Author: Edited by Paul Cromwell
ISBN No:
Review date: 05/12/2025
No of pages: 419
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year of publication:
Brief:
From the July 2011 print issue of Professional Security magazine.
Once you commit time and maybe thousands of pounds into university courses in security management, it may be an unwelcome shock that almost as soon as you buy books towards your essays, you may spend hundreds. Hence the value of books that inside one cover collect a score or more of topics. One such anthology, In Their Own Words, brings together studies of criminals. How do criminals come to decisions – why and when do they do their crimes? What are their methods – what puts them off one target and not another? Why do men turn to terrorism, or armed robbery, drug smuggling or ‘fencing’ of stolen property? Why do men (and women) join gangs – and why do they give crime up? Wht in a word is the calculus of a criminal? The authors are mainly American and the sole Briton is Dick Hobbs, whose chapter ‘crime on the line’ covers telemarketing fraud, part of a section on ‘occupational crime’. Also featured white-collar crime and hospital nurses who steal medicines and other supplies. Running through each occupational chapter is the theme of what’s acceptable. How and why does a thieving nurse justify her theft? By knowing how the thief’s mind works, does that offer a way for the security person to tackle ways of working, and what workers see as the norm? Hobbs makes the point that the telemarketing fraudster, a ‘vocational predator’ may look and behave like a legitimate entrepreneur or salesman. It’s good money, a good lifestyle, and the success gives the seller a buzz. And they deny that they’re doing fraud. The challenge for our society and a corporate head of security: these fraudsters are skilled communicators – the sort of people that legit businesses seek. Whether it’s shoplifters or computer hackers, this anthology can help you understand what makes criminals tick, so you can better spot them.
