Technology in Policing and the Courts, Essay Example

The rapid evolution in technology has facilitated opportunities to criminals to make use of novel products offered by the internet therefore being able to commit more criminal acts whose evidence is comfortably concealed. The internet has been used as a tool for perpetuating criminal activities such as electronic frauds, drug trafficking, hacking, cyber terrorism, circulation of indecent images especially for the children, child pornography, spreading malicious codes and attacking significant data infrastructure. The internet has thus played a vital role in easing criminal activities.

The recent technology being used to “fight” crime by police departments includes high level cooperation between the private industries dealing with the internet and the police forces in an attempt of addressing BOTS and BOTNETS. They can make use identification of Command & Control, which is a process requiring a high profile of cooperation between the law enforcement officers and other partners on a global perspective.

The possible “gaps” that exist between sophisticated high tech crime and law enforcement agencies’ training and equipment to address high tech crimes involve the reluctance of majority of the private companies to report cases of these crimes to the law enforcement agencies. These types of reluctance are attributed to the potential damages to the reputation that the companies anticipate that they anticipate will befall the company leading to a probable decline in their market share. As a result, most of these companies opt to absorb the damages and avoid any attempt of reporting. Additionally, a common system of reporting such crimes is lacking which results to inconsistency of internet information and the criminal communities. It is also impossible to map organized crime due to the fact that the internet lacks boundaries and information spreads out far and wide which further complicates data collection. A standardized system responsible for reporting internet crimes is also non-existent.