This blog is aim at bringing to public
domain for comments, contributions and criticisms an important question that
motivated my work in seeking a solution to the growing trends of crime and
their successfulness. The question is: Are innovations in
technology at the moment providing criminals with great incentives than
deterrence? While it
may be easier to answer a straightforward ‘YES’ or ‘NO’, a more critical aspect
will be making an attempt to also provide answers for the WHY, HOW and WHAT then is the solution in support of
whatever is your answer to the initial question.
To allow you an insight
into my own frame of mind, I will be making available bits and pieces of my CPTSIA’s
framework components focused on strategic application of WEB 2.0 tools and
relevant internet forensics techniques against crime. Don’t forget, I have
earlier submitted that the CPTSIA framework is aimed at setting up an
agenda for enabling the effective application of technology in creating sustainable
and potent deterrence against crime. The deterrence is to be derived from
unrelenting exposure of suspected or actual criminal acts through strategic and
timely information sharing using community-oriented collaborative approach. The
vehicle for delivering this is set to be a structured web-based
crime-prevention platform that uses WEB 2.0 tools to efficiently support
multilayered interaction and collaboration in very dynamic ways.
Vital to the framework also are finding efficient ways of addressing challenges
and steps for ensuring forensic readiness of our contemporary internet. This aspect
is aimed at allowing proactive preservation and effective application of
valuable digital evidential materials to efficiently support investigation and
prosecution in a manner that could significantly help in raising crime deterrence
bars. Ultimately, CPTSIA
is set to provide an avenue for critically examining the feasibility of providing our
communities with a strategic crime reporting and tracking platform accessible
to all in the most convenient and safe to use manners.
Now, the issue:
The
principal motivation for this work is derived from the fact that the
competition between the positive and the negative impacts of ICT innovations in
our society have so grown to the extent that even the most naive individual in
our midst is beginning to ask critical questions as to whether the good brought
to us by Information and Communication Technology truly outweighs the bad
resulting from its misuses and abuses. These resounding questions are now
giving credence to the arguments that innovations in technology are at the
moment providing criminals with great incentives than deterrence (Adams, A. A
et al, Pandora’s Box 2007, page xxvi).
However, in addressing the
above, there is need to defined specific actions required for improved
efficiency in tackling present day crime waves using the same technology that
has aided them. This will in turn deliver practical ways of repositioning
current technological innovations to better serve society. All of these are supposedly enveloped in the framework. On the web
technologies, the focus will be on WEB 2.0 and the rightful application of its
interactive and collaborative tools for supporting a purposeful social movement
against crime. This is modeled after the present-day social networking
phenomenon.
It
is however important to note that beyond examining technology in the context of
the material artefacts surrounding us, ICT must also be examined as a system:
its relevant components’ evolution, its ever-growing embrace by contemporary
society and its impacts on society, lifestyle and crime. There is need to also
shade light on how ICT is reshaping our lives; how ICT can be used in bringing
about a paradigmatic shift in the traditional crime prevention approaches; why
criminals tend to be quick in taking undue advantage of these and; why
long-standing crime prevention approaches are no more delivering desirable results
in all cases.
A
solution that will work will be one that can make a practical demonstration of how
it can take advantage of WEB 2.0’s interactive and collaborative tools that
currently drive the trending social media/networking phenomenon to overcome the
current challenges of crime prevention. This should culminate into a feasible
guide for harnessing the Internet WEB2.0 solutions in creating a purposeful,
assessable, interactive and collaborative platform for communities against
crime in their neighbourhoods.
For
a valuable contribution, it will be good to take a bit of time to appreciate what nature of crimes that have become the
greatest challenge of our time, and the current prevention endeavours in your
localities. This should include x-raying the setbacks and probable solutions. Of
course, the study of these cannot also make much meaning without deep appreciation
of the following:
Ø Our fast changing socio-cultural lifestyles as seen to
have been influenced by the growing trends in society’s embrace of ICT;
Ø The visible roles of technology in the growing magnitude,
complexity and successfulness of crimes;
Ø The extent to which ICT have actually aided crime
perpetrators in their planning, execution and concealment of their act;
Ø What real incentives that today’s pervasive use of
Information and Communication Technologies is offering to criminals.
Ø The prospects and challenges of the former and prevailing
approaches for crime prevention by interest groups;
Ø What are the key challenges of the Police or Crime
Prevention authorities in the use of
technology in their work
Overall, in structuring my framework, substantial
space is dedicated to determining how crime-deterrent-bars can be raised
against the seeming incentives provided to criminals by ubiquity of information
technology and their pervasive uses. Here is a few of the considered escalating
crimes which have found incentives in ICT: Terrorism and its financing,
Corruption, money laundering, economic and financial crimes, Electoral Frauds, illegal
drugs syndication and human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, and other
heinous crimes. In consideration of all of these, the framework is then
structured to deliver a more efficient and tactical solution that strategically
empowers our communities and relevant authorities (police, etc) to efficiently
fight crime in our ever-growing technological age.
