Crime and Crime Prevention

 Before the advance in technology, the detection of crime was mainly reliant on the general knowledge of the police, or the word of mouth of others, which made it alot more difficult to trace and detect crime. However now, technology has made many things possible in todays society, both good and bad. Technology has been used to be able to detect criminals, such as finger prints, and even using social networks to identify criminals. However, its also been a negative consequence in society, with computor hackers using technology to place virus' and trojans on other computors.
 Technology has advanced so considerably that now there has been many other ways of detecting crime and criminal behavour. This has been seen through things such as Facebook and Twitter, where police have been able to moniter behaviour, and detect crime. Also through things such as CCTV, which is a very popular way of detecting crime, and a very valuable peice of equipment to police and the safety of society. However, the rise in technology has created 'new age' crime. This can be seen through people using social networks to 'cyber bully' others, which has been seen in many high media profile cases with celebrities, some resulting in prison time.
  The advance in ICT and technology has meant that every aspect of recording a crime, or collection has been improved. This can be seen through police officers being able to word process all reports, communicating to other departments or police officers through radio, and even having a automatic vehicle recognition in police cars, allowing them to know if a particular cars speed, if its registered etc. There is also the benefit of a national crime database, where there is fingerprints, DNA evidence, and it also allows them to analyse patterns in criminal behaviour. All of this means police officers have to be trained to a high level in every aspect; however it has many big advantages to society.
 The negative consequence of advanced technology is the trojans and viruses placed on computors to receive information, or sometimes more seriously, for money. With no sense of guilt, they are able to faulsify the information they give, claiming to be a member of FBI, or some form of government. The hackers are able to get into your computor system and data base and take over your computor, where you are not able to use your system unless you hand over money.  To the hackers, this a simple yet very effective way of earning money, or gaining valuable information. For police and victims, this can be very devastating and hard to find out where the source comes from. Sometimes it can have devastating effects on companies, for example a hacking cost Paypal £3.5 million. Companies constantly try and warn the devastating effects not being protected on your computor can have, and to not give any money when prompted by the computor.
 From both sides, technology can be a positive and negative impact on society, with it now being easier to detect crime from many different ways, however due to technology there has also been an increase in new types of crime, and does this have any effect on the privacy that could possibly be overstepped?