Essay Example on Situational Crime Prevention Theory: Adapting to Combat Crime

Introduction

For this first essay, the theory chosen is the situational and crime prevention Theory. The theory focusses on how adaptations can be used in certain situations to help in preventing crime. The Situational Crime Prevention Theory is a complex process that involves the analysis of nature and context in which particular crimes occur, then developing methods that can be used to prevent such atrocities from happening. In such contexts, the authorities involved look at the crimes committed by people, where such crimes get committed, and the things that can be done in such situations to prevent the crime from getting committed. The theory of situational crime prevention is useful to the contemporary issue of information systems security in several ways, as discussed below.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The business environment in the current globalized world is highly competitive. With the increased use of technology, information has risen to become one of the most valuable assets that any business can possess (Beebe & Rao, 2015). The growth of the use of computers in various businesses has made it easy for information storage, which has, in turn, lead to the leveraging of the value of information. However, one major concern about this information stored in the computer is that it is vulnerable to alteration, theft, and even misuse by those who can access it, whether legally or illegally, through hacking (Beebe & Rao, 2015). It is the role and responsibility of organizations to guard their information against unethical or illegal activities, which in most cases, is done through digital and electronic means.

Any form of electronic crime perpetrated to organizational or private information, whether done by an insider or an outsider, is a significant threat to the information stored in computers. There has been an increase in the average financial loss that organizations make for every incident of electronic crime and theft of proprietary information. Apart from computer viruses, theft of proprietary information, and unauthorized access to information stored in computers has been the second largest cause of losses associated with security incidences and computer crime. According to Beebe and Rao (2015), it is clear that every incident of computer crime target information that is valued at $300K, which is a key indicator that there is a need to have a clear understanding of the effectiveness of information systems security. With such understanding, it would be a major stepping stone in ensuring the conceptualization and design of hybrid strategies to protect organizational information sources.

Applicability of Situational Crime Prevention Theory to the Digital Realm

There are sixteen techniques to reduce opportunities for crime in the situational crime prevention theory by Clarke. The sixteen techniques have further been classified into four categories, directly impacting the process of decision-making by the criminals (Beebe & Rao, 2015). In the first category, four techniques aim to increase the cost element, which is the perceived level of effort employed by criminals in committing a criminal offense. The second category has four techniques, also under the cost element, and which are designed to increase the perceived risk of a victim getting caught (Beebe & Rao, 2015). In the third category, there is another set of four techniques aimed at reducing the criminals’ anticipated rewards, and this is the benefit element. The last category also has four techniques aimed at the removal of excuse for committing the crime, from the would-be criminal – that is justification and rationalization (Beebe & Rao, 2015).

There are examples of measures that can be implemented in the physical realm concerning the prevention of computer crime and corresponding to each of the techniques stated above. There is an analogous list of measures derived from testing the theory’s extensibility to the digital environment. According to the list, it is suggested that there are high chances of preventing electronic crime when situational crime prevention theory is applied (Beebe & Rao, 2015). However, the list is not that exhaustive, and some of the provided examples in it could get applied in more than one category. For example, encryption can both be a target hardening mechanism and a benefit denying mechanism. However, the aim of the list is only to act as a show that the situational crime prevention theory can be used in the digital crime study.

To some degree, there is often an overlap between crime reduction and IS security effective within the model of situational crime reduction theory in the digital realm. The ultimate dependent variable in the theory model is reducing the intention to commit crime or crime reduction. The primary argument of the model is that information systems security effectiveness is a function of the would-be criminal perceived benefits. The protectors and resource owners can influence the perceived net benefits through distinct managerial and environmental changes (Beebe & Rao, 2015).

According to the theory, three critical objectives should be attained to increase the effectiveness concerning crime reduction. They include decreasing the anticipated reward to the criminals, increasing the perceived cost, and removing the rationalizations and excuses by the would-be criminals (Beebe & Rao, 2015). However, in this theory, there is an emphasis on ensuring that there is a balance between the increased perceived costs and the reduced perceived benefits since an imbalance will either be negative or positive. When there is a positive imbalance, it suggests that benefits have exceeded costs. According to the rational choice theory, in such circumstances, it implies that there will be no deterrence to crime. There is a negative imbalance, which implies that the action will deter crime (Beebe & Rao, 2015). However, when the perceived costs increase beyond the amount required to counter the anticipated balance, it becomes a poor strategy and resource use.

