ACR101: Factors Defining Harmful Behavior and Cybercrime Impact

This report, prepared for an ACR101 Introduction to Crime and Criminology course, delves into various aspects of criminal behavior and its impact on society. It begins by explaining the factors that define harmful behavior, differentiating between criminalized and non-criminalized actions, and exploring biological, social, and environmental influences. The report then identifies the age group most at risk of violent crime, highlighting the relevance of this information for criminology and analyzing crime statistics by gender and age. It further examines two strategies to reduce the prevalence of harm in Australia, focusing on domestic violence and community interventions. Finally, the report discusses the statement that cybercrime is more damaging to Australia than terrorism, providing insights into the nature and impact of cybercrime. The report concludes with a comprehensive list of references, including books and journals related to the topics discussed.

ACR101 INTRODUCING CRIME &
CRIMINOLOGY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Explaining the factors that define harmful behaviour criminalized or not.............................3
2. Identifying age group of high risk of violent crime which is useful for criminology.............4
5. Identifying two strategies that can reduce prevalence of harm in Australia...........................5
9. Discussing the statement that cybercrime is more damaging to Australia than terrorism......6

1. Explaining the factors that define harmful behaviour criminalized or not
Harmful behaviour consists for any action that causes pain to someone. There are several
actions which has potential to occur even if they are conducted without any bad intentions. This
includes various factors that lead to malfeasance such as biological risk factor, negative social
environment, substance abuse and adverse childhood impact (Sinyor, M., 2018). Among these
factors, biological factor is the one which involve chemical makeup within the body. These
factors are not in hand of person and if their mind allows them to behave in harmful context then
this tends to be crime. These components result in depression of a person that leads in reduction
of patience. For example, the person who has lack of patience tends to show more unethical and
harmful behaviour in workplace.
Another element is negative social environment which enable person to commit crime.
This implied that is person is being in high crime neighbourhood then it can increase chances of
committing crime. Thereafter it can be stated that being with bad company stimulate other
person to commit crime of conduct harmful behaviour. Social environment is another factor
which plays important role in influencing harmful behaviour of people. Social cultures, values,
ideologies contribute in personality development of person (Butkovic and et.al., 2019). Thus, it is
very essential to avoid such surroundings that does not match with our values and harm
someone's feeling. It is seen that when person lives in poverty then it changes its thinking for
earning livelihood. As a result of this those who are in greed of having luxurious lifestyle tend to
commit evildoing like murder, kidnap, etc.
Further, substance abuse can also be interlinked with criminal behaviour. Some
intoxicants such as alcohol, cocaine, etc. also negatively impact the self-control and decision-
making process of an individual (Ross and Walker, 2017). This in turn may result person
committing any harmful behaviour as after consumption they are not in their senses. Another
factor is adverse childhood experience which impact negatively on person and may make his
mind to commit law-breaking activities. There is also relationship between mental disorder and
criminal tendency of human. Further, when a person does not have rational behaviour may
commit any transgression. This is particularly because of the reason that they are not in position
to differentiate between ethical and non-ethical activities. Mental disorder is considered as factor
for harmful behaviour as their nature becomes antisocial and violent.

There are several benefits of identifying and evaluating solutions for harmful behaviour.
It is essential for government to analyse the factors that lead in harmful behaviour of a person
(An and Kim, 2018). For managing this harmful behaviour, various strict actions and laws
should be there to punish the guilty so that victims can be protected. It will not only stop people
to behave harmfully but also create healthy social environment. It will also result in improving
country's image so that citizens of another nation can come for staying without any fear.
2. Identifying age group of high risk of violent crime which is useful for criminology
From the evaluation it is identified that age group of 14-19 are at the high risk of violent
evildoing. Further, it is computed that male gender are more enacting crimes than women of
specified age group. There is decrease in criminal records of women than men in Australia and
the mentioned age group contribute 31% in Australia whole crime attainment.
Evaluation of any age group which is spending their life in crimes is useful for the
criminology. This is pertaining to the fact that it helps constitution of the country to form suitable
acts in accordance with crime and prevailing situation. These laws and legislation are created
according to the age and level of crime so it is essential to identify high risk group
(Steffensmeier, Lu and Kumar, 2019). The crimes that men & women may undertake are rape,
abuse, violence, etc. which are legally unethical for a society. The purpose of recognizing these
risk factor and age group is to implement strategies that can stop criminals at initial stage. By
referring to it can be stated that if these crimes are not punished or stopped it can enable
youngsters to be fearless. This in turn will result in increase in making the entire nation's high in
number of criminal record.
The relationship between the age and felony is solid within the stream of criminology.
This crime increases from adolescence and reaches the age of 17 and then begins to move
forward over life course. Therefore, it helps the criminology to reflect that age group plays vital
role in prevalence of total crime happening in the country.
age group men women
15-19 8 4
20-24 6 3

