The crime of embezzlement accounts for the majority of all financial institution crimes investigated by the FBI (Geis, 1982). It is often a function of an employee's circumstances and/or attitude combined with employer inexperience and carelessness and with the decreasing threat of prosecution and other detrimental consequences (Weisburd, Wheeler, Waring & Bode, 1991). .
Embezzlement may occur because an employee who is in a position of trust with access to company funds is experiencing difficult, personal financial problems. The temptation becomes too great and the employee resorts to embezzlement to solve his/her financial problems. It also occurs because employee loyalty is less now than in the past years and employees often believe that they are paid too little and treated unfairly. Law enforcement agencies have less and less manpower to pursue embezzlement so the fear of prosecution is less of a deterrent to employees.
Now we will get into how Embezzlement occurs. Embezzlements are generally both ego and habit crimes, and are rhythmic, predictable and cyclic (Jamieson, 1994). Embezzlers reduce their behavior to conform to their own morals and ethics. Embezzlers realize that their actions will ultimately hurt people around them, and they just do not care. Embezzlements are secret crimes, but someone else within the institution often has knowledge of the crime. Most embezzlements are actually a series or combination of crimes, rather than a single crime. The majority of embezzlements begin as a simple misuse of the company's funds for a short-term personal purpose (Geis, 1968). These occurrences then become a habit, requiring additional misuse to hide the original crime.
Embezzlements are generally committed by one of three methods: By trickery, deceit or misrepresentation (e.g. account holder or rightful owner impersonation, official seals of fake accounts); by documents (e.