Contribution to the Information Systems Domain

Some gaps have been left by previous explanations of information systems’ security effectiveness. By extending the situational crime prevention theory to the IS domain, most of these gaps can be filled. Generalizability is one of the gaps that need to be filled. The situational crime prevention theory is the ideal model that can be used to bridge such gaps as it both looks at the internal hacker (the insider) and the external hacker (Beebe & Rao, 2015). In line with the Denning’s taxonomy of hacker motivation, it is also generalizable to those motivated either by the national security interests or by criminal interests.

Besides, the model also acts as a solution to most of the problems that previously proposed theories have failed to solve. The extension of the general deterrence theory by Straub only focused on affecting the rational choice through punishment as a deterrent to criminal actions (Beebe & Rao, 2015). However, according to a previous empirical finding in the criminal justice domain, it has been established that the use of punishment as a means of deterrence is not effective as it does not increase the perceived cost from criminals. Therefore, there has been a need to explore other deterrents. It is this circumstance that the model used in the situational crime prevention theory looks appealing, where the deterrent used includes the perceived efforts required, decreased anticipated rewards, and increased perceived risk of getting caught (Beebe & Rao, 2015).

Another gap has been left by the hacker motivation taxonomies, which makes professionals in the information systems wonder what they can do to affect such motivations (Beebe & Rao, 2015). The situational crime prevention theory aims to create an influence on offender motivation through detached managerial and environmental changes. As a result, it becomes easier for IS professionals to use the model to reduce the incidences of electronic crime that targets organizational information assets (Beebe & Rao, 2015). The model used by this theory can also be applied and tested empirically at different levels, such as firm-level, industry level, corporate level, and global level. A firm can evaluate losses incurred due to electronic crimes, and the attempts before and after the implementation of various benefit decreasing strategies and cost increasing strategies, while at the same time conducting a careful evaluation of the balance existing between the two (Beebe & Rao, 2015). It is possible to conduct similar evaluations at other levels, such as industry level, organization level, or global level. Besides, it is possible to use longitudinal designs in studies conducted at global and corporate levels in measuring the aggregate individual perception of net benefit, those correlating such perceptions to changes in the overall electronic crime rates over time (Finn & Stalans, 2016).

Decreasing Criminal Perception of Anticipated Benefits

There is a pertinent question that arises from this point. If there is a failure in the part of the IS domain to decrease the perceived rewards against increased anticipated costs, leading to the failure to decrease perceived net benefits of electronic crime, what then needs to be done to lower the would-be criminal perception of anticipated benefits? (Beebe & Rao, 2015). The framework offers an initial framework where such strategies that decrease benefits are developed. The three basic categories here include assumption, deception, and experience.

Under the deception category, the criminal’s perception of the anticipated rewards is affected artificially, such that there is no change in the anticipated rewards. Still, there is the deception of the criminal to think that such change exists. The implementation of the strategy can be deceptive claims on the implementation of security strategy on notice banners, news releases, or corporate websites (Beebe & Rao, 2015). However, there are some limits to such activities given the ethical implication of the misleading element in it to the customers and clients. There are other deception techniques, which may include the use of decoy systems and embedding false data within legitimate data. Only legitimate users are given a chance to distinguish between the actual data and false data (Finn & Stalans, 2016).

Under the assumption category, the criminal assumes that there is an improvement in security measures through various strategies, but do not have the evidence, or is not sure if there is any improvement in a particular instance (Beebe & Rao, 2015). Their supposition depends on guessing made by them considering outside information, such as profound changes in the business and security affirmations. The objective association acquires accepted degrees of security known to be commonplace among counterparts. The association might be common—this does not apply to the criminal’s discernment (Beebe & Rao, 2015). Encouraging such suspicions can be accomplished through news discharges concerning industry-wide security rules, corporate security confirmations, the turn of events and wide-spread reception of remuneration decreasing advances by industry driving security sellers, and general improvement after some time in selection levels of remuneration lessening security techniques (Raymen, 2016). All of these will probably impact an eventual criminal to expect their objective to utilize certain security procedures that diminish foreseen benefits.