The police record crimes reported by the public in 43 police force areas and provide this data to the Home Office and its base command units. These data provide a wealth of statistical information on recorded crime rates and possibly identify long-term trends in recorded crime rates. Because of this data collection process, the way in which crime is reported by victims or witnesses and recorded by the police can affect the accuracy of these official statistics. However, the main disadvantage of this type of statistics is the exclusion of crimes that are not discovered, reported or recorded. First, some criminal activities are not witnessed or discovered and therefore not officially recorded by the police. According to Croall (1998), an officially counted crime should be perceived and recognized by a member of the public, a victim or law enforcement. For example, white collar crimes such as fraud or misuse of expense reports may not be easily discovered. Therefore, crimes that are not visible may not be counted in the official crime