Juvenile offenders - the Impact and Use of Technology in Policing and the Courts

Abstract

In America, it seems as though the crime rate grows on a daily basis. While the crime rate continues to grow so does the type of crimes that are being committed. In today's, technology plays a larger role in about 75 to 80 percent of the crimes that are committed. With all the technological advances in crime, are the police and the court system able to counter-act the technology crimes with their own technological advances. As a Law Enforcement Officer, I see the court system and how it enacts laws to those that commit criminal offenses. In today's society both the criminal and courts have more technological advances than criminals did 15 to 20 years ago. In police system we definitely have better technological advances than police officers did 15 to 20 years ago. I feel as though time advances that both the criminal and the criminal justice system as a whole will continue to grow in a technological sense.

The Impact and Use of Technology in Policing and the Courts

The impact and use of technology in policing and the courts is a primary tool for police and courts to be productive and keep up with the increasing sophistication of high tech crime and criminals. New techniques and advanced technology are now required to maintain a high quality of police and court management.

Common high tech crimes consist of money laundering and counterfeiting of currency. These are done by dangerous criminals and even terrorist. Counterfeiting in the context of patents is very serious and is done in the context of luxury goods makers and pharmaceuticals. Spam is used to defraud consumers. Phishing is used to obtain financial information about a user and use his credit card details. The crimes of today include tapping wireless computer networks, unauthorized user of internet, monitoring of conversation and communication, data theft, data manipulation (OJP). In addition, there have been increasing use of 3G phones because of their digital phone methods. The new 3G digital phones have been used for capturing sensitive data during elections and for blackmailing, along with re-dialer programs that are loaded onto the phone are used during web surfing to dial premium rate lines. Criminals in today's society use MMS, also known as text messages, for uploading sexually explicit data and smart phones can be used for recording unauthorized data and for blackmailing (NCJRS). High tech crimes being committed include unauthorized creation and redemption of virtual money, criminal attacks on computer systems storing virtual moony, misuse of virtual money system and the use of virtual money for crimes like kidnapping.

Technology has been used to fight crimes in the U.S. by working with the manufacturers of 3G phones along with unit and service providers to get specific information about criminals. Police also use 3G phone technology to collect evidence for use in criminal trials. The police can track down or create a list of locations with the servers that provide the location of where the phones are being used. Most police departments have begun to use computers as an effort to fight crime. With the computers, the police can retrieve information about criminals fast. Most computers that the police use have an integrated information system for policing crimes that use software like CompStat for information

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