searchfortruth.info > Crime > Page 3

Crime

Seeing Beyond the Surface: Understanding and Tracking Fraudulent Cyber Activities

by

Abstract

The malaise of electronic spam mail that solicit illicit partnership using bogus business proposals (popularly called 419 mails) remained unabated on the internet despite concerted efforts. In addition to these are the emergence and prevalence of phishing scams that use social engineering tactics to obtain online access codes such as credit card number, ATM pin numbers, bank account details, social security number and other personal information[22]. In an age where dependence on electronic transaction is on the increase, the web security community will have to devise more pragmatic measures to make the cyberspace safe from these demeaning ills. Understanding the perpetrators of internet crimes and their mode of operation is a basis for any meaningful effort towards stemming these crimes. This paper discusses the nature of the criminals engaged in fraudulent cyberspace activities with special emphasis on the Nigeria 419 scam mails. Based on a qualitative analysis and...

Read More!

Inference Structures For Crime Analysis And Intelligence: The Example Of Burglary Using Forensic Science Data

by

Abstract

There has been much work dedicated to crime analysis and intelligence in recent times. Independently, physical evidence has shown great potential for linking crimes and bringing solid informative data through the increased use of multiple databases. However, their informative potential is still often underestimated and has been poorly integrated into police information systems. We propose a framework that fully introduces this data into an intelligence based system. This framework is built on the study of inference structures extracted from investigators’ every day implicit reasoning processes. Five specific inferences are studied with the particular problem of serial burglary investigation across independent police and legal structures. On the basis of such an analytical approach, a computer prototype has been designed; it has shown great promise and has resulted in several operational successes.  1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The investigation of serial crimes is a complex problem that can be viewed from a crime analysis, or crime pattern analysis

Read More!

Understanding White Collar Crime

by

§ 1.01 Defining “White Collar Crime”

Criminologist and sociologist Edwin Sutherland first popularized the term “white collar crime” in 1939, defining such a crime as one “committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” Sutherland also included crimes committed by corporations and other legal entities within his definition. Sutherland’s study of white collar crime was prompted by the view that criminology had incorrectly focused on social and economic determinants of crime, such as family background and level of wealth. According to Sutherland’s view, crime is committed at all levels of society and by persons of widely divergent socio-economic backgrounds. In particular, according to Sutherland, crime is often committed by persons operating through large and powerful organizations. White collar crime, Sutherland concluded, has a greatly-underestimated impact upon our society. Sutherland’s definition is now somewhat outdated for students of the criminal law. As white collar crime began to capture the attention of prosecutors and the public in the mid-1970s,..

Read More!

Safe Neighborhoods Act Protect Victims Stop Gangs & Thugs

by

SECTION I. TITLE Arndt. #18

This act shall be known, and may be cited as, the "Safe Neighborhoods Act : Protect Victim s, Stop Gang and Street Crime."

SEC. 2. FINDI NGS AND DECLARATIONS

(a) The People of the State of California find and declare that state government has no higher purpose or more challenging mandate than the protection of our families and our neighborhoods from crime.
(b) Almos t every citizen has been, or knows someone who has been, victimized by crime.
(c) Altho ugh crime rates have fallen substantially since the early 1990s, there have been some disturbing increases in the last few years in seve ral categories of crime. According to the Federal Bureau or Investigation, there were 477 more homicides in California in 2006 than there were in 1999, a period during which homicides and homicide rates declined in many other states. In add ition, the California Department ofJustice has reported that there were 74,000

Read More!

A Matched Cases Control Study of Convenience Store Robbery Risk Factors

by

Abstract

Convenience store clerks have been shown to be at high risk for assault and homicide, mostly owing to robbery or robbery attempts. Although the literature consistently indicates that at least some environmental designs are effective deterrents of robbery, the significance of individual interventions and policies has differed across past studies. To address these issues, a matched case-control study of 400 convenience store robberies in three metropolitan areas of Virginia was conducted. Conditional logistic regression was implemented to evaluate the significance of various environmental designs and other factors possibly related to convenience store robbery. Findings indicate that numerous characteristics of the surrounding environment and population were significantly associated with convenience store robbery. Results also showed that, on a univariate level, most crime prevention factors were significantly associated with a lower risk for robbery. Using a forward selection process, a multivariate model, which included cash handling policy, bullet-resistant shielding, and numerous characteristics of the surrounding area and population, was identified. This study

Read More!

