Cyber-Crime Prosecution

Cyber-Crime Prosecution

Cybercrime has become a significant threat to society and various organizations. Cybercrime, which is also commonly referred to as computer crime, is the fraudulent use of computers as a tool to commit illegal operations. Such operations have a mild effect on organizations and any individual linked connected (Leukfeldt, Lavorgna & Kleemans, 2016). An excellent example of a cybercrime case was back in September 2017 when Equifax, a credit offering institution, was hacked, and a massive load of consumer information was breached and stolen. Cybercrime has been promoted mainly due to the spread of hacking knowledge over the internet. Moreover, such criminals, despite the significant losses that they may cause an organization, are rarely prosecuted. In this paper, there will be a review of the reasons why these criminals end up walking free despite their heinous actions.

Issues in Cyber-Crime Prosecution

The USA has been facing many problems when it comes to the jurisdiction of the law enforcement to the cybercrime offenders. A major that hinders the effective prosecution of criminals is that the individual committing the crime may be located outside the country or the legal jurisdiction of the court that is seeking a conviction. It is hard to prosecute a cybercrime if it originates from another country (Chang, 2012). For example, a USA criminal may immigrate to Russia and commit a cybercrime in on Russian soil. Despite the tracking and identification of the criminal, the government cannot prosecute the offender. Thus, this is a significant limitation of effective prosecution.

Additionally, there has been a reduced number of workforce and skills required in the cybercrime investigations. Thus, the law agencies cannot gather sufficient evidence for the prosecution of cybercriminals. Therefore, a lack of meaningful and enough evidence against the offender, the court has no alternative but to let the perpetrator go (Bujosa Vadell, 2018). Thus, a diminished level of skill and manpower highly reduces the effectiveness of cybercrime prosecution.

In conclusion, cybercrimes have been on a constant increase due to the growth and spread of the internet. Thus, people are learning to commit cyber fraud every day. It also becomes hard towards the persecution of these criminal activities. Therefore, it falls on the government and institutions to establish measures that will aid in the mitigation of such limitations.

References

Bujosa Vadell, L. (2018). General principles for the criminal prosecution of cybercrime: Spanish perspective. Foresic Research & Criminology International Journal, 6(4). doi: 10.15406/frcij.2018.06.00218

Chang, Y. (2012). Combating cybercrime across the Taiwan Strait: investigation and prosecution issues. Australian Journal Of Forensic Sciences, 44(1), 5-14. doi: 10.1080/00450618.2011.581246

Leukfeldt, E., Lavorgna, A., & Kleemans, E. (2016). Organised Cybercrime or Cybercrime that is Organised? An Assessment of the Conceptualisation of Financial Cybercrime as Organised Crime. European Journal On Criminal Policy And Research, 23(3), 287-300. doi: 10.1007/s10610-016-9332-z