Cloud computing and its implications for cybercrime investigations in Australia

The advent of cloud computing has led to a dispersal of user data across international borders. More than ever before, law enforcement investigations into cybercrime and online criminal activity require cooperation between agencies from multiple countries. This paper examines recent changes to the law in Australia in relation to the power of law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate cybercrime insofar as individuals and organisations make use of cloud infrastructure in connection with criminal activity. It concludes that effective law enforcement operations in this area require harmonious laws across jurisdictions and streamlines procedures for granting assistance between law enforcement agencies. In conjunction with these mechanical developments, this paper posits that law enforcement officers require a systematised understanding of cloud infrastructure and its operation in order to effectively make use of their powers.     

Social network analysis as a tool for criminal intelligence: understanding its potential from the perspectives of intelligence analysts

Over the past two decades an increasing number of researchers have applied social network analysis (SNA) to various ‘dark’ networks. This research suggests that SNA is capable of revealing significant insights into the dynamics of dark networks, particularly the identification of critical nodes, which can then be targeted by law enforcement and security agencies for disruption. However, there has so far been very little research into whether and how law enforcement agencies can actually leverage SNA in an operational environment and in particular the challenges agencies face when attempting to apply various network analysis techniques to criminal networks. This paper goes some way towards addressing these issues by drawing on qualitative interviews with criminal intelligence analysts from two Australian state law enforcement agencies. The primary contribution of this paper is to call attention to the organisational characteristics of law enforcement agencies which, we argue, can influence the capacity of criminal intelligence analysts to successfully apply SNA as much as the often citied ‘characteristics of criminal networks’.     

Smoking Guns: European Cigarette Smuggling in the 1990’s

This article concerns European cigarette smuggling over the past decade and examines the actors, structures and relationships which facilitated the illicit trade. It discusses the central role played by actors not traditionally associated with organised crime, such as multi-national tobacco companies, Swiss banks and the state security agencies of various Balkan states. It demonstrates how domestic legislation in Switzerland and instability in the Balkans prevented national law enforcement agencies from effectively dealing with this international network at an earlier stage. The article also focuses on the history of local and national law enforcement investigations as well as the integrated multi-national investigation project later initiated by the EU and member states. The article's conclusions suggest that while smuggling actors have successfully adapted to the process of globalisation – financial and state deregulation – law enforcement agencies remain at a disadvantage as they are hampered by the domestic legislation in nation states such as Switzerland and the United States. While cigarette smuggling was and is a major illicit industry, it has not been the subject of much academic scrutiny. This article, based on field research in the Balkans and EU member states aims to contribute to a broader understanding of a problem involving a multiplicity of criminal actors, states and law enforcement agencies.     

Human trafficking and police governance

Abstract

Human trafficking in its various forms continues to offer significant challenges for law enforcement agencies. There is a growing body of research that addresses some of the police governance and management issues associated with the prevention and control of human trafficking and the protection of victims of this type of crime. This article reviews the literature on the implementation of effective detection, investigation, prosecution, and victim protection strategies; the need for more effective international cooperation; and, the struggle to keep up with the illusive criminal organizations and networks that often defy law enforcement tactics. It also considers some of the specific challenges that result from the frequent conflation of human trafficking enforcement with immigration control strategies. It offers a few suggestions on how these issues may be addressed from a police governance standpoint and concludes with a call for better data on human trafficking and the relative effectiveness of different law enforcement strategies.     

Joining anthropology and law enforcement

The role of anthropology in law enforcement involves three aspects of law enforcement activity; forensic anthropology, police-community relations research, and legal ethnographic research on the law enforcement agencies themselves. The first of these contributions to law enforcement by physical anthropologists faces competition from other closely related fields. Police-community relations research is a potential growth area for the application of anthropological efforts, as is legal ethnographic analysis of police organizationa. These latter two areas are within the realm of social anthropology, while the former is a specialty of physical anthropology. This article reviews the contributions of anthropologists and the applications of anthropological methods to law enforcement. It contends that criminal justice educators and police practitioners alike can benefit from knowing more about how these anthropological specialties have contributed and can continue to contribute to law enforcement.     

