ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at non-violent property related crimes involving dishonesty. That is, people will be examining crimes related to theft, burglary and fraud. In the Crimes Act 1961, fraud-related offences include false pretences, fraudulently obtaining credit, personation, making false statements, false accounting, concealment of deeds, forgery, counterfeiting and, since 1995, money laundering. The crime of burglary, originally defined in the Crimes Act 1961, was redefined in a 2003 amendment. The law today provides for a sentence of up to ten years for entering a building or ship without authority and with intent to commit an imprisonable offence. If a person commits a burglary while in possession of a weapon or uses anything as a weapon during the burglary, the crime becomes aggravated and carries a 14-year maximum. So there are two components to burglary: being unlawfully on premises; having intent to commit a crime. Often, but not always, the intended crime is theft.
