IT in Criminal Issues - Article Example

Statistical Analysis Statistical Analysis Article One The article “The Evolutional View of the Types of Identity Thefts and Online Frauds in the Era of the Internet” was research conducted by Wilson Huang and Shun-Yung Kevin Wang (Wang, and Huang, 2011). According to Wang and Huang, since the early 1990s, the internet services have been perceived to be a unique medium that diffused human history as a very high speed. However, Wang, and Huang noted that, currently very few people who are enjoying the benefits of the internet services, rather, the internet as turned to be harmful especially with the introduction of the technology era (Wang, and Huang, 2011). Nonetheless, they noted that despite the disadvantages, the internet services have a series of advantages including the internet’s unprecedented benefits in education, entertainment, commerce, and social interaction. Notably, the negative effects of the internet have created immense opportunities for crime commissions. This form of information technology has made offenders to commit crimes some of which have no monetary costs while others are less never recognized or detected. Comparing different forms of crimes, Wang and Huang used the traditional economic motivated crimes that include larcenies, burglaries, and bank robberies among others, by the online fraudsters (Wang, and Huang, 2011). They noted that the online fraudsters are unlikely to be encountered directly with the law enforcers and witness since the crime does not create any animosity or do not involve direct encounters with the affected persons or entities. Therefore, the authors aimed at examining the identity of the theft from the analytical angle with their focus on the elaborate versatilities of this contemporary criminal (Wang, and Huang, 2011). Notably, Wang and Huang first discussed the mode of identifying their sample set. The sample in case was the human beings. After the identification of the samples, they defined and provided the typology of the crime based on the United States legislation of theft identity. Applying different definitions, Wang and Huang determined series of online crime that included phishing, hacking, pretexting, skimming (this is there is legitimate transactions using credit or debit cards especially in retail shops), and changing the address (Wang, and Huang, 2011). The change of address was found to involve changing the identity that may involve the criminal’s personal information or obtains the victim’s personal information thereby tampering with the same towards committing crime with the same. The Wang and Huang’s research on cyber crime was mainly qualitative; therefore, they only concentrated on the quality of the sample towards the identified crime (Kritzer, 1996). Therefore, they did not provide any statistics to explain the trend of their findings. It is worth noting that Wang and Huang were only concerned with the effect of this crime to the contemporary world markets especially about progressing, managing and transferring money through the internet (Indulska, Dirk, and Recker, 2012). According to them, despite the internet means of managing and transferring money and information is convenient, the involved parties must be concerned with internet or online frauds that they described as inescapable. For instance, they concluded that, “Collectively, cyberspace has become such an attractive place where suitable targets like personal information increase in value while effective guardians typically fall behind. Anti-fraud efforts must be accelerated and orchestrated proficiently to make online scams difficult for offenders (Wang, and Huang, 2011).” Article Two “The (in) significance of the genocidal behavior to the discipline of criminology” is a criminology research work that was conducted by George S. Yacouban, Jr. of the department of criminology and criminal justice (Yacouban, 2000). Despite their devotion to the discipline of criminology, Yacouban reports that the International Criminal law’s research crime study based on genocide has been ignored virtually. Nonetheless, the research’s genocidal behavior seems to play a significant role due to its threatening and comprehensive nature of the offense. Yacouban considers the consequences of genocide to be more ominous than other violations described or constituted in the domestic statutory law (Yacouban, 2000). Moreover, Yacouban noted in the article that, despite its findings not being given the weight it deserve, the analyses of its contented demonstrated the reluctance of the criminology field to identify the crime associated with genocides; therefore, he recommended that this concern requires a scholarly attention. Moreover, he added that findings herein needed to be given weight they deserve in future criminology discipline especially that is concerned with genocidal behaviors. According to this article, genocide is considered as an act of mass murder; however, it then considered this definition as insufficient since it cannot be applied entirely in the new phenomenon witnessed in Nazi territories (Yacouban, 2000). The term is also discredited on the basis that it often fails to account for the motives of any crime under a similar category. The article reports that this form of crime often targets a certain race, nation, or religion factors that have nothing to lead to war. Despite being a crime, some conventions had culminated efforts on punishment and prevention of genocide crimes. However, the 1951 resolution officially collected pieces of international law and declared genocide. This conversion considered genocide as an act with intent to destroy part or entire nations, race, ethical, or religious group by killing its members, causing vital mental or bodily harms, and deliberately inflicting conditions with the aim of destroying them physically in part or entirely (Yacouban, 2000). Additionally, it involves imposing measures towards preventing birth for a group and forcibly transferring masses including children to another group. According to Yacouban, despite the genocide convention ratification, for the last five the acts of genocides have increased immensely. For instance, numerous groups have been victimized including 400,000 civilians in the Vietnam War that occurred between 1965 and 1974, the 1972 victimization of 150,000 Hutu in Burundi, the 1975 and 