Homicide Crimes Part (2)

by

Abstract

It is well established that gangs facilitate violent offending by members, but the mechanisms by which that facilitation occurs remain unclear. Gangs may promote violence indirectly by facilitating members' access to risky situations such as drug markets or directly through gang functions such as turf defense. We explore alternative modes of facilitation in a comparison of gang-affiliated homicides (which involve gang members but do not result from gang activity), gang-motivated homicides (which result from gang activity), and nongang youth homicides in St. Louis. We find important differences as well as similarities in the time trends and event characteristic of the two types of gang homicide; in key respects the gang-affiliated homicides more closely resemble the nongang events. The gang-motivated events exhibit a somewhat distinctive spatial patterning, as might be expected from their connection to turf conflicts. However, all three homicide types are highly concentrated in racially isolated, disadvantaged neighborhoods, which remain the fundamental social facilitators of both gang and nongang violence...

Additional Resource: Facilitating Violence: A Comparison of Gang-Motivated, Gang-Affiliated, and Nongang Youth Homicides

Read More!

Homicide Crimes Part (1)

by

Abstract

It is well established that gangs facilitate violent offending by members,but the mechanisms by which that facilitation occurs remain unclear. Gangs may promote violence indirectly by facilitating members' access to risky situations such as drug markets or directly through gang functions such as turf defense. We explore alternative modes of facilitation in a comparison of gang-affiliated homicides (which involve gang members but do not result from gang activity), gang-motivated homicides (which result from gang activity), and non gang youth homicides in St. Louis. We find important differences as well as similarities in the time trends and event characteristic of the two types of gang homicide; in key respects the gang-affiliated homicides more closely resemble the non gang events. The gang-motivated events exhibit a somewhat distinctive spatial patterning,as might be expected from their connection to turf conflicts. However, all three homicide types are highly concentrated in racially isolated,disadvantaged neighborhoods, which remain the fundamental social facilitators of both gang and non gang violence.

Additional Resource: Facilitating Violence: A Comparison of Gang-Motivated, Gang-Affiliated, and Nongang Youth Homicides

Read More!

Crime and Violence in Central America: A Development Challenge

by

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Crime and violence are now a key development issue for Central American countries. In three nations— El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras—crime rates are among the top five in Latin America. In the region’s other three countries—Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama—crime and violence levels are significantly lower, but a steady rise in crime rates in recent years has raised serious concern. There is reason to worry. To put the magnitude of the problem in context, the entire population of Central America is approximately the same as that of Spain, but while Spain registered 336 murders (i.e., fewer than one per day) in 2006, Central America recorded 14,257 murders (i.e., almost 40 per day) in the same year.Beyond the trauma and suffering of individual victims, crime and violence carry staggering economic costs at the national level. Indeed, some experts estimate these costs at close to eight percent of regional GDP if citizen security, law enforcement and health

Read More!

The Integration Of Crime Analysis Into Patrol Work:

by

SECTION 1: Introduction

This guidebook has been developed for mid-level managers and commanders of police agencies who are looking for guidance in fully incorporating crime analysis into their agency, particularly into patrol. The guide presents a series of considerations and recommendations for crime analysis integration, provides crime analysis product examples that have been implemented into innovative police agencies around the United States, discusses key issues of implementation, and outlines an implementation framework strategy. Notably, this guide is not a detailed plan that can be taken and immediately adopted by any one agency, but is a practical overview of the importance of crime analysis and its usefulness and offers recommendations and examples for crime analysis integration. Importantly, the readers of the guide should have some level of understanding of crime analysis and its relevance for police practice. Although the value of crime analysis is discussed briefly, this guide primarily focuses on providing advice for agencies that are seeking to integrate crime analysis effectively. In addition, throughout this guidebook, the term “integration” refers to systematically using crime analysis processes and products as essential components of the everyday operations of a police agency. Integrated crime analysis involves merging the results of analysis with the patrol function and investigative elements of an agency so...

Read More!

Distribution of Crime Lecture 7A

by

Abstract
Objectives
Generally speaking, crime is, fortunately, a rare event. As far as modelling is concerned, this sparsity of data means that traditional measures to quantify concentration are not appropriate when applied to crime suffered by a population. Our objective is to develop a new technique to measure the concentration of crime which takes into account its low frequency of occurrence and its high degree of concentration in such a way that this measure is comparable over time and over different populations.

Methods
This article derives an estimate of the distribution of crime suffered by a population based on a mixture model and then evaluates a new and standardised measurement of the concentration of the rates of suffering a crime based on that distribution.

