Technological Innovations in Crime

Running head: TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN CRIME
Technological Innovations in Crime
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN CRIME
Question 1: Key characteristics of ‘soft technologies’ and ‘hard technologies'
Soft technologies are such kind of technological innovations that involve the use of
strategic systems for gathering information for the purpose of preventing crime. In the recent
years, a wide range of innovations in the field of soft technology have developed. The soft
technologies are defined as such kind of technologies that are mainly operated by software
systems that are used by computers.
Some of the key characteristics of soft technologies are:
1. The soft technologies help in improving the performance of police to gather data with
the help of software systems (Tang et al. 2014). These technologies include new kind of software
programs, crime analysis techniques, data sharing techniques of system integration and
classification techniques.
2. Some of the latest innovations such as the rise of threat assessment protocols, software
programs, tools for identification of bullying incidents, data privacy tools and many other have
been developed with the rise of innovation in soft technologies.
3. Soft technologies, which include data analysis techniques, crime mapping software and
many others are capable of preventing serial offenders and development of strategies of crime
prevention.
4. Some other soft technologies, which are used to prevent incidents of crime are in-car
video recording capability, wireless mode of video streaming, license plate readers and many
others.

2TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN CRIME
On the other hand, hard technologies include devices, new materials and other
equipment, which can be used for either committing a crime or preventing them. With the rise of
several crime incidents, there has also been a rise in the growth of hard technologies to prevent
several incidents of crime (Carroll 2014). These include baggage screening systems present in
airports, metal detector in schools and bullet proof windows at banks.
Some key characteristics of hard technologies are:
1. Some hard technological innovations such as improved street lighting and growth of
CCTVs have shown tremendous growth in the recent years (Kennedy and Wilken 2016). These
devices have revolutionized the security aspects in various areas.
2. Different crime prevention organizations imply the use of hard technologies to secure
their systems from various incidents of crime and situations of fraud. Some additional factors
that are included is the amount of harm, which is prevented on victims who are harassed or
harmed repeatedly.
As discussed by Bryne and Max (2011), one example of ‘hard’ technology of
surveillance is CCTV cameras that are installed in homes and offices. One example of ‘soft’
technology of surveillance is Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS).
Among these examples, the AFIS would be related to a strategy of pre-emptive policing
based on crime control. The software technology installed within AFIS is a new kind of
innovation within police technology. With the impact of this kind of technological systems, there
has been a control in the number of incidents of crimes (Girelli 2015). Different recent reviews
based on technological innovations and adoption of such strategies by police agencies have
highlighted that with the impact of such kind of software systems, they have been able to curb