1979 Cambodia genocide that affected 1.5 million Cambodians (Yacouban, 2000). Others that were affected include the 1992 200,000 Bosnian Croats and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, the 1994 800,000 Tutsi in Rwanda, and the 1971 genocide over 1 million Bengali in Bangladesh among others. Yacouban insist that regardless of killings given in the summary above, the body mandated to correcting such criminal injustices is quite reluctant (Yacouban, 2000). The Yacouban was conducted using a series of methodologies towards a credible and well conclusive result. Yacouban collected numerous statistical data to support his claims. The numerical data in this research are well tabulated including the years, a number of presentations, cumulative genocide presentations, and the percentage genocide presentation (Starparu, 2011). After tabulating the raw data, Yacouban worked out the percentage of his findings in terms of criminal disciplines devoted to genocide crime to other same rated or grouped crimes (Greasley, 2008). The variable in this study is how the genocide crimes are being handled in the criminal institutions. Therefore, it is significant to have records of how other similar cases are handled in order to make conclusive claim that other cases of similar classification are given weight than others (Yacouban, 2000). Notably, Yacouban has applied this statistical comparison of this statistical data to arrive to his conclusion that the international criminal law does not give genocide crimes the weight they deserve. However, other than the use of percentages, Yacouban could have also used probability by computing normal curves to the data he obtained (Faherty, 2007). From the normal curve, it will be clear to note which cases are being preferred over which ones. Article Three The “Evaluation of the Lexington (Fayette County) Kentucky Juvenile Drug Court Program” is one of the articles in the internet journal of criminology (Hayden, 2012). Arthur Hayden authored the article as his research report concerning the Juvenile offenses. According to Hayden, the juvenile offenses are still of concern in the society either as perceived or real. However, he notes that the nation data indicates that this problem has risen significantly since 1980s through 1990s. However, these rates have since 1990s declined or leveled off that is attributed to different categories of offenses combined together. Nonetheless, Hayden notes that offenses due to drugs has remained one category recording highly despite the reduction in the number of arrests processed in the juvenile courts (Hayden, 2012). According to Hayden, different situations including academic difficulties, poor peer and family relationships, health related consequences, violence, economic costs, and mental issues among other factors. According to Hayden, due to high rates of drug related offenses, many jurisdictions have opted to implement juvenile drug courts (JDC) for effective proviso of services towards reducing criminal behaviors especially those that are fueled by substance use (Hayden, 2012). Notably, the article examines the results in criminal offenses that are related to the use of substances in the JDC in Kentucky. Hayden conducted his research using the records he was provided for by the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). From the research’s result, Hayden concluded that the JDC is effective towards meeting the primary objectives that includes reducing recidivism in criminal behavior and substance use (Hayden, 2012). Hayden used statistics in his study where he received 173 referrals out of which he screened 117 that he considered eligible and those that accepted to be in his research program (Hayden, 2012). Out of the 173, 116 entered the JDC, but only 45 completed the program successfully. According to his sample set, 78 males constituting 67 percent of the sample and 38 females that translated to 33 of the sample participated in the program (Hayden, 2012). The statistical data did not give equal presentation by age in this study. However, through his statistical analysis, Hayden divided his data into an area that could help him draw an effective conclusion (Agarwal and Agarwal, 2007). Other than using variance, mean, and mode, Hayden could have used charts, graphs, and histograms so that presentation his results would be understood easily. References Agarwal, B. L., & Agarwal, S. P. (2008). Statistical analysis of quantitative genetics. New Delhi: New Age International. Faherty, V. E. (2008). Compassionate statistics: Applied quantitative analysis for social services (with instructions for SPSS). London: SAGE. Greasley, P. (2008). Quantitative data analysis using SPSS: An introduction for health and social science. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Hayden, A. (2012). The “Evaluation of the Lexington (Fayette County) Kentucky Juvenile Drug Court Program”. Internet Journal of Criminology. Retrieved Feb. 24, 2013 from http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Hayden_Evaluation_of_Fayette_County_Kentucky_Juvenile_Drug_Court_Program_IJC_May_2012.pdf. Indulska, M., Dirk, S. H., & Recker, J. (2012). Quantitative approaches to content analysis: Identifying conceptual drift across publication outlets. European Journal of Information Systems, 21(1), 49-69. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2011.37 Kritzer, H. M. (2009). The data puzzle: The nature of interpretation in quantitative research. American Journal of Political Science, 40(1), 1-1. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/196850439?accountid=45049 Starparu, L. (2011). Quantitative data analysis procedures at credit institutions. Economy Transdisciplinarity Cognition, 14(1), 359-365B. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1118587326?accountid=45049 Wang, S. K. and Huang, W. (2011). The Evolutional View of the Types of Identity Thefts and Online Frauds in the Era of the Internet. Retrieved Feb. 24, 2013 from http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Wang_Huang_The_Evolutional_View_of_the_Types_of_Identity_Thefts_and_Online_Frauds_in_the_Era_of_Internet_IJC_Oct_2011.pdf Yacouban, G. S. (2000). The (in)significance of the genocidal behavior to the discipline of criminology. Crime, Law and Social Change. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic publishers. (34), 7 – 19. Read More