25-34 4 2.5
35-44 2.5 2
45-54 2 1.5
55-64 1 0.5
65+above 0.5 0.2
From the above graph it can be interpreted that the age unit that commit more crimes is
15-19. The graph shows that men are more indulged into criminal act than women. After that 20-
24 is considered as second highest category, 25-34 is next segment above that are found to
commit low misdemeanour. From graphical presentation it is also noticed that men of all age are
high in felonious records. It is also observed from the percentage of crimes as men and women
grow older reduce their interest of criminal behaviour and commit less crime.
Such statistical data aid country's law to produce strategies to deal with criminal
disposition of different age categories (Masucci and Langton, 2017). It helps country to reduce
these tendencies by making different rules and regulations for controlling criminal activities.
5. Identifying two strategies that can reduce prevalence of harm in Australia
A crime in home is difficult to investigate as people tend to hide their family matter in
public space. There are several types of illegal activities that happen in household such as
15-19 20-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+above
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
4
3
2.5
2
1.5
0.5 0.2
men
women
age group
% of crime

violence, child abuse, etc. This results in metal depression, anxiety, lack of confidence, sadness,
etc. Poor health condition can be another outcome that victim may face (Sullivan, 2018). All
these may result in person feeling alone and will not connect with anyone. This mostly occurs in
case of child abuse (Sergi, 2019). In this case family should avoid hiding domestic violence to
live healthy physically and mentally.
There are several strategies that can help to reduce the domestic violence in Australia.
The measures that can be taken to decline prevalence of harm include set up a neighbourhood
watch, patrolling community working with police (Dowling, 2018.). This also includes ensuring
that streets are properly light, creating awareness regarding government laws and legislation.
Government of Australia must emphasize on ensuring that women are educated and doing job.
This is necessary as education will make them financially independent that can reduce rate of
crime and violence.
Other action that can be taken to decline crime inclination in the country is by placing
official people and offices for protections of victims (8 surprising home burglary facts and stats,
2020). This will create fear among condemnable and may stop them to commit any crime.
Various helpline centres are already there to help the women and children. All these helpline
centres enhances the courage of victim to raise their voice against the violence. Legal authorities
should start awareness campaign to make sure that people are alert about the harmful activities.
This is done in order to make them conscious about easy process regarding fighting for their
human rights.
There are different strategies to prevalence home violence and also which can improve a
social environment. The two major strategies that can be condemned to improve the existing
scenario include creating awareness campaigns and taking strict actions against criminals. The
strategy of creating alertness helps the government to identify that which area has most criminal
records (Ferguson, 2019). It also ensures that all counselling helplines are effectively working to
solve the disputes of society. Another scheme is take strict actions and charging penalty from the
criminals to spread fear among society that how their harmful behaviour can negatively impact
themselves as well.

