ABSTRACT
This chapter will extend our thinking about crime and criminology by developing our understanding of the nature and impact of ‘crimes of the suites’. Chapters 2 and 3 were concerned with exploring some of the problems inherent in counting crime and assessing how much crime there might be. In both of those chapters some consideration was given to the kinds of crimes that were more easily countable and as a result featured more readily in pictures of the extent of crime. It was clear from those two chapters that the crime and criminals most visible both in the criminal justice system and in various crime statistics are crimes of the streets. In addition, it was observed that the criminal activities loosely termed ‘crimes of the suites’ are much more difficult to count and as a consequence it is much more difficult to offer an assessment of their nature and extent. Partly as a result of these problems such crimes are much less likely to be seen as criminal either by the general public or by the criminal justice system. The purpose of this chapter is to pay a little more attention to these ‘crimes of the suites’, to review the way in which criminology and criminologists have paid attention, or failed to pay attention to them, and to suggest why this may be the case. So, to get the most benefit from this chapter the reader is advised to revisit the relevant pages in Chapters 2 and 3 to refresh your memory on some of the issues related to measuring this kind of crime.
