The Impact of Technology on Criminal Justice Investigations

This report delves into the significant impact of technology on criminal investigations within the US. It defines criminal investigation as the gathering of evidence and explores various technological advancements like data mining, crime mapping, social media analysis, license plate readers, and smartphone tracking. The report discusses how these technologies have aided law enforcement while acknowledging that criminals also leverage technology. It covers the use of crime mapping software, the role of social media in investigations, the applications of data mining, and the functionality of automatic license plate readers (LPRs). The report highlights the benefits of these technologies in solving crimes and the challenges associated with their implementation, particularly concerning privacy and data security. It also discusses the need for law enforcement officers to stay updated with technological advancements to effectively combat crimes. The report includes references to support the discussed points.

Running head: CRIMINAL JUSTICE
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CRIMINAL JUSTICE
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Abstract
There is a significant impact of this technology in the criminal investigation. The term criminal
investigation means to gather, seeks and collect evidence for such case or any other specific
purposes. There are several improvements in technologies, which have helped in the
investigation of law enforcement officials. These are data mining, crime mapping, social media
or network, license plate readers, smartphone tracking and many others. The enhancement of that
technology has helped the criminals or suspects to improve their way of conducting the offence.
However, it has discussed in this paper regarding the significance of technology in a criminal
investigation.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Review of technologies in the criminal investigation..................................................................5
Crime Mapping........................................................................................................................5
Social media or networks.........................................................................................................6
Data mining.............................................................................................................................6
License plate readers................................................................................................................8
Smartphone tracking................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The technology has been used for such an investigation in the criminal activity of an
individual in the territory of the US. There is a significant impact of this technology in a criminal
investigation (Goodison, Davis, & Jackson, 2015). The term criminal investigation means to
gather, seeks and collect evidence or proof for such case or any other specific purposes. Eligible
officers have conducted the investigation of such criminal act, and they have covered several
types of offences such as theft investigation, fraud, kidnapping and crime scene, assault and
many other investigations. The technology has been advancing in such a prompt rate that several
information and techniques of crime must be examined in such current technology and practice
for the investigation of any criminal fact. There are several processes in the hand of the officers
of the criminal investigation to investigate any offence such as tracking of the smartphones of
suspects, tracking biometrics in the smartphones as identification of the suspects, data mapping,
alerting high-security check-ups and many others. One of the recently recognized technologies,
which has been created for the help of criminal investigation, is automated license plate readers
of the cars through the scan of the camera. It can be stated that from such analysis of past
scenario of the criminal investigation, there has been a big change occurred in the field of this
due to the improvement of technology (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). The criminals have also
developed their systems for such improvement of technology, that is, the improvement of that
technology has also helped the criminals or suspects to improve their way of conducting offence.
The aim of this paper is to discuss regarding the impact or significance of improvement of
technology in the field of such criminal investigation.

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Discussion
The improvement of technology has helped to improve the way of investigation in any
criminal activity of the criminals. It has conducted a lot of changes in the field of this criminal
investigation in the department of crime in the US (Birzer, & Roberson, 2018). The technology
has given a quick way to resolve the issues of crimes, which helps the officers to go into another
case for resolving that. It can be stated that as the percentages of crime have been increasing
rapidly; therefore, it is a responsibility of the investigating officers to update themselves
following the technology (Becker, & Dutelle, 2018). As an example, after widespread of mobile
phones, especially the smartphones, several crimes have been occurred due to such improvement
of the technologies; therefore, the officers of the criminal investigation should be updated
themselves in accordance with the development of technologies. Otherwise, they will not be able
to get success in that investigation. DNA profiling of the suspects is one of the useful forensic
technique in such criminal investigation by the matching with the evidenced DNA profile to
assess the involvement in the happening of crime (Toom et al., 2016). Tracking of smartphones,
auto-scanning camera for number plates of cars, biometrics in smartphones, data mapping are
several uses of technology in such systems of a criminal investigation. This technology has also
used for committing such more sophisticated offences, the law enforcement officers are also
increasing the use of technologies, as well as tools to combat with such crimes. The Department
of Justice in the US has listed various crime information systems, which can be availed by both
the community of criminal justice, as well as the agencies of no-criminal justice; such as Law
Enforcement Enterprise Portal, National Crime Information Center, Next Generation
Information and International Justice and Public Safety network and many others (Hollywood,