9. Discussing the statement that cybercrime is more damaging to Australia than terrorism
Cybercrime refers to illegal activity that is carried out with help of computer, network,
etc. It is conducted by criminals who want to steal information or money for their personal
agendas. Terrorism refers to awful behaviour against citizen of the country. It is analysed that
cybercrime in Australia is more dangerous than terrorism activity. The common type of
cybercrime involves online fraud, online image abuse, cyber- enabled abuse, identity theft and
many others. This type of crime can occur anywhere in business, personal life, academic life or
any other place (Cyber crime, 2018).
This is pertaining to the fact that it is evaluated that there are wide range of political and
private sector firm that come under cyber-attack by hackers. The current attack was on media
conference in Canberra which is not still identified by the government country that which nation
is responsible for it. Moreover, it is also evaluated that sophisticated cyber base state actor are
targeting range of the sectors of Australia. It is also includes every sector like government,
education, health, political organization, operation of essentials service providers, etc.
Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) is the authorized body to advice government
and other corporation to prevent confidential information. It is also well known by the body that
attackers are attempting to exploit public facing infrastructure by using spear phishing techniques
(Umanailo and et.al., 2019). The government of Australia stated that previously act taken were
not suitable to handle large scale crimes. Cyber evildoing has become constant activity in
Australia which is negatively impacting than terrorism practices. It is assessed from the research
that there are approximately 160 crimes happened every single day. Further, evaluation stated
that 6000 reports for cybercrime has been prepared by ACSC. Ministry of crime takes initiative
to make public aware about the law-breaking that can lead to loss of their monetary and personal
confidential data. Thus, losses of terrorism adversely impact the country to certain extent but
cybercrimes is more harmful for the nation.
The ACSC depicted that online crime has become most pervasive threats which is faced
in current scenario by individuals and organization. It is spreading threat of misuse of
confidential data and is harming & lowering down digital activities among citizens of Australia
which is affecting economic activities (Cordova, 2017). There are terrorism attacks as well in the

nation by enemy countries and it is evaluated that cybercrimes are more dangerous for the
country.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
An, J. and Kim, H. W., 2018. A data analytics approach to the cybercrime underground
economy. Ieee Access. 6. pp.26636-26652.
Butkovic, A. and et.al., 2019. Geographic profiling for serial cybercrime investigation. Digital
Investigation. 28. pp.176-182.
Cordova, J. G. L., 2017. Law versus cybercrime. Global Jurist. 18(1).
Dowling, C.,2018. Protection orders for domestic violence: A systematic review. Trends and
issues in crime and criminal justice. (551). pp.1-19.
Ferguson, I., 2019. Gangland Crimes that Shocked Australia. Brolga Publishing.
Masucci, M. and Langton, L., 2017. Hate crime victimization, 2004-2015. NCJ. 250653.
Ross, A. and Walker, A., 2017. The impact of low‐priority laws on criminal activity: Evidence
from california. Contemporary economic policy. 35(2). pp.239-252.
Sergi, A., 2019. Polycephalous ‘ndrangheta: Crimes, behaviours and organisation of the
Calabrian mafia in Australia. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology. 52(1).
pp.3-22.
Sinyor, M., 2018. The association between suicide deaths and putatively harmful and protective
factors in media reports. CMAJ. 190(30). pp.E900-E907.
Steffensmeier, D., Lu, Y. and Kumar, S., 2019. Age–Crime Relation in India: Similarity or
Divergence vs. Hirschi/Gottfredson Inverted J-Shaped Projection?. The British Journal
of Criminology. 59(1). pp.144-165.
Sullivan, C. M., 2018. Understanding how domestic violence support services promote survivor
well-being: A conceptual model. Journal of family violence. 33(2). pp.123-131.
Umanailo, M. C. B. and et.al., 2019. Cybercrime Case as Impact Development of
Communication Technology That Troubling Society. Int. J. Sci. Technol. Res. 8(9).
pp.1224-1228.
Online
8 surprising home burglary facts and stats. 2020. [Online] Available through:
https://www.safewise.com/blog/8-surprising-home-burglary-statistics/
Cyber crime. 2018. [Online]. Available through: < https://www.afp.gov.au/what-we-do/crime-
types/cyber-crime#:~:text=enforcement%20operating%20environment.-,What%20is
%20Cybercrime%3F,offence%20(such%20as%20online%20fraud >