Criminal Opportunities Research Articles

Financial crime: Why are securities markets vulnerable?

In the last five years, regulators have begun to focus on compliance and money laundering risks specific to securities markets. It is clear to them that the ways in which securities are issued, traded, cleared and settled create a series of opportunities for criminals and that these opportunities make the securities industry vulnerable to financial crime. This paper explains where the vulnerabilities lie in securities markets, explores the regulatory and financial consequences for individual firms of failing to address these vulnerabilities, identifies guides to action and obstacles to effective compliance and discusses how they can be overcome at affordable cost.

The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in London: Countering Overseas Terrorist Financing and Support with “Nudge” and Situational Approaches

ABSTRACT Overseas diasporas have long been exploited by terrorist organisations seeking funding and support from areas beyond their operation. The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), active in south-eastern Turkey, is no exception and maintains a significant international presence. This paper uses seventy-three survey responses and thirteen interviews amongst London’s Turkish and Kurdish diaspora to provide an original and comprehensive insight into the PKK’s overseas operations, including their offending patterns, methods, hotspots, offender/victim profiles and existing countermeasures. Respondents were also consulted on new community-based prevention measures designed to address limited law enforcement responses and the laissez-faire approaches of diaspora host countries. This strategy, which combines crime science and behavioural economic theories, consists of Clarke’s “Situational Crime Prevention” theory and Thaler and Sunstein’s “Nudge” theory (SCP+N). The results indicate that the PKK creates criminal opportunities by “legitimising” itself across diasporas by invoking ideological sympathy and social dependence (conceptualised as “constructed legitimisers”), ensuring minimal resistance to its activities. SCP+N is motivated as an effective counterstrategy, addressing both the rational and impulsive nature of offending. The overall theoretical contribution of this paper is to assess overseas terrorist financing through a prevention-oriented, situational and behavioural framework, and to propose a community-based strategy to effectively counter such activities.

Food Fraud: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities and Criminal Opportunities during the COVID Pandemic

Abstract With COVID-19 rampaging through the world in 2020, global businesses were disrupted. The resulting pandemic caused many undesirable economic and societal effects including: sudden supply shortages, economic recession, unemployment, lower consumer incomes, reduced business revenues and increased business losses. A knock-on effect of these effects is increased opportunity for illicit trade to take place and food fraud. Paradoxically the coronavirus outbreak threatened legal global distribution routes and facilitated some fraudulent trade, highlighting that fraud is opportunistic by nature. This is not unexpected as case history and published literature highlights increased fraud in the aftermath of hurricanes and other natural disasters. History teaches us that fraudulent activities in the aftermath or amid a crisis result from “at-risk” individuals e.g., those in poverty, criminals or opportunists, taking advantage from weaknesses in systems e.g., food chain, financial services etc. and as crime increases offenders are motivated to find new flaws to exploit. So far, there are no international data available to compare incidence of food fraud and adulteration during pandemic to any previous pre-pandemic period. The scope of this paper is not therefore to assert that there was a pandemic related increase in food fraud, but to indicate market and supply chain weaknesses and disturbances that may have exposed the market to a higher risk of food fraud vulnerability during the pandemic. Indication of these system weaknesses, highlights areas that might deserve special monitoring and development to reduce vulnerability in any future global crisis.

Police Operational Activities and Crime Commission in a City in the Philippines

Police organizations have conducted operational activities to reduce the opportunity for would-be criminals to commit crimes. This operational activity includes patrol, traffic management, and investigation. In this study, the extent of police operational activities in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines, was evaluated to determine the extent of police operational activities and to test the association between the crime rate and the extent of police operation activities. This study utilized a quantitative descriptive research method. The respondents were 142 active police officers who were chosen purposively by employing total enumeration. The gathering of data was done using a self-made questionnaire, which underwent validation and reliability testing. The statistical tools used were frequency count, mean computation, percentage, and regression analysis. The results revealed that more respondents were 31- 35 years old and above. Most of them were male, bachelor’s degree holders, attended training and seminars for 50 hours, and served the police force for 15 years and below. Patrolling and investigation were found to be much observable while traffic management was observable. As for index crime, there were more crimes against the person committed than crimes against property. As for non-index crimes, there were more other non-index crimes compared to the violation of special laws. Patrolling has a positive influence on the commission and non-commission of both index and non-index crimes. This study also recommends intensive patrolling on hot-spot areas for criminal presence and activity, strengthening traffic management practices, procurement of traffic lights, improving traffic signs, and intensive implementation of traffic laws and regulations.

