scholarly journals A Victim-Focused Response to Repeat Fraud and Computer Misuse Crimes: Challenges and Opportunities through Admin Data Linkage

Author(s):  
Sara Correia

Background with rationaleThe volume of Fraud and Computer Misuse victimisation in the UK is estimated to be nearly equivalent to all other crime types combined. Alongside this, the Victims’ Charter establishes enhanced rights for vulnerable victims, a category which includes repeat victims, placing a responsibility on criminal justice agencies to assess vulnerability and respond accordingly. However, identifying repeat victimisation is challenging and the relationship between reported repeat victimisation and vulnerability requires empirical scrutiny. Main aimThis presentation draws on PhD research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and conducted in collaboration with the Southern Wales Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU), to profile victims of fraud and computer misuse in Wales. It presents the methodological challenges and lessons learnt from linking administrative crime records to identify and profile repeat victims of fraud and computer misuse across the four Welsh police forces. Methods/ApproachThis research utilised a sample of all incidents reported within the Welsh police force areas over a period of two years (1st October 2014 to 30th September 2016). A mixture of exact and probabilistic matching was used to match records relating to the same victim, leveraging R’s RecordLinkage package in conjunction with Tidyverse. A variety of descriptive and inferential statistics were used to summarise key relationships within the resulting linked dataset. Results & ConclusionLinking crime records presents considerable methodological challenges related to data quality and the availability and accessibility of linkage tools. These difficulties impair the assessment of vulnerability which is demanded of criminal justice agencies. Despite their limitations however, crime records can be used to provide new insights into the nature of repeat victimisation and the characteristics of victims who report being repeatedly victimised.

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel Whitty

AbstractRisk and human rights discourses have become dominant features of the UK criminal justice arena. However, there has been little critical scrutiny of the ways in which these discourses relate to each other. In this article, I focus on different accounts of the case of Anthony Rice, a 48-year old ex-offender who committed a murder in August 2005 whilst under the joint supervision of English probation and police services. Drawing upon official reviews by the Inspectorate of Probation and the UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights, as well as media coverage, I use the Rice case to problematise some common assumptions about the relationship between risk and human rights.


Author(s):  
Filippo Trevisan

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in incorporating publicly available search engine data in scholarly research. In recent years, an increasing number of researchers have started to include tools such as Google Trends (http://google.com/trends) in their work. However, a central ‘search engine’ field of inquiry has yet to emerge. Rather, the use of search engine data to address social research questions is spread across many disciplines, which makes search valuable across fields but not critical to any one particular area. In an effort to stimulate a comprehensive debate on these issues, this paper reviews the work of pioneering scholars who devised inventive — if experimental — ways of interpreting data generated through search engine accessory applications and makes the point that search engines should be regarded not only as central objects of research, but also as fundamental tools for broader social inquiry. Specific concerns linked to this methodological shift are identified and discussed, including: the relationship with other, more established social research methods; doubts over the representativeness of search engine data; the need to contextualize publicly available search engine data with other types of evidence; and the limited granularity afforded to researchers by tools such as Google Trends. The paper concludes by reflecting on the combination of search engine data with other forms of inquiry as an example of arguably inelegant yet innovative and effective ‘kludgy’ design (Karpf, 2012).


2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Billingsley

The use of informers by the police service in the UK has been the subject of recent research, even though the police service in this country has been protective towards this particular investigative method. It has been revealed from this research that there is a common assumption that the use of informers is quite unique among police relationships. This paper examines whether in fact the relationship between an informer and the police is really that unique, or whether it is the secrecy which surrounds it that provokes such an assumption. The paper relies heavily on a comparison with other relationships, starting with typical professional partnerships, then examining other police relationships. The factors which emerge from these relationships have been compared to police/informer relationships to determine how dissimilar they are. The paper suggests there are in fact many similarities between a police/ informer relationship and other professional partnerships, and concludes that it is probably the secrecy which the police have maintained that has created the assumption that the relationship is unique. It is suggested by the author that if the police/informer relationship became more transparent and accountable then this may lead to law enforcement agencies being less able to hide behind the veil of secrecy, which may help the concept of openness within the criminal justice system.