Maturity levels for criminal organizations

Maturity models have been used widely in organizational research. These models describe the possible evolution of an organization over time. In this paper, a four-stage maturity model for criminal organizations is conceptually introduced. The maturity levels are activity-based, knowledge-based, strategy-based, and value-based criminal organizations, respectively. This model may prove helpful for law enforcement agencies as they try to understand how criminal organizations work to fight organized crime.     

To protect and collect: a nationwide study of profit-motivated police crime

This study is part of a larger research project on police crime in the United States. Police crimes are those criminal offenses committed by sworn law enforcement officers who have the general powers of arrest. Profit-motivated police crime involves officers who use their authority of position to engage in crime for personal gain. This study reports the findings on 1,591 cases where a law enforcement officer was arrested for one or more profit-motivated crimes during the seven-year period 2005–2011. The profit-motivated arrest cases involved 1,396 individual officers employed by 782 state, local, special, constable, and tribal law enforcement agencies located in 531 counties and independent cities in 47 states and the District of Columbia. Our data is the first systematic study of profit-motivated police crime. The study describes the nature of this form of police misconduct in terms of several dimensions, including the characteristics of police who perpetrate these crimes, where it occurs, the specific criminal charges, and the contexts within which profit-motivated police crime is punished through police agencies and the criminal courts.     

The Nature and Extent of Conservation Policing: Law Enforcement Generalists or Conservation Specialists?

Little is known about law enforcement agencies with responsibility for fish, wildlife, and natural resource protection. Traditional conceptions of fish and wildlife police associate these officers almost entirely with fishing and hunting activities. The relative scarcity of academic literature regarding fish and wildlife police agencies results in a lack of understanding about their role in the criminal justice system in general. The current study seeks to contribute to the limited existing literature by examining conservation policing in Florida, a state not yet studied in this context, by analyzing some 2,910 field events. Findings indicate that officers devote a considerable portion of their attention to traditional law enforcement activities in addition to the type of enforcement customarily associated with fish and wildlife law enforcement.     

Community policing within campus law enforcement agencies

Campus law enforcement agencies (CLEs) are critical components of the criminal justice system; thus, how they organize is of special interest. CLEs are thought ideal for community policing, a strategy requiring organizational change, yet little research exists on CLE organizations or their use of community policing. This study examines community policing within CLEs and how it impacts organizational structures. The data were gathered in a national BJS survey of CLEs. Results indicated that community policing was only significantly related to formalization. Contrary to community policing mandates, community policing was related to more written policies. Implications and future research are discussed.     

The Criminal Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in China: Recent Developments and Implications

This article systematically introduces and analyzes a number of aspects of the criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China, focusing on recent trends and developments. China has been under tremendous pressure from the US to expand the criminalization of its IP infringement. The article first summarizes the substantive criminal law regarding IP offenses in China and describes the main enforcement agencies and judicial organs responsible for the investigation and processing of IP crimes. Analysis of the substantive criminal IP law and enforcement practices shows a steady pattern of rapid criminalization, not only on the books but also in action. Newly promulgated judicial interpretations and notices substantially expand criminalization of IP infringements. In addition, the enforcement rates of IP and related crimes have been rising consistently and rapidly. There have also been numerous joint meetings, information exchanges, issuance of provisions, collaborative “strike-hard” enforcement campaigns and other major efforts initiated by the police, the prosecutors, and administrative agencies to facilitate agency cooperation and strengthen the criminal enforcement of IPR. However, accompanying this rapid criminalization of IP infringement control are serious problems rooted in the Chinese criminal judicial system, including local protectionism, the lack of respect for procedural justice as well as the protection of defendants’ basic rights, and inadequate training, professional incompetence, misconduct, or corruption.     

