CFFE Module III
Fraud Prevention and Detection cheat sheet
Every chapter's key points, formulas and definitions on one page, for the last week before the exam. Each heading links to the chapter that explains it.
Introduction to criminology
- Criminology explains why people commit crime, and a forensic examiner uses it to decide where controls are placed, not only to explain offenders after the event.
- Edwin Sutherland named white collar crime: non-violent crime for financial gain by persons of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation.
- White collar crime reaches middle-class offenders too, such as accountants, mid-level managers and professionals, whose access and trust create the opportunity.
- Occupational crime, against one's own employer, is best explained by control theory and the fraud triangle; organisational crime, for the organisation's benefit, by organisational culture and differential association.
- Fraud studies find that tips detect more fraud than audit does, and that most perpetrators are first-time offenders with no prior criminal record.
Key terms
- Classical theory
- Crime results from rational choice, weighing expected gain against risk of punishment.
- Strain theory
- Crime results from the gap between socially desired goals and legitimate means of achieving them.
- Social learning theory
- Criminal behaviour is learned through association with others who model and reinforce it.
- Control theory
- Crime occurs where an individual's bond to social norms and institutions is weak.
- The fraud triangle
- Applies these ideas directly to occupational fraud through pressure, opportunity and rationalisation (see the fraud triangle, in the next chapter).
The rest of the sheet covers
- Introduction to fraud prevention and detection
- Fraud prevention programmes
- Corporate governance: responsibility for fraud prevention
- Ethics for forensic auditors and investigators
- Case study: a fraud prevention health check
- Worked examples
- Exam technique and revision
- Glossary