Global Crime Patterns: An Analysis of Survey Data from 166 Countries Around the World, 2006–2019

ObjectivesThis article explores the merits of commercially-based survey data on crime through cross-validation with established crime metrics.MethodsUsing unpublished data from 166 countries covering the period between 2006 and 2019, the article describes the geographical distribution across global regions and trends over time of three types of common crime, homicide, and organised crime. The article then explores possible determinants of the geographical distributions through regressing prevalence rates against indices of poverty, inequality, proportion of youth, presence of criminal opportunities (wealth and urbanisation), and governance/rule of law.ResultsThe results show that African and Latin American countries suffer from the highest levels of various types of crime across the board, followed by countries in Asia. European, North American and Australian countries experience intermediate or relatively low levels of most types of crime. Levels of common crime have dropped or stabilized globally except in Africa where they went up. Homicides have fallen almost universally. Trends in organised crime are diverging.ConclusionsDimensions of governance emerged as powerful determinants of levels of all types of crime. Important determinants of common crime besides governance were poverty, inequality, and proportion of youth. To some extent changes in these same characteristics of countries were found to be correlated with changes in levels of crime over the past fifteen years. The article concludes with a discussion of the study’s limitations and suggestions for further research.

Interrelationship between Bitcoin, Ransomware, and Terrorist Activities: Criminal Opportunity Assessment via Cyber-Routine Activities Theoretical Framework

ABSTRACT In recent years, a new form of cyber-extortion called ransomware is baffling the world with the speculation of connection to terrorist activities. Since cybercriminals usually demand their ransom using Bitcoin, Bitcoin has also become a part of this speculation. Unfortunately, however, all of the stories are based on anecdotal evidence. Therefore, the current study explores the dynamic properties of ransomware attacks, Bitcoin prices, and terrorist activities by connecting two opportunity-based theory frameworks: The Routine Activity Theory (RAT) and Cyber-Routine Activity Theory (Cyber-RAT). The findings of the study indicated unidirectional ties between the prevalence of ransomware and Bitcoin as well as ties between the prevalence of ransomware and terrorist activities. Several policies and prevention strategies from the overall findings of interrelated relations among three events are also presented.

Examining Patterns of School-Based Polyvictimization and Repeat Victimization: A Latent Class Analysis Approach

ABSTRACT This study uncovers nuances in the range and frequency of adolescent school-based victimization experiences, focusing on the gendered nature of these experiences. A concentration on indicators of criminal opportunity reveals unique predictors of pathways to single-time, poly, and repeat victimization within the school domain. Results from Latent Class Analysis and multinomial logistic regression models indicate that the standard dichotomy of victimization masks the possibility that there are more than two substantively unique classes of school victimization experiences and that many common risk factors may be important for membership in one class but may not matter for membership in other classes.

Submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement Inquiry into Criminal Activity and Law Enforcement during the COVID-19 Pandemic

A wide range of likely impacts from increased risks of domestic violence due to economic stress and ‘stay at home’ public health orders, business failure, police and emergency service fatigue, higher risks of infection in prisons amongst others are some of the many challenges wrought by COVID-19. This submission focuses on two issues in relation to transnational and serious organised crime and the impact of COVID-19 on underground online illicit markets and the convergence of organised crime groups across the Indo-Pacific region.First concerns the role of illicit crypto-markets (‘darknets’) in the diversion and black market sale of medicines and products associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the adaption of these markets to the criminal opportunities presented by the pandemic. The second issue is the scale and acceleration of illicit drug production, notably of synthetic opioids, novel psychoactive substance (NPS) and amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) in Southeast Asia and the convergence of criminal (network) interdependencies between Chinese ‘black societies’ (triads) and their collaborators

Penegakan Hukum terhadap Tindak Pidana Peretasan sebagai Bentuk Kejahatan Mayantara (Cyber Crime)