The Reconstitution of Law in Local Settings: Agency Discretion, Ambiguity, and a Surplus of Law in the Policing of Hate Crime

An important yet poorly understood function of law enforcement organizations is the role they play in distilling and transmitting the meaning of legal rules to frontline law enforcement officers and their local communities. In this study, we examine how police and sheriff's agencies in California collectively make sense of state hate crime laws. To do so, we gathered formal policy documents called “hate crime general orders” from all 397 police and sheriff's departments in the state and conducted interviews with law enforcement officials to determine the aggregate patterns of local agencies' responses to higher law. We also construct a “genealogy of law” to locate the sources of the definitions of hate crime used in agency policies. Despite a common set of state criminal laws, we find significant variation in how hate crime is defined in these documents, which we attribute to the discretion local law enforcement agencies possess, the ambiguity of law, and the surplus of legal definitions of hate crime available in the larger environment to which law enforcement must respond. Some law enforcement agencies take their cue from other agencies, some follow statewide guidelines, and others are oriented toward gaining legitimacy from national professional bodies or groups within their own community. The social mechanisms that produce the observed clustering patterns in terms of approach to hate crime law are mimetic (copying another department), normative (driven by professional standards about training and community social movement pressure), and actuarial (affected by the demands of the crime data collection system). Together these findings paint a picture of policing organizations as mediators between law‐on‐the‐books and law‐in‐action that are embedded in interorganizational networks with other departments, state and federal agencies, professional bodies, national social movement organizations, and local community groups. The implications of an interorganizational field perspective on law enforcement and implementation are discussed in relation to existing sociolegal research on policing, regulation, and recent neo‐institutional scholarship on law.     

An administrative dilemma: Sexual harassment and liability

Conservative estimates suggest that 40% of working women and 15% of their male counterparts have experienced some form of sexual harassment; and law enforcement personnel are no exception. Police officers are expected to adhere to the highest ethical standards and are subjected to greater public scrutiny than civilians. With criminal and civil remedies readily available to deter police misconduct, police agencies should be establishing policies that take a strong, pro-active stance against sexual harassment in the workplace. Surprisingly, though, 34% of police agencies in this country are still without formal policies regulating such behavior. This article is a guide to the legislation and case law that regulates those behaviours. Recommendations for policy formulation and implementation also are included. sexual harassment in the workplace presents a clear and present danger to law enforcement agencies. A recent survey found that thirty-four percent of law enforcement agencies in the United States have yet to formulate a written sexual harassment policy.     

Local law enforcement terrorism prevention efforts: A state level case study

Although law enforcement agencies across the nation have assumed part of the responsibility in the fight against terrorism, significant confusion exists as to the role of local law enforcement. While some agencies have taken steps towards terrorism prevention, little data has been collected on which agencies have taken the greatest steps, how those agencies have changed, and how other agencies should direct their activity. This case study of law enforcement census data from a single state considered variations in terrorism preparedness and predictors of preparedness. Agency size, presence of funding, and other variables significantly predict levels of terrorism preparedness. Important policy implications such as the distribution of funding and which agencies should be working towards terrorism preparedness are discussed.     

修订药品管理法，强化药品执法行刑联动机制——中美药品行刑联动机制比较研究

本文旨在理顺药品行政执法与刑事司法的关系,强化药品执法力度,为修改《药品管理法》奠定理论基础。文章运用规范研究方法、比较法学和案例分析法对中美药品行刑联动机制作深入的比较分析。通过研究发现我国药品执法行刑联动机制存在的问题,并借鉴美国药品行刑联动机制建设经验,提出修改《药品管理法》的建议。     

Taking crime out of crime business

It is one thing to assert that conventional market analysis is critically useful in understanding criminal enterprise. It is more challenging to suggest that corrupt and compromised legal regulation interacts with other critical market variables to maximise market advantage for crime business in a similar manner to legitimate regulatory forces in their protection and enhancement of legitimate business enterprise. The central argument of this paper is that crime business mirrors other business forms when considered in terms of critical market variables, and that in particular regulatory forces when inverted from their original purposes can influence market conditions in the same ways desired from the legitimate regulatory form. The main research direction deriving from the analysis of regulatory influences over specific criminal enterprises is how do certain critical market forces essentially facilitate criminal enterprise as a market phenomenon. This paper suggests how through comparatively analysing nominated critical market forces in the context of lucrative and recurrent criminal enterprises, common business decision-making may be predicted and thereby controlled beyond a law enforcement paradigm. In fact, the paper argues that when perverted law enforcement regulation operates as an inter-connecting market characteristic then it can have a similar influence over illegitimate enterprise that law enforcement may provide legitimate business.By establishing a richer and more enterprise-oriented understanding of crucial market variables, it becomes possible to refine control strategies at critical entry and exit points in the operation of clandestine crime businesses. The paper will challenge a comparative theorising of what makes crime business a good business, and how normative distinctions between illegitimate markets are made less convincing when positioned against an analysis of the interaction of critical market variables.     

