QUT Centre for Justice member, Professor Cassandra Cross, has released a Briefing Paper as part of the Disaster Justice Briefing Paper Series, titled, “Natural Disasters and Fraud.”
Communities worldwide are constantly recovering from the impact of natural disasters. In addition to the physical and emotional damage experienced, fraud is a well-known outcome associated with disaster. Fraud uses deliberate deception to gain a material advantage over another person. Research into natural disasters and fraud has traditionally been limited to the categories of contractor fraud, charity fraud and price gouging. Without minimising the impacts of these fraud types, this briefing paper argues for an examination of vulnerability that extends current understandings of the relationship between natural disasters and fraud. It calls for research into other categories of fraud (such as investment and romance), to better understand how natural disasters impact on both individual and collective vulnerability to all fraudulent approaches.
Read the full paper here.
Professor Cassandra Cross is Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) in Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice. Cass has recently completed a Senior Research Fellowship, with the Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) on the topic of romance fraud. Cass previously worked as a research/policy officer with the Queensland Police Service, where she commenced research on the topic of online fraud and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2011. Since taking up her position at QUT in 2012, she has published in this area across several journals and continued her research into online fraud focusing across the prevention, victim support and policing aspects of this crime.
Cassandra has received over AUD $1.3 million in grants and industry funding to further this work.
QUT Centre for Justice Briefing Papers provide short, accessible, peer-reviewed accounts of topics and issues related to justice.
To date two series of papers have been written about all aspects of Disaster Justice – focusing on the role of societies and governing structures in creating, perpetuating and addressing vulnerabilities, inequalities, and injustices that are magnified by natural hazards and climate change.
Read the full series here.
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