Along with technological developments, there are a lot of facilities available in cyberspace. The development of this technology can also provide opportunities for criminals, especially crimes in cyberspace. Cybercrime is a new form or dimension of a crime that is currently receiving a lot of attention from the international community. One type of cybercrime is hacking. Based on this background, this research was conducted with the aim of describing law enforcement against criminal acts of hacking and the efforts to deal with cybercrime. This research was conducted using normative legal research methods and statutory approaches. The results of this study showed that law enforcement against criminal acts of hacking is regulated in Law Number 19 of 2016 amending Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions. The perpetrator will be given criminal sanctions in the form of imprisonment and fines for violations in the field of hacking. In addition, efforts to eradicate cybercrime refers to the Law on Information and Electronic Transactions which is carried out with preventive and repressive measures. Therefore, the criminal act of hacking which is included in the realm of cybercrime has been regulated in Article 30 paragraph (1), (2) and (3) of the ITE Law, while the punishment is regulated in Article 46 paragraph (1), (2), and ( 3) of the ITE Law. In this regard, the government has taken various countermeasures in the form of preventive and repressive measures.

\u201cShow this thread\u201d: policing, disruption and mobilisation through Twitter. An analysis of UK law enforcement tweeting practices during the Covid-19 pandemic

Crisis and disruption are often unpredictable and can create opportunities for crime. During such times, policing may also need to meet additional challenges to handle the disruption. The use of social media by officials can be essential for crisis mitigation and crime reduction. In this paper, we study the use of Twitter for crime mitigation and reduction by UK police (and associated) agencies in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that whilst most of the tweets from our sample concerned issues that were not specifically about crime, especially during the first stages of the pandemic, there was a significant increase in tweets about fraud, cybercrime and domestic abuse. There was also an increase in retweeting activity as opposed to the creation of original messages. Moreover, in terms of the impact of tweets, as measured by the rate at which they are retweeted, followers were more likely to ‘spread the word’ when the tweet was content-rich (discussed a crime specific matter and contained media), and account holders were themselves more active on Twitter. Considering the changing world we live in, criminal opportunity is likely to evolve. To help mitigate this, policy makers and researchers should consider more systematic approaches to developing social media communication strategies for the purpose of crime mitigation and reduction during disruption and change more generally. We suggest a framework for so doing.

Deterring White Collar Crimes within the Framework of Situational Crime Prevention Approach

Birçok beyaz yakalı suçun, failin sahip olduğu mesleki fırsatları kötüye kullanılmasından kaynaklanması söz konusudur. Bu nedenle beyaz yaka suçlarının önüne geçilebilmesi için suç doğuran organizasyon temelli suç fırsatlarının engellenmesi gerekmektedir. Çalışma, söz konusu bu suç fırsatlarının kısıtlanması yoluyla beyaz yakalı suçların önlenebileceğini ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu doğrultuda çalışmada durumsal suç önleme yaklaşımından yararlanılmaktadır. Çalışmada, durumsal suç önleme yaklaşımı tarafından öngörülen suç önleme tekniklerinin beyaz yaka suçlardaki uygulanabilirliği değerlendirilmektedir. Bu tekniklerin ortaya konulmasının ardından durumsal suç önleme yaklaşımı dahilinde şirketlerin alması gereken önlemlere yer verilmiştir. Ancak sonuç itibariyle görülmektedir ki durumsal suç önleme, beyaz yaka suç olaylarını azaltmada etkili bir yaklaşım olsa da beyaz yaka suç olaylarının tamamen önüne geçememektedir.

CYBER CRIME DAN POTENSI MUNCULNYA VIKTIMISASI PEREMPUAN DI ERA TEKNOLOGI INDUSTRI 4.0

The phenomenon of the industrial revolution 4.0 has had many influences, both positive and negative for society. It is undeniable that slowly everything has turned to digital. So that the interaction between humans and technology is inevitable. Such developments make digitization even more difficult to recognize, because everything is now integrated, everything now requires the internet. The opportunities for cyber criminals are getting wider, various kinds of cyber threats continue to emerge and this is a challenge for users. So many crimes that occur today in cyberspace or what is known as cyber crime, especially affect women. There are cases of illegal content (illegal content), violations of privacy (infringement of privacy), threats of private photo or video distribution (malicious distribution), online defamation, to online recruitment (online recruitment). The high number of online-based gender violence, especially for women, seems to open our eyes to always wisely use internet technology in carrying out activities and routines of daily life.

