Category: Criminology

Processes & Analyses For Computer Crime Investigations

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After establishing probable cause, your company, AB Investigative Services (ABIS), has been contacted by a prominent state law enforcement agency. Investigators do not understand the specifics of processing digital evidence or analyzing digital evidence. As an ABIS investigator, you will need go to the scene and provide guidance concerning the identification of digital evidence that will establish motive related to the particular offense. The state forensic agents will follow the procedure guidelines provided by you to establish the motive of its case as it relates to a high-tech crime.
For full credit, your Discussion Board posting must include the following information:

What do you consider to be the 3 most important computer-related forensics procedures necessary in processing evidence at the scene of a crime? Provide your reasoning of why these are the most important procedures.
What do you consider to be the most important aspect of how a financial investigator must secure digital evidence to help in the prosecution of offenders, and why this process is important?
How would omitting one of these forensic procedures negatively affect either the investigation or prosecution process?
What is a possible oversight that could occur during the collection and identification of digital evidence process, and what is one way to overcome such an oversight?

 

 

Punishing of criminals

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Western societies have been punishing criminal actors since ancient Greece. This begs the question of whether or not punishment is an effective means of crime control and recidivist reduction. As you explore the balance of freedom versus security and the history of criminal punishment, be willing to think of new ways to address and deter criminal behavior.

If your last name begins with the letters A through L: Detail the history of criminal law. List and explain the major forces that created U.S. criminal law. Provide an opinion of whether or not criminal law provides the most effective way to deal with crime and recidivism. Your post must weigh the challenge between keeping people safe and protecting individual liberties. Offer one or two suggestions for improvement to the current criminal law system within which we operate.

The appropriate handling of evidence

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You are a member of a very effective counternarcotics unit. Your department, because of your unit, gets statewide recognition as the best drug team in the state. The unit has received numerous citations for their actions. You have been on the team for 6 months. A drug raid results in a group of Columbian drug cartel members being arrested. Several hundred pounds of high-grade cocaine are seized. In addition to weapons and drugs, there is over $5 million in cash found in the raid. While you are weighing and bagging cocaine, you look up to see the two sergeant team leaders counting the money. They are putting it in evidence bags. You note that one of the sergeants takes out a leather athletic bag, and they each put 10 packs of $100 bills totaling $200,000 into the athletic bag. You assume that they ran out of evidence bags. Later that night, the evidence gets logged in, and the team heads for the local cop bar where the narcotics team hangs out. One of the sergeants opens the trunk, and you see the leather athletic bag. He reaches in and pulls out four $100 bills. He jokingly makes a comment that the party is on the perpetrators. Everyone goes inside, and the sergeant pays for the entire group that evening.

Assignment Guidelines

Address the following in 3–5 pages:
Describe what you feel the appropriate handling of the evidence in this case should have been.
Explain what you believe the impact of the actions you observed committed by the two sergeants could have on the unit and police department.
Articulate the leadership impact of what occurred in terms of the supervisors taking the money.
Select 2 types of actions that you could take in this instance, and explain why the 2 you selected would be a good or bad choice.

Forensic tools

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Your company, AB Investigative Services (ABIS) has been contacted by a prominent state law enforcement agency concerning the need to discuss, in a high-level meeting, specific computer-related forensics tools and their functions when governing the seizures of computers and other technology. On behalf of your ABIS, you will conduct a training meeting for 25 state law enforcement agency forensic investigative personnel.

In your training meeting, you must provide specific details of what forensic tools are available for use, and what current evidence processing laws are in place.

For full credit, your Discussion Board posting must include the following information:

Discuss 3 advantages and/or disadvantages of using forensic tools during an investigation? You may discuss any combination of advantages and disadvantages, but you must discuss 3.
Why is this an advantage/disadvantage?
What is 1 example of a way in which an investigation can be corrupted by not using computer forensics tools?
How would this affect the investigation?
What do you consider to be the 3 most important forensics tools currently being used? Also discuss the most important features of each of these tools.
What information can be accessed by using these tools, and how is this information used in the investigative process/what is the importance of this information?
What do you consider to be the 3 most important evidence processing laws that must be taken into consideration during an investigation?
Why are these laws important, and who, specifically, do these laws protect?

