Criminal Investigation and Criminal Intelligence: Example of Adaptation in the Prevention and Repression of Cybercrime

Barlatier Jerome

doi:10.3390/risks8030099

Abstract

In the context of the digitization of delinquent activities, perpetrated via the internet, the question of the most appropriate means of crime prevention and crime repression is once again being raised. Studies performed on police investigations have highlighted the over-determining nature of circumstantial factors in crime as a condition for their elucidation for more than fifty years. The emergence of mass delinquency, such as cybercrime, has thus strongly altered the role of investigation as a useful mode of knowledge production. This obsolescence has appeared gradually and can be summarized in four stages, which generates a suspicion about the social relevance of the investigation. It seems that the holistic approach of criminal intelligence is more adapted to the fight against new forms of crime. The investigation becomes a precision instrument assigned to functions that become more specific. This article considers this paradigm shift by the approaches to knowledge management of crime control. Cybercrime is then emblematic of this shift. This study is based on the criminological review and the delinquency analysis led by the central criminal intelligence service of the national gendarmerie. Its premise may likely guide the strategy of French law enforcement agencies.

Highlights

In the context of the digitization of delinquent activities, perpetrated via the internet, the question of the most appropriate means of crime prevention and crime repression is once again being raised
The political authorities decide on criminal sanctions through their attention and effectiveness in dealing with certain illegal behaviors that they consider as major threats, and the justice separates the true from the false, the legal from the illegal
Investigation is an art of individualizing the link between the criminal act and the perpetrator for judicial purposes. It is led by a procedural framework that ensures a compromise between crime control and due process

Summary

Modern Investigation and Disclosure of Evidence

Appearing in the 18th century, the investigation promotes the Enlightenment movement and plans to produce knowledge by rational processes. Investigation is an art of individualizing the link between the criminal act and the perpetrator for judicial purposes It is led by a procedural framework that ensures a compromise between crime control and due process. By a reactive position (i.e., action at the moment of the citizen complaint), the law enforcement agencies are struggling to apprehend this form of crime without a direct victim as a good knowledge of the company environment and the management of both complex and technical litigation are required. The crime-solving rate is low, for scams, which are more than 70% of offences detected in cyberspace Faced with this massive and international phenomena generating technical and arid litigation, the investigation becomes obsolete and is not able to meet the major challenges of crime Attempting to demonstrate a criminal series used to end with a difficult case to manage in proceedings, due to the multiplicity of victims and the complexity of providing simple and intelligible evidence to the judge

Post-Modern Investigations and Risk Assessment

In the Public Sector

In the Private Sector

Findings

Key points