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Emerging Crime Trends
Cybercrime is one of the emerging trends globally. Annually, billions of dollars are lost because of cybercrimes, whether from hacking into companies, disabling hospitals or banks, or the individual effects of identity theft and fraud. These crimes can be from foreign agents or companies seeking to gain an advantage to people trying to gain bragging rights by hacking. It’s also difficult to know the true scope of the problem because many people either do not realize they have been the victim of a cybercrime or they do not come forward to tell law enforcement about their victimization. A 2014 report by Reuters found that cybercrime cost the global economy approximately $445 billion annually, impacting around 40 million people in the United States each year, which is around 15 percent of the U.S. population. This is more people than are harmed by other types of property crime combined (FBI, n.d.a).
According to the FBI, the types of cybercrime that are becoming more common include the following:
• Fraud and Financial crimes – using computers, mobile devices, or services to defraud people, companies, or government agencies of money, revenue, or Internet access, including phishing, viruses, computer attacks, or manipulating people to get personal information
• Cyberterrorism – when a government or organization is intimidated or coerced by a group or individual to help meet their political objectives
• Cyberextortion – when a website, email system, or computer systems are denied service or other types of attacks from malicious hackers who often demand money in order to restore the data taken or to “protect” the system from future attacks. Well-known victims of cyberextortion have been Sony Pictures, Disney, and Nokia.
• Cyberharassment – using technology to harass, control, manipulate, or threaten individuals or groups. This can include cyberstalking, online predators, cyberbullying, and Internet trolling.
The term white collar crime was coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 in his speech to the American Sociological Association annual meeting, the transcript of which was published in 1940, who described it “approximately as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation” (p. 5). His work discussed how this is found in every industry, especially through fraud, bribery, embezzlement, and falsification, or as Al Capone called it “legitimate rackets” (Sutherland, 1940, p. 3). According to the FBI, “[t]hese crimes are characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust and are not dependent on the application or threat of physical force or violence. The motivation behind these crimes is financial.”
Many of the same types of crimes discussed in Sutherland’s seminal work are still around today, but there are newer types of white collar crimes, such as environmental crimes, healthcare crimes, and intellectual property theft, that have emerged as new industries and laws have emerged. Based on the last Commerce Department estimates, in 2015, the United States lost around $895 trillion to fraud (WSRP, 2016). Yet many frauds are not reported or even detected, indicating this underestimates the amount of damage that fraud has caused.
This section discussed the definitions of crimes and the frequency and effects that crimes have on victims and society. We discussed the importance of using a crime rate formula when looking at crime statistics. Contrary to popular media narratives, the crime rate in the United States overall is low, similar to rates in the 1960s and 1970s for both violent and property crimes. Over the years, new types of crimes have emerged as new industries and technologies have become available. We get our information, including crime rates and number of crimes in the United States, from official sources such as the Uniform Crime Reports.