2.2 Patterns and trends key terms

• Summary offences 


  Offences in England and Wales are divided into three categories: summary, triable either way and indictable. Indictable offences are seen as the most serious and must be tried at a Crown Court, Summary offences are seen as the least serious.
• Victimless crimes


  Crimes where there is no apparent victim because the act is consensual or because the perpetrator and 'victim' are one and the same person. For example, using rather than supplying illegal drugs.
• Cybercrime and online fraud

  Cybercrime refers to crime involving computer networks and online fraud is fraud facilitated by the internet.
• Blue collar


  An alternative label for the working class based on the typical colour of the shirts worn by people doing manual work in the past, the same goes for white collar.
• Embezzlement 


  Theft or misappropriation of funds placed in one's trust or belonging to one's employer.
• Insider trading (or dealing)


  Making use of confidentional information to buy or sell stocks and shares illegally.
• Culpable negligence


  A failure to do something which is legally required. For example, protecting employees from health hazards.
• National Crime Agency (NCA) 


  The NCA was established in 2013 to tackle serious organised crime in the UK, it replaced SOCA (the Serious Organised Crime Agency)
• Trafficking


  Either the transportation and dealing of illegal products or the transportation and dealing of legal products illegally acquired.
• Phishing


  The sending of emails from supposedly reputable companies asking the recipients to reveal personal details such as passwords.
• Hacking


  Gaining unauthorised access to data in a system or computer
• Money laundering

  The crime of moving money that has been obtained illegally through banks and other businesses to make it seem as if the money has been obtained legally.
• Iron Curtain

  The name coined by Winston Churchill for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas. The term symbolised the efforts by the Soviet Union to block off itself and its states from open contact with the West
• Shell companies

  Companies set up purely for purposes such as tax avoidance or evasion
• Glocal

  A word formed by combining global and local, drawing attention to the two-way relationship between the local and the global.