Rise Of Cybercrime

The rise of internet crime and the challenges law enforcement faces trying to apprehend and prosecute offenders.

Cybercrime has provided new opportunities for criminals to engage in unlawful activities using the internet (Brenner, n.d.) As the internet activity rises, so does the criminal activity. Activities that are against people, property, morality, state and government authorities. Policing has always been an evolving environment (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). With the advancement in technology and the internet over the past 20 years, the landscape of crime has changed. Local law enforcement personnel still protect their citizens from local crimes but are now challenged to combat crimes that have occurred thousands of miles

Ever since the internet became affordable and available to the general public it was considered a new age. (Shinder, 2011). It was new and had no regulations. No one anticipated how fast it would grow and what the online behaviors would be. The government would pass several laws since, to combat crimes against people, businesses, and government that had occurred over the decades. In May 2000, the FBI created the IC3 (FBI, 2014). This was a complaint center that people were urged to utilize so the FBI could track the number of internet crimes to assist them in prevention and investigations. In June 2007, the FBI received the one millionth complaint. In November 2010, it received its two-millionth complaint and in May 2014, the center reached three million complaints. On average the FBI will receive approximately three hundred thousand complaints a year from victims of Cybercrime. The process breaks down the reported information by type, victims, gender, age, month, and demographics. Out of the top five countries that lead in crimes the United States leads the way with the highest amount of internet crime reported covering approximately ninety-one percent of the reported incidents. Statistics show that between two thousand one and two thousand twelve the bank robberies have dropped while cybercrime consistently