Profiling The Fraudster: Removing the Mask to Prevent and Detect Fraud

Chapter 5Normative Crime Analysis and Investigative Psychology

SOCIAL NORMS GUIDE HUMAN BEHAVIOR, but the manner in which those social norms are communicated influences the optimization of the impact of normative messages in situations characterized by objectionable levels of undesirable conduct, such as fraud.

Fraud Is Not a Norm

Normative statements make claims about how things should or ought to be, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong. Such statements, by their nature, apply a value to doing the right thing. Normative claims are factual statements that attempt to describe reality and are supported by theories, beliefs, or propositions.

Behavioral patterns of fraudsters or potential fraudsters within an organization are therefore based on data analysis of normative and nonnormative behavior. The analysis is used to create an acceptable use template for the individual, the role, the function, and so on.

Normative crime analysis can also be applied to the crime of fraud and examines fraud prevention theory in the areas of what motivates an individual to commit fraud, what creates an opportunity for him to do so, and why an organization becomes a suitable victim. The fraud examiner can then consider utilizing the resultant fraudulent behavior to assist in compiling profiles and use those profiles to manage fraud risk. The fraud behavior will result in fraud indicators, otherwise known as alerts or red flags. Fraud methods or the modus operandi ...