Results
The new measure is successfully applied to the incidence of robbery of a person in Mexico and is able to correctly quantify the concentration crime in such a way that is comparable between different regions and can be tracked over different time periods.

Read More!

Discouragement of Crime Through Civil Remedies: An Application of a Reformulated Routine Activities Theory

by

ABTRACT

This discussion develops an updated version of routine activities theory and assesses its potential for explaining the impact of civil remedies on crime discoura gement. A reformulated routine activities theory is constructed by marrying its original precepts with other theories of crime. The updated approach provides a promising theoretical framework for understanding how nuisance abatement, juvenile curfews, and server liability laws impact on crime.

INTRODUCTION

Since its introduction two decades ago (Cohen and Felson 1979), routine activities theory has emerged as a leading approach for explaining crime . During its brief history, the theory has weathered debates over its conceptualization as a micro or macro-level theory (Capowich 1999), criticisms of its assumptions (Jeffery 1993), and disquieting research findings (Massey, Krohn, and Bonati 1989). Still, the volume of research that acknowledges an intellectual debt to the routine activities approach continues to expand. This is due, in part, to recent attempts to marry routine activities with other theories of crime such as...

Read More!

Problem Oriented Guides for Police Problem-Specific Guides Series Guide No. 48 Bank Robbery

by

The United States experienced a dramatic increase in bank robberies between 1965 and 1975, when the number of crimes quadrupled from 847 to 3,517. Despite the enactment of the federal Bank Protection Act in 1968, robberies continued to rise through the early 1990s and now average around 8,800 per year (see Figure 1).§ Other countries have faced similar fluctuations in the number of bank robberies. For the most part, the incidence of bank robbery is closely related to other crime trends, especially commercial robbery. In the United States, banks have comprised an increasing proportion of the nation’s commercial robberies: in 1989, 6 percent of commercial robberies were of banks; this proportion increased steadily to 9 percent in 2004. (See Figure 2.)§§ Although bank robberies track crime trends, they vary by the size of the jurisdiction. In recent years, bank robberies in smaller U.S. cities have comprised an increasing share of commercial robberies: nearly 12 percent of commercial robberies in smaller cities are...

Read More!

Addressing Problems with Traditional Crime Linking Methods Using Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis

by

Purpose. Through an examination of serial rape data, the current article presents arguments supporting the use of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis over traditional methods in addressing challenges that arise when attempting to link serial crimes. Primarily, these arguments centre on the fact that traditional linking methods do not take into account how linking accuracy will vary as a function of the threshold usedfor determining when two crimes are similar enough to be considered linked.
Methods. Considered for analysis were 27 crime scene behaviours exhibited in 126 rapes, which were committed by 42 perpetrators. Similarity scores were derived for every possible crime pair in the sample. These measures of similarity were then subjected to ROC analysis in order to (1) determine threshold-independent measures of linking accuracy and (2) set appropriate decision thresholds for linking purposes.
Results. By providing a measure of linking accuracy that is not biased by threshold placement, the analysis confirmed that it is possible to link crimes at a level that

Read More!

Victimization, Theories of

by

The fields of criminology and criminal justice have focused, historically, on understanding criminal offending in comparison with criminal victimization. However, a variety of paradigm shifts, scientific advances, and social and political forces since the 1960s and 1970s provided a foundation from which theories of victimization emerged. For instance, in the latter half of the 20th century, a shift occurred among many scholars toward viewing “crime” as more than just the behavior of an offender. Instead, crime became increasingly viewed as a “system,” involving not only an offender but also a target or victim, as well as a time/place context that ;supports or facilitates the victimization of the target by the offender. Alongside this new paradigm, new sources of information about crime emerged, addressing limitations of data compiled from police reports (reported annually in the form of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program). Specifically, the early 1970s marked the emergence of the...

Read More!

Victims, Victimization and Victimology

by

Who or what are victims, and what do we know about them? Such questions are disarmingly and misleadingly simple, appearing as they do to invite a straightforward factual response. In reality, however, questions relating to the concept and identity of victims are highly problematic, often controversial and generally call for highly nuanced answers. It is important to stress this at the outset because our attitudes towards victims and how they should be dealt with are likely to be shaped by the assumptions we make about them, which may not always be well founded. This applies just as much to those who advocate restorative justice approaches as the most appropriate way of dealing with victims as it does to those who are responsible for formulating other aspects of criminal justice policy, or indeed to criminal justice practitioners, those working in the media or the public at large.

Read More!