Author(s):  
Judy Willcocks

This chapter examines the relationship between universities and museums in the UK. By focusing on two case studies, namely, Peckham Cultural Institute and the ‘Local roots/global routes: the legacies of British slave-ownership’ project, it illustrates some of the challenges and opportunities Share Academy has experienced. The early 21st century brought considerable changes to the way museums and universities were constituted and understood. Initiatives like the UK government-funded Renaissance in the Regions programme encouraged museums to broaden their audiences and think of themselves as lifelong educators, situating learning at the centre of museum practice. However, the chapter shows ongoing funding problems within the museum sector continued to contribute to an erosion of curatorial skills as specialist roles were replaced with more general posts.


1994 ◽  
Vol 72 (03) ◽  
pp. 426-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Kitchen ◽  
I D Walker ◽  
T A L Woods ◽  
F E Preston

SummaryWhen the International Normalised Ratio (INR) is used for control of oral anticoagulant therapy the same result should be obtained irrespective of the laboratory reagent used. However, in the UK National External Quality Assessment Scheme (NEQAS) for Blood Coagulation INRs determined using different reagents have been significantly different.For 18 NEQAS samples Manchester Reagent (MR) was associated with significantly lower INRs than those obtained using Diagen Activated (DA, p = 0.0004) or Instrumentation Laboratory PT-Fib HS (IL, p = 0.0001). Mean INRs for this group were 3.15, 3.61, and 3.65 for MR, DA, and IL respectively. For 61 fresh samples from warfarin-ised patients with INRs of greater than 3.0 the relationship between thromboplastins in respect of INR was similar to that observed for NEQAS data. Thus INRs obtained with MR were significantly lower than with DA or IL (p <0.0001). Mean INRs for this group were 4.01, 4.40, and 4.59 for MR, DA, and IL respectively.We conclude that the differences between INRs measured with the thromboplastins studied here are sufficiently great to influence patient management through warfarin dosage schedules, particularly in the upper therapeutic range of INR. There is clearly a need to address the issues responsible for the observed discrepancies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-143
Author(s):  
Alison Frater

Starting with a personal perspective this piece outlines the place and role of the arts in the criminal justice system in the UK. It paints an optimistic picture, though an unsettling one, because the imagination and reflexiveness of the arts reveals a great deal about the causes of crime and the consequences of incarceration. It raises questions about the transforming impact of the arts: how the benefits could, and should, be optimised and why evaluations of arts interventions are consistent in identifying the need for a non-coercive, more socially focused, paradigm for rehabilitation. It concludes that the deeper the arts are embedded in the criminal justice system the greater the benefits will be, that a more interdisciplinary approach would support better theoretical understanding, and that increased capacity to deliver arts in the criminal justice system is needed to offer more people a creative pathway out of crime.


2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Duff

On 1 April 1996, a rather odd provision was introduced into the Scottish criminal justice process, namely a duty on both prosecution and defence to try to agree uncontroversial evidence in advance of criminal trial.1 As far as the writer is aware, such a provision is unique, although the philosophy underlying its introduction is not totally alien to inquisitorial systems of criminal justice.2 What is particularly peculiar about this duty is that there is no sanction for a failure, however unreasonable, to agree uncontroversial evidence.3 The lack of a sanction resulted from a concern that the creation of any penalty would impinge unjustifiably upon the rights of the accused. The intention in this article is to explore in detail the relationship between the duty to agree uncontroversial evidence and the position of the accused, and to suggest that the imposition of a sanction for a breach of this duty is not as problematic as was thought by those responsible for the legislation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Evans

This paper considers the relationship between social science and the food industry, and it suggests that collaboration can be intellectually productive and morally rewarding. It explores the middle ground that exists between paid consultancy models of collaboration on the one hand and a principled stance of nonengagement on the other. Drawing on recent experiences of researching with a major food retailer in the UK, I discuss the ways in which collaborating with retailers can open up opportunities for accessing data that might not otherwise be available to social scientists. Additionally, I put forward the argument that researchers with an interest in the sustainability—ecological or otherwise—of food systems, especially those of a critical persuasion, ought to be empirically engaging with food businesses. I suggest that this is important in terms of generating better understandings of the objectionable arrangements that they seek to critique, and in terms of opening up conduits through which to affect positive changes. Cutting across these points is the claim that while resistance to commercial engagement might be misguided, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge the power-geometries of collaboration and to find ways of leveling and/or leveraging them. To conclude, I suggest that universities have an important institutional role to play in defining the terms of engagement as well as maintaining the boundaries between scholarship and consultancy—a line that can otherwise become quite fuzzy when the worlds of commerce and academic research collide.


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