NCJ Number
190553
Journal
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume: 70 Issue: 8 Dated: August 2001 Pages: 10-17
Editor(s)
John E. Ott
Date Published
August 2001
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This article examined law enforcement’s ability to define, track, and analyze computer crime in order to better combat these criminal offenses.
Abstract
Computer crime has become an increasing problem posing troublesome challenges for police agencies. These challenges include the absence of a standard definition for computer crime, a lack of reliable criminal statistics on the problem, and significant underreporting of the threat. As a crime without a definition, computer crime can prevent police organizations from accurately assessing the nature and scope of the problem. Defining criminal phenomena is viewed as important because it allows police officers, detectives, prosecutors, and judges to speak on and understand a given criminal offense. Definitions also allow for aggregation of statistics which than can be analyzed to determine criminal threats and patterns. Defining the problem, gathering crime data, and analyzing the nature and scope of the threat represent natural steps in any problem oriented policing approach. In order to make computer crime count, law enforcement agencies need to learn that new forms of criminality do not differ.