About our study

There are existing studies on the perception on art crime amongst art professionals, however, a study of undergraduate's perceptions of the significance of art crime and law has yet to be conducted.

One study on the perceptions of art crime involved "a survey of art gallery directors in Australia in 2001 which explored professionals' opinions on law enforcement support regarding art crime. The study found that 53 percent of respondents felt police response to art fraud was inadequate in part because the police were not perceiving art fraud and crime as serious as other types of fraud and crime" (Mazurek, 2019). Still, this is one of the few studies that exist that provides quantitative empirical data on the perceptions of art crime and law importance.

This particular study is over 20 years old, and little empirical research and data on the perceptions of the seriousness of art crime has been produced since. While this study addressed opinions of professionals in the art and museum sector, no study has determined the perceptions of criminal justice professionals, or criminal justice students that will plan to become criminal justice professionals. Furthermore, no study has addressed undergraduates' perception of the significance of art crime. Moreover, studies have not explored if there is a difference in how criminal justice and non-criminal justice undergraduate majors perceived seriousness of art crime.