Victims of Crime, Essay Example

Technology has opened a whole new venue of crime and crime related harassment and attacks. Victims of cyber stalking may be exposed to their personal information going public: such information as their phone number, their address, and their bank information. Once this information is released it is in the public domain and is very difficult to get it private once again. One woman was harassed so badly that she had to change her phone number and have the buzzer to her apartment removed because she was getting harassed by men who answered a sex ad that a cyberstalker posted about the woman online (Crime-Safety-Security, 2014, para. 2-3).

Once personal information is made public it is very difficult to make it private again. Facebook is a main factor in cyberstalking as it offers a person’s personal life on a very public platform. In order to curtail cyberstalking a person has to change their privacy settings. Other ways that stalkers gain access to a person’s life is through emails. Fraudulent emails that are answered by a person often lead to a stalker gaining access to bank accounts and other personal information because the stalker now has access to the person’s home computer through encryption methods (Stalking Resource Center, 2012, para. 6).

State laws have recognized the harm of cyberstalking and have recently begun to curtail such acts through new laws. Cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and cyberharrassment laws have all come into being because of criminal behavior online (NCSL, 2013, para. 3). Each state and territory has their own laws in dealing with, and punishing people caught committing cyber crimes.

References

Stalking Resource Center. (2012). The use of technology to stalk. Retrieved from http://www.victimsofcrime.org/our-programs/stalking-resource-center/stalking-information/the-use-of-technology-to-stalk

Crime Safety Security. (2014). Cyber stalking faq. Retrieved from http://www.crime-safety-security.com/Cyber-Stalking.html

National Conference of State Legislatures. (2013). State cyberstalking and cyberharassment laws. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information technology/cyberstalking-and-cyberharassment-laws.aspx