Investigating the relationships between FATF recommendation compliance, regulatory affiliations and the Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index

Money laundering (ML) is harmful as it provides an opportunity for criminals to launder (or legitimise) criminal proceeds and reinvest laundered funds into their activities. ML also creates economic distortions, erosion of financial sectors, reduced government revenue and other socioeconomic effects. To reduce potential ML, governments use security intelligence and financial regulation. To enhance financial security and reduce the illicit ML opportunities, countries will benefit from understanding how the adoption of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations and their regulatory affiliations affect the risk of ML. Our findings reveal irregularity in the guidelines used by countries to develop AML regulatory policy, which undermines AML security. Further, highly FATF-compliant countries tend to enjoy lower ML risk and are often affiliated with well-established regulatory groups. This suggests the need to maintain ongoing and consistent compliance standards across all affiliation groups and further facilitate cross-jurisdictional cooperation among financial intelligence agencies to maximise the spillover effect from highly compliant and low ML-risk jurisdictions.

Appointment Robbery: Do Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Strategies Work? Voices from the Street

reduced with modifications and planning to the physical environment by making involvement in criminal activity more difficult to complete by increasing the visibility of the offender thereby raising the risk of being caught. A new type of criminal opportunity has evolved in the 21st Century with the introduction and explosion of direct e-commerce opportunities with online and app advertisements to buy and sell items through such venues as Craigslist, OfferUp, Letgo, and Facebook Marketplace. This new crime is defined as an ‘appointment robbery’. Using interviews of 12 active robbers from a metropolitan area in Texas, this study explored whether or not offenders were deterred from participating in criminal behavior due to the implementation of CPTED strategies. Results from this study suggest that offenders reported that territoriality, natural surveillance, activity support, and access control did serve as deterrents during the decision to commit a robbery. The study examined the original CPTED theory as posited by Jeffery in 1971. The study found support for the original four CPTED strategies.

Juvenile delinquency risk factors: Individual, social, opportunity or all of these together?

There is extensive literature on risk factors leading to criminal behavior. However, most of these studies have been conducted in European and Anglo-Saxon countries, and there are few analogous studies in Latin America. Our main aim was to analyze whether the criminal risk level estimated from the interaction between antisocial motivation and criminal opportunities helps to differentiate between adolescents with and without delinquent behavior (as proposed in the Triple Risk for Delinquency Model). We measured both official and self-reported antisocial behavior in a sample of 211 young people in Argentina. The results show a significant association between delinquency and personal, social and opportunity risk factors. Also, it was possible to differentiate between adolescents with and without official and self-reported antisocial behavior with high sensitivity and specificity, based on the estimation of criminal risk levels. We discuss the relevance and implications of these findings within the particular context of this study.

Place managers for crime prevention: the theoretical and empirical status of a neglected situational crime prevention technique

Place managers are individuals who are physically and legally able to prevent crime in proprietary places, in addition to their designated functions within these places. They can be apartment complex owners, store managers, bar owners, parking lot attendants, or other individuals who have ownership claims to a place or are employed by that place. Largely informed by the criminal opportunity perspective and recognized as a situational crime prevention technique, place managers benefit from a rich theoretical development, but only limited evaluation research. In examining the theoretical and empirical status of place managers, we were motivated to develop a greater understanding of the potential for place manager interventions to be implemented and evaluated, as well as to explore a promising mechanism—in the form of regulatory frameworks—to help place managers in performing roles related to the prevention of crime.

