The dishonest disposition and everyday economic criminality of the British public

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the everyday economic crimes of ordinary people. Although dishonesty is a core characteristic of these offences, we are not aware of any prior research that examines the direct, relationship between dishonest attitude and economic crime. Based on a survey of the British public, this article presents insights into this relationship. By profiling the integrity, dishonest disposition and everyday economic criminality of the British public, the study finds a strong relationship between attitudes and harmful dishonest behaviour such that, in a given year, 26 % of adults in the UK commit at least one economic crime. The higher levels of dishonesty in males and younger adults helps to explain their more prolific offending. Both the honesty and age-economic crime curves indicate that the maturation decline in offending is gradual compared to the sharp desistance in early adulthood of the traditional age-crime curve. Whilst this finding also contradicts the conventional view that economic crime is a middle-aged problem, it helps to explain this perception. By comparing the attitude results to a 2011 study, the research further found that the maturation effect is more pronounced due to a decline in integrity of the under 55 y population so that the younger generations now have a steeper moral hill to climb.