The authors attempt to identify the social, technological or economic trends associated with the advent of the Internet and the globalization of exchanges that are transforming police work.
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No human activity can now escape the digital transformation that has swept over our societies over the past two decades, and which is expressed in particular by the omnipresence in our lives of technologies such as mobile telephony, the Internet and, growing, connected objects. In Quebec, more than 85% of the population uses the Internet for personal daily purposes, whether to socialize, make purchases, carry out banking transactions, have fun or access public services (Bernier 2017). In addition, 62% of the adult population owns a smart phone and 52%, an electronic tablet that also allows access to the Internet (CEFRIO 2017). The Internet has become so essential to our well-being that in a recent survey, 46% of Canadians said they would give up fast food meals for a year in order to maintain access to this technology, almost as many the population saying they are willing not to consume alcohol, chocolate or coffee (respectively 34, 31 and 26%) and even to deprive themselves of sexual relations (9%) to preserve their access to the web (ACEI 2017). While the social advantages and economic benefits provided by the Internet and mobile telephony are undeniable, the rapid advent of these technologies has also been accompanied by new criminal risks exploiting numerous security flaws and taking advantage of a complexity that makes difficult to control illegal behavior. Whether it is bank fraud they are victims of, the failing protection of their personal data by the organizations with which they deal online, the exposure of their children to cyberbullying, the trivialization of images of child pornography, content conducive to radicalization disseminated by extremist groups of all persuasions, or even the proliferation of “fake news” on social media platforms, Internet users are exposed to numerous criminal risks that have historically come under the responsibility of police institutions. However, the latter seem to be struggling to make a strategic transition to this new criminal environment in order to adapt their structures and practices to it.
These adaptation difficulties stem from two complementary logics: excessive complexity, on the one hand, and a lack of capacity, on the other (Klap and de Groot 2013). First, the technical nature of the computer systems that make cybercrimes possible introduces a complexity that hampers criminal investigations. This technological complexity of investigations into the most sophisticated cybercrimes such as acts of computer hacking or cyberattacks against certain essential infrastructures requires police organizations to mobilize a set of new expertise and financial and technical resources, available in limited quantity. However, technology does not explain all cybercrimes, some of which are rather an inevitable evolution of certain traditional forms of crime such as fraud, child sexual exploitation or theft. To distinguish between the two categories, the respective terms cyber-dependent crimes are used (cyber dependent) and cyber-facilitated crimes (cyber enabled) (McGuire and Dowling 2013). The main problem facing the police in the case of cyber-facilitated crimes is not that of technical complexity, which generally remains low, but rather its capacity to process the thousands of new cases generated by the automation and industrialization of digital crime.
Cybercrime has become the main form of crime against property and now accounts for half of the criminal incidents recorded by victimization surveys.
This form of delinquency is articulated in a mode of organization by projects involving participants scattered all over the planet, which makes police investigations particularly difficult to conduct. The tension between the local mode of organization of police work and the globalized structure of cybercrime also explains why police organizations have difficulty in adapting their modes of intervention and have so far left the private sector to occupy the terrain of prevention and investigation. Beyond the problems of complexity and capacity, police services are today wondering about the structural, professional and cultural transformations required in order to meet the challenge of the digital transition. These transformations concern the four major police functions linked to economic crime, brought together in the four Ps model: prosecuting criminal groups and disrupting their activities, preventing the entry into a criminal career of individuals at risk, protecting organizations and against the risk of victimization and prepare organizations and individuals to deal with criminal risks and mitigate their negative effects (Levi et al. 2015).
We propose here to examine the transformations undertaken and the efforts that remain to be made to deal with cybercrime, starting from the problem posed by the quantification of the phenomenon. A chronic lack of reliable statistics prevents police organizations from taking full measure and planning optimal intervention strategies in terms of prevention and repression. We also look at current police expertise and the needs to be met to deal with the problem, from the general knowledge of patrol officers to the targeted technical expertise of investigators and their technical support teams. In particular, this involves questioning the training of the various stakeholders, the relevance of entrusting cybercrime investigations to specialized units or, on the contrary, of disseminating expertise more widely within the organization, the role that employees could play civilians and the obstacles posed by the constant evolution of technologies in this type of investigation. Finally, we consider the partnership intervention strategies available to police organizations to compensate for their lack of resources and expertise, even if the thorny question of the control and effectiveness of this type of intervention arises. . This model, first formulated in the United Kingdom to conceptualize the various dimensions of the fight against terrorism, has since been extended to other fields of police intervention.
The future of police work
Benoît Dupont, Anthony Amicelle, Rémi Boivin, Francis Fortin, Samuel Tanner
The Presses of the University of Montreal, November 2021
190 pages
Who are the authors ?
The authors are all affiliated with the International Center for Comparative Criminology of the University of Montreal, one of the main groups of researchers specializing in criminal phenomena and their control in the name of security.