A study of cybercrime victimisation and prevention: exploring the use of online crime prevention behaviours and strategies

PurposeThe evolution of digital technology has changed the way in which we, as a global society, socialise and conduct business. This growth has led to an increasing reliance on technology, much more interconnectedness and in turn, an expansion of criminal opportunities, known now as “cybercrime”. This study aims to explore the experience of victimisation, perceptions of cybercrime and use of online crime prevention strategies.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved a survey of a representative sample of the adult Australian population. The study sample was made up of 595 Australian adult participants. The study seeks to better understand how previous victimisation, perception of cybercrime prevalence and perception of harm caused by cybercrime are related to the use of online crime prevention strategies. It seeks to contribute to a body of work that has found that crime prevention education focused on increasing knowledge is limited in its effectiveness in reducing victimisation.FindingsThis study identifies key levers, in particular perceived prevalence and harm of cybercrime, as critical in the use of online crime prevention strategies by potential victims.Research limitations/implicationsAs such, this study provides an important evidence base on which to develop more effective online crime prevention education and awareness campaigns to reduce cybervictimisation.Practical implicationsThe practical implications include the relationship between cybervictimisation and self-protective online strategies of potential victims and the development of more effective online crime prevention programmes.Originality/valueThe research takes a different perspective from much of the previous research, seeking to better understand how attitudinal factors (perceived prevalence of cybercrime and perceived harm of cybercrime) might motivate or influence the use of online crime prevention strategies by potential victims.

A környezetkárosítás-bűncselekmény kriminálstatisztikai mutatói és az elkövetők szociálgeográfiai vizsgálata

A tanulmányban kriminálstatisztikai adatok segítségével, bűnügyi fertőzöttségi térképekkel tárom fel a környezetkárosítások elkövetésének területi és időbeli jellegzetességeit. Magyarország megyéinek, illetve a környezetkárosítás ismertté vált elkövetőinek összehasonlító vizsgálatával próbálok rávilágítani azokra a földrajzi-társadalmi tényezőkre, amelyek közvetlenül befolyásolhatják e bűncselekménytípus előfordulását, illetve fokozhatják a bűnalkalmak kihasználását. A 2005–2018-as időszakban Magyarországon regisztrált környezetkárosítás-bűncselekmények kriminálstatisztikai adatainak vizsgálatából választ kaptam arra, hogy a környezetkárosítás tekintetében mely magyarországi megyék a bűnügyileg legfertőzöttebbek, illetve mely környezetkárosítási típus fordult elő a leggyakrabban. Az ismertté vált elkövetők szociálgeográfiai vizsgálatából kimutatható, hogy a környezetkárosítás esetében is jelentős negatív társadalomföldrajzi tényező a munkanélküliség és az iskolázatlanság.

Crime Generators in Context: Examining ‘Place in Neighborhood’ Propositions

The present study tests hypotheses regarding the moderating influence of neighborhood-level criminal opportunity on the relationship between crime generators and block-level crime. We first estimated multilevel negative binomial regression models for violent, property, and drug crimes to identify crime-type specific crime generators on each block. We then estimated a series of crime-type specific models to examine whether the effects of violent, property, and drug crime generators are moderated by three census block group-level indicators of neighborhood criminal opportunity—concentrated disadvantage, vehicular traffic activity, and civic engagement. The positive relationship between crime generators and crime on blocks was exacerbated in census block groups with high levels of concentrated disadvantage and high levels of traffic activity for all three crime types. The effects of crime generators on block-level crime were significantly tempered in census block groups with high levels of civic engagement. Particular place types do not generate crime similarly across varying neighborhood contexts. Rather, the criminogenic effects of micro-places appear to be exacerbated in neighborhoods with extensive criminal opportunity and tempered in neighborhoods with less criminal opportunity.

A Qualitative Study of High Substance Abuse Neighborhood in a Rural College Town

Criminal opportunity and its relation to crime has been the focus of criminological research over the past several decades; other studies have shown that substance abuse also influences crime. However, limited attention has been paid to how substance abuse increases criminal opportunity especially in rural communities and among college populations. Drawing on theoretical discussion, the researcher conducted a qualitative study by examining the behavioral characteristics of substance abuse amongst college-aged students in Hays, Kansas, a rural college town in Northwest Kansas. Hays has a neighborhood close to the Fort Hays State University (FHSU) campus that is highly populated with college students and yields the highest crime rates. This area is perceived by the public as having frequent incidents of substance abuse responsible for crime. The student population in this area was studied to determine behaviors indicative of substance abuse and how criminal opportunity relates to these behaviors. Systematic qualitative observations were used to collect data for this study.