New tools for old crimes

Abstract

This issue of International Review of Law, Computers & Technology looks at crime and criminal justice from different times, countries, and authors with widely contrasting experiences covering a period from 1974 to the present day.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to my wife Nichola and son Toby Pell, the peer reviewers, and all at Taylor & Francis.

Notes

Crime is defined in The New Oxford Dictionary of English as ‘an act or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law’.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested in New York on a charge of sexually assaulting a 32-year-old Guinean chambermaid, denied the charges. That sex took place is not in dispute but claims are made that it was not consensual (Daily Telegraph, 2 July 2011, p. 16). French journalist Tristane Banon says he assaulted her in 2002 but her mother urged her at the time not to press charges. The BBC reported on July 4 2011 that she is now pressing charges.

Science fiction authors were using the term in the late 1980 and 1990s. Once the internet became popular the term migrated to common parlance. Socio-legal scholars used the term from the early to mid-1990s. Expert Professor David Wall's first cybercrime article was published in 1996. The first legal use appears to be in the discussions over the COE Convention on Cybercrime, in 2001, the same year as the Australian Government introduced their Cybercrime Act. The United Kingdom does not have any specific cybercrime laws. The Computer Misuse Act 1990, Fraud and Obscenity laws have each been expanded to accommodate the new challenges of cybercrime. The term ‘cybercrime’ does not appear to have been used in any of the legislation, although the UK has a cybercrime strategy.

 The Office for Cyber Security, which is at the forefront of tackling cybercrime in the United Kingdom, emphasizes five key components. These are better coordination of the fight against cybercrime across government departments and providing an effective law enforcement response to electronic crime. Police response will be informed by the ‘development of accurate reporting mechanisms for the public’, a reference to the National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC).

 Other key goals involve raising public confidence through education initiatives, such as Get Safe Online and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), as well as building closer ties with industry. Work is to continue with international law enforcement agencies to fight both child abuse and financially motivated cybercrime.

 In the United States, Senator Harry Reid introduced a bill on behalf of seven different committees in the US Senate, ranging from Armed Services to Homeland Security and including Commerce. The legislation, which is viewed as ‘comprehensive’ is called the American Cyber Competitiveness Act of 2011, and aims to incentivise the private section into action.

Daily Mail, 27 May 2011, p. 41.

Daily Mail, 7 May 2011.

H. Croydon, Sugar Daddy (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2011).

The Daily Telegraph contained articles each day dealing with MPs and their expenses. The paper's website had a facility to check on MPs. Eventually, No Expenses Spared, co-authored by Robert Winnett and Gordon Raynor, was published dealing with the whole scandal.

Elliott Morley, Daily Mail, 21 May 2011 p. 29.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Laws is to face a police investigation as more than £100,000 of taxpayers' money was involved. Daily Telegraph 19 May 2011, p. 6 and The Mail on Sunday, 8 May 2011, p. 15.

CNNMoney, 20 June 2011.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kenneth Russell

Editor