When anti-corruption norms lead to undesirable results: learning from the Indonesian experience

This paper analyzes how and why adverse side-effects have occurred in the implementation of two articles of Indonesia’s anti-corruption law. These articles prohibit unlawful acts which may be detrimental to the finances of the state. Indeed, the lawmakers had good intentions when they drafted the two articles. They wanted to make it easier to convict corrupt individuals by lowering the standard of evidence required to prove criminal liability. The implementation of these articles has raised legal uncertainty. The loose definition of the elements of the crime enables negligence and imperfection of (public) contracts to be considered as corruption. The Constitutional Court has issued two rulings to restrict and guide the interpretation of these articles. However, law enforcement agencies (Supreme Court and public prosecutors) have been unwilling to adhere to the rulings. There are two possible reasons for this. First, as has been argued by several commentators, the law enforcement agencies have misinterpreted the concept of “unlawfulness”. Besides, the law enforcement agencies wish to be seen to be committed to prosecuting and delivering convictions in corruption cases. To do so, they need to maintain looser definitions of the elements of the offence. This paper endorses the Constitutional Court rulings and provides additional reasons in support of their stance. The paper can be considered as a case study for other countries that may be contemplating similar legislation.     

拘役执法证据问题之探析

近几年,针对拘役执法机构的诉讼和信访案件屡有发生,造成极为负面的社会影响。在当前形势下,无论是从提高教育矫治质量,还是有效控制和化解执法风险上讲,拘役执法机构应当强化证据意识,规范证据体系,严格证据审查与保全。     

The role of prosecutors in ensuring human rights compliant responses to terrorism

Since 9/11 the threat from terrorism has been regarded as ‘exceptional’, a threat that requires military and sometimes even extra-judicial responses. But experience has shown that these responses can have unintended and counterproductive results. Many experts now believe that criminal justice and rule of law-based responses to terrorism are often more legitimate, effective and sustainable. The paper argues that prosecutors have a vital role to play in promoting appropriate criminal justice responses to terrorism. Yet with no international court with jurisdiction over terrorist crimes, prosecutors carry the primary responsibility to work with their local law enforcement agencies to bring terrorist suspects to justice before national courts, while ensuring that no misuses or abuses of authority have occurred. To deliver on this mandate, prosecutors must remain vigilant and ensure that the counter-terrorism actions of police, corrections and other law enforcement authorities are lawful and respectful of human rights. This will often require immense courage under fire.     

Afterward: Law Enforcement Response Strategies for Criminal-states and Criminal-soldiers

Criminal-states and Criminal-soldiers are two interrelated threats that challenge order and stability at local, national, and potentially global levels. Policing and law enforcement are essential to securing the conditions necessary for stable governance and preserving the rule of law. Law enforcement and police services play key roles in ensuring community stability. They also control and contain criminal threats, protect individual liberties, and enable other political and diplomatic processes to function. This afterward examines the role of police and enforcement agencies in countering the threats posed by criminal-soldiers in order to prevent the establishment or spread of criminal-states.     

Gang change and evolutionary theory

While most street gangs are temporary and disorganized, some have institutionalized, and a number of these show signs of evolving into more serious criminal enterprises, becoming more networked, technologically savvy and internationalized, less visible, more predatory and sometimes more violent. The boundaries that researchers have drawn between gangs and other types of criminal groups, particularly organized crime, are becoming blurred. Understanding why this is happening is crucial to planning effective responses. This article suggests that evolutionary theory, involving processes of variation, selection and replication, would constitute a valuable tool for this purpose. Using an evolutionary framework would enable the application of a longitudinal perspective to the microsocial level of analysis, the gang itself, which until now has not had as much attention as other levels of analysis in gang research. Taking inspiration from evolutionary theories in organizational sociology and economics, this article explores how evolutionary theory might be used to understand gang change and locate gangs within evolutionary sequences. It argues that adopting an evolutionary perspective will improve the capacity of law enforcement agencies to focus scarce resources where they are most needed and to plan and implement successful interventions.