By Jo Best, 18 May 2004 16:45
NEWS When it comes to cybercrime – or any kind of crime with a computer involved – it seems the British bobby has a long way to go. That's the conclusion from a report by Eurim (the European Information Society Group) and IPPR (the Institute for Public Policy Research) advocating widespread reform of the criminal justice system's education on IT.
The discussion paper, Supplying the skills for justice, says that while computer-assisted crime is fast becoming the norm, the criminal justice system is failing to keep up with its technological knowledge and resources.
One of the main criticisms levelled at the UK police's involvement in cybercrime is that there simply isn't enough to go around. Operation Ore, which investigated internet paedophiles, led to a number of arrests but involved the majority of the available resources – an insufficient number of officers trained in the area that means that investigation of other e-crime faces a delay of six months to a year.
There are 8,000 security professionals in the private sector, compared to 1,000 digital evidence specialists in the 140,000-strong police force.
The other problem dogging the criminal justice system is a lack of clarity over who should know what and to what standard.
"Mass-market training is... missing, the throughput of the high level courses is seriously inadequate and responsibility for action is fragmented," the paper says. "There is little point in enacting new legislation without addressing the current skills crisis."
Top of the list to solve the IT skills crisis is one department to take charge and establish some policies and goals, according to the paper, with Skills for Justice, the criminal justice sector skills council, to take charge of sorting out the frameworks and specifications for training and accreditation, backed up by IT skills council e-skills.
The tricky issue of funding for a more tech-confident force is also addressed, with the Home Office one possible target to take the lead in gathering the appropriate financing from the various government departments and private sector.
It's not just more high-level forensic police that Eurim and IPPR want to see benefiting from an e-crime training drive, recommending: "the Home Office works with and through Skills for Justice and professional institutions to mandate the inclusion of practical ICT security in all publicly funded end-user and technician training."
Comments
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1. anonymous
One of my friends was one of the thousands questioned during Operation Orr and the lack of knowledge displayed by the police was laughable - they did not even know what a newsgroup was and thought the internet was just the World Wide Web!
2. anonymous
The whole police scenario is a joke. If they were to leave motorists alone (an easy touch to make figures look good) and actually learn where real crime was coming from, and train to combat and solve some of these crimes, then maybe the public confidence in our police force would go up a notch or two. As it is, most people I know don't believe plod is doing anywhere near what he is paid to do. As I said ..... a joke!
3. anonymous
I agree the UK police is a joke. However, they should crack down on more motorists. A motorist can kill a person with their car, a burgular usually just steals. Whats more important, a persons life, or a stolen TV?
4. anonymous
I would have said the same a couple of months back!! But until you are the victim of cyber crime you can not say. I have actually been indirectly threatened to be killed. I have 2 young children! They both need weighing up!! I live in one of the worst areas for motorists and accidents in the UK and the police here do not know much about PCs at all!