cultural reason of why this crime may go unreported is that it is a culturally bound crime. A culture
bound crime is a crime committed by a specific cultural group, they typically go unreported as people are unlikely to
interfere in different cultures they don’t understand. This links to lack of public awareness which leads to the second
cultural reason that there is lack of public awareness. People are just not aware of honour crime due to low media
coverage or perceive any acts as acceptable in that culture because they believe its normal resulting in it not being
reported. The case referred to in the brief has similarities to the case of Banaz Mahmod. Banaz was murdered by her
uncles and farther, who had organised this honour-killing, for being associated and seen to conform with
Westernised culture rather than Indian. The police failed Banaz Mahmod due to their ignorance of honour-based
violence, the police simply didn’t believe her even though she came to the police for the need to be protected.
White collar crime:
One personal reason why white-collar crime goes unreported is due to shame, most people would not want to admit
that they have fallen for a fraudulent scheme or have been a victim of fraud. This relates to Bernie Madoff Ponzi
scheme; he manipulated people and once he was prosecuted, they were left reluctant to bring themselves to
identify themselves as the victims to the police.
A social and cultural reason why this crime may go unreported is the complexity behind the crime. The general
public is unlikely to understand that white collar crime has been committed, offenders are sophisticated and have
the knowledge to conceal and hide their crime. Law enforcement agencies are usually understaffed, lacking technical
expertise or under resourced to investigate white collar crime effectively. Therefore, investigation and prosecution is
limited. This can relate to Bernie Madoff’s ‘Ponzi Scheme’, which demonstrates the destructive potential of white-
collar crime. Bernie Madoff ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, this is where money is taken from investors
rather than investments from the stock market, then using the latest investments to pay interest to existing
investors. This happened for at least 17 years before Madoff was persecuted, this illustrates the complexity of white
colour crime and the low chances of reporting and prosecuting offenders. Another social and cultural reason is lack
of media interest. The media gives limited coverage on white collar crime, which emphasises the stereotype that
crime only happens by the working class rather than focusing on the upper middle classes. The media describes
white collar crime as a technical mistake rather than referring to it as an actual crime. For example, deaths at work
are accidents rather than a result from cost cutting on safety measures. This emphasises how the media disregards
white collar crime as an actual crime and makes it difficult for people to feel the need to report it.
Technological crime:
Technological crime often goes unreported. A personal reason for this is that people are not affected, if it doesn’t
concern a person, they may feel like it isn’t their obligation to reporting and leaving it to someone else to report it.
Hacking scandals are most prominent with larger organisations, a recent hacking scandal the ‘Robin Hood Hackers’
donated stolen money to charity, the dark side hackers extorted millions from companies. The hackers claim they
only target large profitable companies with their ransomware attacks. The attacks hold organisations' IT systems
hostage until a ransom is paid. This just shows how the hackers only targeted big companies, in which it wouldn’t
directly affect anyone else.
A social and cultural reason of why this crime may go unreported is because of its complexity, it is difficult to tell
whether the crime has been committed due to the offender’s sophistication. They will often use secure software to
remain anonymous and hide their crime, which is usually what the victim cannot report the offender.
Honour crime:
Crimes like honour crime usually go unreported, an example of a personal reasons of why honour crime goes
unreported can be through fear and shame. These two reasons interlink closely, a victim of this crime would be
brought to feel shame due to feeling like they have ‘dishonoured’ their family. As a consequence, this can lead to
secrecy and fear to report honour crime as it can be detrimental to their relationship with their family, even leading
to their homicide. Examples of honour crime include forced marriages, female genital mutilation and also rape in the
name of honour. These personal and sexual crimes can also be shameful for people so they don’t report it, this is
because they may not want others to know that they were vulnerable.
A social and cultural reason of why this crime may go unreported is that it is a culturally bound crime. A culture
bound crime is a crime committed by a specific cultural group, they typically go unreported as people are unlikely to
interfere in different cultures they don’t understand. This links to lack of public awareness which leads to the second
cultural reason that there is lack of public awareness. People are just not aware of honour crime due to low media
coverage or perceive any acts as acceptable in that culture because they believe its normal resulting in it not being
reported. The case referred to in the brief has similarities to the case of Banaz Mahmod. Banaz was murdered by her
uncles and farther, who had organised this honour-killing, for being associated and seen to conform with
Westernised culture rather than Indian. The police failed Banaz Mahmod due to their ignorance of honour-based
violence, the police simply didn’t believe her even though she came to the police for the need to be protected.
White collar crime:
One personal reason why white-collar crime goes unreported is due to shame, most people would not want to admit
that they have fallen for a fraudulent scheme or have been a victim of fraud. This relates to Bernie Madoff Ponzi
scheme; he manipulated people and once he was prosecuted, they were left reluctant to bring themselves to
identify themselves as the victims to the police.
A social and cultural reason why this crime may go unreported is the complexity behind the crime. The general
public is unlikely to understand that white collar crime has been committed, offenders are sophisticated and have
the knowledge to conceal and hide their crime. Law enforcement agencies are usually understaffed, lacking technical
expertise or under resourced to investigate white collar crime effectively. Therefore, investigation and prosecution is
limited. This can relate to Bernie Madoff’s ‘Ponzi Scheme’, which demonstrates the destructive potential of white-
collar crime. Bernie Madoff ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, this is where money is taken from investors
rather than investments from the stock market, then using the latest investments to pay interest to existing
investors. This happened for at least 17 years before Madoff was persecuted, this illustrates the complexity of white
colour crime and the low chances of reporting and prosecuting offenders. Another social and cultural reason is lack
of media interest. The media gives limited coverage on white collar crime, which emphasises the stereotype that
crime only happens by the working class rather than focusing on the upper middle classes. The media describes
white collar crime as a technical mistake rather than referring to it as an actual crime. For example, deaths at work
are accidents rather than a result from cost cutting on safety measures. This emphasises how the media disregards
white collar crime as an actual crime and makes it difficult for people to feel the need to report it.
Technological crime:
Technological crime often goes unreported. A personal reason for this is that people are not affected, if it doesn’t
concern a person, they may feel like it isn’t their obligation to reporting and leaving it to someone else to report it.
Hacking scandals are most prominent with larger organisations, a recent hacking scandal the ‘Robin Hood Hackers’
donated stolen money to charity, the dark side hackers extorted millions from companies. The hackers claim they
only target large profitable companies with their ransomware attacks. The attacks hold organisations' IT systems
hostage until a ransom is paid. This just shows how the hackers only targeted big companies, in which it wouldn’t
directly affect anyone else.
A social and cultural reason of why this crime may go unreported is because of its complexity, it is difficult to tell
whether the crime has been committed due to the offender’s sophistication. They will often use secure software to
remain anonymous and hide their crime, which is usually what the victim cannot report the offender.
