CYBERCRIME

 Throughout this course we focused alot on the way the media is used to transmit stories of crime to the public. We spent a great deal of time explaining how certain agents of the criminal justice system are displayed in fictional and non-fictional media. We also looked at how offenders and victims are portrayed in the media. We then went on to discuss how certain types of phenomena, namely, moral panics and folk devils, are created by the media. We also discussed law and order commonsense and how law and order politics are utilised mainly around election time in the pursuit of votes by electoral candidates. What I really enjoyed about our final topic was the shift in focus, from the above mentioned, to the way certain crimes arise from the forms of media available to us.

 Over the past two decades the use of the internet has grown exponentially for both private and business activity. There is no doubt that the world wide web has altered the relationship between crime and the media, in that, it opens up opportunities for new and different types of crime. 'Crime via the internet has become known as cybercrime' (Marsh and Melville 2009). This type of crime is particularly atrocious mainly because of two things:

1. The perpetrator can remain relatively 'faceless' or hard to identify

2. The victim can be particularly vulnerable or unknowing.

This is particularly the case when it comes to online paedophilia; children are more vulnerable because of the secrecy of paedophilic networks. Moreover, because of the offender is hidden behind their computer screen, this type of crime is difficult to police. However, the police can catch a break: Earlier this year, there were reports on the news of the bust of a worldwide paedophile ring: 'They were caught as part of Operation Rescue, a global policing operation that began in 2007 and culminated yesterday with the announcement of more than 180 arrests in more than 30 countries' (Welch 2011).

 Wall, an expert in the study of cybercrime, proposes that the policing of cybercrime is based upon self-regulation by users of the internet and Internet Service Providers who have the duty of 'acting responsibly' on the internet. Wall argues that there would be no need for a specialist task force in the policing of cybercrime, instead, building on what is already in place would be a practical way forward.

References

Welch, D 2011, 'Paedophile ring busted and children rescued', Sydney Morning Herald, March 18, accessed 2 June 2011, http://www.smh.com.au/national/paedophile-ring-busted-and-children-rescued-20110317-1bz4v.html

Marsh, I. and Melville, G. (2009). Crime Justice and the Media 1st ed. London: Routledge