The forensics procedures to collect, and process forensic evidence

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A forensic unit within a federal crime lab has been tasked with the investigation of an individual who is suspected of the manufacturing, transportation, and sale of illegal fireworks explosives. Upon responding to a fire at the suspect’s house, firefighters discover 2.5 tons of explosives, and therefore, put out the fire from a distance. When investigators arrive on the scene, several networked computers, PDAs, cell phones, and laptops are found in an upstairs office. As junior investigators, they are unsure of how the fourth and fifth amendments will affect their investigation, search warrants, and the ultimate seizure of these devices. In addition, they are unsure of the standard operating procedures for processing computer evidence within the first and fourth amendments’ governance, so AB Investigative Services (ABIS) has been contracted to provide guidance in these areas.

Provide a 4–6 page document in Word describing: the forensics procedures to collect, and process forensic evidence from these devices while following the fourth and fifth amendment guidelines.

Ethics, Discretion, And Decision Making Individual Project

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You are a sergeant in a community relations unit in a mid-sized metropolitan police department. Your division commander sent you off to a 1-week ethics school run by the Justice Department. You have returned with all kinds of new knowledge about ethics, community relations, and discretion. In your after-action report to the division commander about the training, the chief of police liked what he heard. The chief wants a position paper on ethics as they apply to customer and community relationships, discretion, and operational confidences so that it can be incorporated in the continual ethics and legal guidelines training sessions.

Address the following in 10–12 pages:
Explain the importance of legal and ethical guidelines for the police department.
Why should ethical guidelines and legal training be a continuing process for all personnel in their annual training cycle? Explain in detail.
When police make ethical or unethical decisions in the public eye, how does it impact the police department as a whole? Explain in detail.
Concerning 2 categories of customers contacted by the police on a routine basis, how are ethical issues important to their relationships with these customers? Explain in detail.
Police officers must exercise discretion in a number of interpersonal relationships.
How can this impact the police department for both the good and the bad? Explain.
Close-hold information and operational confidences are critical to any police agency. Relate the importance and impact of operational confidences for administrative issues as well as tactical law enforcement missions.
What subcultures are the most influential within a law enforcement agency? Explain.
What benefits can police subcultures provide for a law enforcement agency? Explain.
What challenges exist with regard to police subcultures within a law enforcement agency? Explain.
What ethical dilemmas can be problematic because of police subcultures? Explain.

The realm of corrections.

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Our discussions will now move to the realm of corrections. Considering the ethical systems reviewed in the course to this point, apply those concepts to these aspects of the correctional system:

Defend or reject the use of capital punishment with one or more of the ethical theories discussed so far in this course.
Describe the three ethical frameworks for punishment: utilitarianism, deontology, and peacemaking. Which one do you think should serve as the ethical framework for punishment today? Why?
Ethical principles are not as clear-cut for probation officers as they are for police officers. A probation officer must serve as both a mentor to the clients as well as a law enforcer. Discuss the ethical systems that guide the work of a probation officer and describe how they may present the officer with difficulties on the job.

 

When an act in a sporting event cross the line and become a criminal act

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When does an act in a sporting event cross the line and become a criminal act? Is there a difference whether it occurs during a high school, college, or professional competition? Why or why not? Why is a fight in a hockey game essentially condoned (usually resulting in a mere five-minute penalty) where the same act, even if consented to, subjects the combatants to a crime of mutual combat?

 

 

Bargaining process.

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Well over 90% of criminal cases in the United States are concluded through a plea bargain—a significant number of those for the crime initially charged (the defendant does not plead guilty to a lesser crime than charged). As future criminal justice professionals, it is important for you to fully understand the purposes, goals, and procedures for plea agreements. In this video presentation, weigh the significance of plea bargains and the impact eliminating them would have upon the criminal justice system. Pay close attention to the limited role that judges play in plea bargains. Choose your side wisely; you will be defending your position in your video!

Prepare a two- to three-minute video presentation with detailing the following information:

Explain the plea bargaining process.
List the elements of a valid plea bargain.
Define the role of a judge in the plea bargaining process.
Create and provide an opinion on whether plea bargaining is a benefit to the United States criminal justice system and why.
If you are in favor of continuing plea bargaining, address arguments against its continued prevalence.
If you are against continuing plea bargaining, address arguments for its continued prevalence.

 

 

The differences in the forms in which states have legalized marijuana

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What do you think of the differences in the forms in which states have legalized marijuana? In about half of the states it is still illegal to possess, and in the other half it is legal to possess mostly for medical purposes, but at least five states have now legalized possession of small amounts for recreational purposes. Some of these states put it on the ballot and let the people decide whether or not to legalize it. What do you think about the fact that the people have voted to legalize marijuana but federally it is still illegal? Should anything be done by the federal government to step in and make the laws uniform across the country, either invalidating the ballot votes, or changing federal law to legalize or decriminalize possession?