Across the globe, the rampant growth in technology has given criminals the chance to facilitate cybercrimes. Law enforcement at both state and local levels have faced challenges in trying to deal effectively with cybercrime. The growing occurrence of cybercrimes means that officers ought to possess the knowledge and the capability to efficiently manage cybercrime cases through securing the crime scenes, preserving the evidence, and even cross-examining the probable witnesses. The errors made in the early phase of any crime have grave consequences in both evidentiary analyses and successful prosecution (Holt et al., 2018). However, most patrol officers, especially those who operate at the local or remote level, do not possess the proper training needed to investigate cybercrime cases. The goal of this study is to examine the interest that patrol officers show in cybercrime training and investigations. This study explicitly discusses significant factors, for instance, demographics, computer training and proficiency, exposure to cybercrime, and how cybercrime perception would influence patrol officer interest in involvement in cybercrimes investigations.
According to Jeffries et al. (2020), most patrol officers are undertrained on how to deal with cybercrime. Moreover, some of them are not intensely interested in addressing cybercrime cases at the local level. Although most patrol officers consider cybercrimes as severe as street crimes, they do not have the required resources to fight cybercrimes (Jeffries et al., 2020). They have a strong belief that this is chiefly a state and federal law enforcement issue. Consequently, local patrol officers have shown less interest in fighting cybercrime than scholars and police administrators.
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Some of the assumptions of officers interested in fighting cybercrime include young, college-educated officers who have had some exposure to cybercrime, either directly or indirectly, have more understanding of cybercrime and its dangers. This is because they are also likely to have more insight into how officers can handle cybercrime cases through added training. Officers who have previous cybercrime investigation training are assumed to have more interest in fighting cybercrimes (Harkin et al., 2018). However, this study revealed that officers who were more interested in training and conducting cybercrime investigations were older officers who were not previously trained and had higher computer skills than their colleagues. Therefore, it is prudent to conclude that officers who show more interest in new police initiatives include officers who accept the problem and find ways to address it. Therefore, officers who view cybercrime as a more significant problem than the other officers and believe that law enforcement should have an active role in cybercrime investigation have more interest in conducting cybercrime investigations. Furthermore, most officers that have higher computer skill levels may feel more equipped to handle cybercrime investigations.
In conclusion, police organizations need to take the initiative to enhance capabilities in both preventing and controlling cybercrimes. For instance, discussing cybercrime cases in command meetings can help increase officers’ interest to engage in cybercrimes. This is because most officers do not have an opinion on their present and future roles in cybercrime investigations, and hence this can easily shape their perceptions. Furthermore, these meetings could play an active role in increasing officers’ knowledge and appreciation for cybercrimes (Koziarski et al., 2020). These discussions would help reveal agency commitment in discussing and responding to cybercrime. Moreover, police administrators should never assume that the officers with better computer skills and who have had previous cybercrime investigations are suitable as better candidates to deal with cybercrime investigations.
References
Harkin, D., Whelan, C., & Chang, L. (2018). The challenges facing specialist police cyber-crime units: an empirical analysis. Police Practice and Research , 19 (6), 519-536. www.researchgate.net/publication/327793536_The_challenges_facing_specialist_police_cyber-crime_units_an_empirical_analysis
Holt, T. J. (2018). Regulating cybercrime through law enforcement and industry mechanisms. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , 679 (1), 140-157.
Jeffries, S., & Apeh, E. (2020). Standard operating procedures for cybercrime investigations: a systematic literature review. Emerging Cyber Threats and Cognitive Vulnerabilities , 145-162.
Koziarski, J., & Lee, J. R. (2020). Connecting evidence-based policing and cybercrime. Policing: An International Journal . www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/PIJPSM-07-2019-0107/full/html?skipTracking=true