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& Winkelman, 2015). The impact of technologies in criminal investigation are discussed in this
paper.
Review of technologies in the criminal investigation
Crime Mapping
The crime mapping software is one of the essential software and invention of technology,
which has been used by law enforcement officers at the time of the criminal investigation
(Weisburd, & McEwen, 2015). As most of the crime information have a particular location,
every data or information can be able to add in a map, which has also included citation issuance,
locations of such accidents, registered offenders, arrests, suspects and crime locations. Through
mapping various data of crime, as well as identifying such three-dimensional patterns, the
resources of law enforcement can be able to more effectively deployed for the analysis of crime
and also the prevention of crime (Santos, 2016). As an example, the law enforcement officers in
the criminal investigation can be prioritized several locations for their enforcement of
investigations, such as prostitution or drug stings on the basis of such way where such offences
are maximum widespread. This mapping of crimes has made the possibility of tracking every
effectiveness of the programs of law implementation. In any event of emergency or disasters, the
investigating officers may use the mapping for identifying the routes of evacuation, best
locations for the shelters at the time of emergency and the alternative routes (Boccardo, &
Tonolo, 2015). Through such interactive maps, the investigation officers get various information
for the criminal activity of any person, and it is one of the essential significance of the
technologies in the criminal investigation.

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Social media or networks
The use of social media or networks has been increasing in the use of the legal system,
especially in the criminal investigation. The people have posted their various activities and
information on such social network, such as Facebook, Instagram, Orkut, which has been
reviewed by the law enforcement officers or police officials to prosecute the user of those sites
(Boux, & Daum, 2015). The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has
granted to the states for training their law enforcement officials regarding the usage of such
social media network for identifying the events, which may be resulted in the consumptions by
the minors. There is a disciplinary action against a student on the basis of such information,
which has made available in the social network sites, which has spurred a debate over the ethics
and legality of the administration of the school. The investigation officers have gotten a number
of information, even the movement of the accused person from the post of various information of
the accused himself. However, social media may be misled the investigation officers by the
accused or suspect of crime through posting wrong information. In a survey conducted on the
investigation officials by the LexisNexis, it has come out that the police officers have used social
media to investigate any criminal activity of the suspect in their policing activities (Jones, 2017).
Data mining
The mainstream of such crime-solving procedure, as well as the criminal investigation
process and the forensic tests, are not so easy in physically. The criminal investigation is a
scrupulous progression of testing the fact, study and analysis, and it can be done with the help of
data collection in the laboratory, in the field, and form such online sources (Isafiade, & Bagula,
2016). Mining such information, as well as formulating that for further procedure of analyzing to
allow the criminal investigators for finding the connections and patterns within the purview of

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data sets. Utilization of data is characteristically vital for such criminal investigations, especially
in the forensic department where all evidence studied and treated (Hassani et al., 2016). Data
mining is one of the discoveries of technology, which has helped the law enforcement officers
during such criminal investigation, especially at the time of forensic activity. The technology of
Data mining has been designed for addressing the needs relating to handle a big quantity of data
from diverse sources. The department of criminal investigation has been allowed to analyze data
for investigating any matter relating to crime. Other types of exterior data such as weather or
traffic information can be merged with such crime data, and also be considered for the
identification of composite relationship among several variables (Kumar, & Gopal, 2015).
However, data mining has been also deliberated in such tandem by means of an extrapolative
policing, an approach on the basis of a sensibleness that anticipation of crimes in future for the
response or preclusion using those data and investigate it with the help of multiplicity of
databases. The officials have been strategically organized a data analysis, as a consequence, the
department has been observed the decrease of almost 47% in such random firing of guns, and
almost 246% of in increasing in the armament seized at the time of the criminal investigation
(Molaei, & Keyvanpour, 2015). However, it can be said that the data mining technology can be
used by the criminals through hacking such data in their computers and has been used in their
criminal activities. The prospective of the software of data mining for recognition such essential
reasons of arrangements and trends of crime, which can be assigned for the police as an approach
of crime prevention and has been noticed as dependable on the basic principles of prognostic
policing (Cohen, & Graver, 2017).

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License plate readers
The automatic license plate readers (LPRs) are the excessive speed cameras, which has
paired with a new type of software, where thousands of license plate of cars can be read in a
minute, and also recorded the time, location, data in each scan (Willis, Koper, & Lum, 2018).
These LPRs can be stationary, as well as mobile. The information, which has been obtained and
associated with the prevailing hotlists regarding any crime of such plate that has accumulated
relevant matches and agencies then, it can send alerts to the officials who are active on patrol or
duty. In recent years, the technology has concerned in a controversy as the law enforcement
officials can retain the information of the license plate, which has been accumulated from the
LPRs. This information can emerge into the systems of provincial information distribution (Lum
et al., 2019). However, the Union of Civil Liberties of America has argued regarding the rights
of the citizen to privacy and the necessity for a strict regulation for this technology on LPRs. In
the territory of the US, some of the states have stepped for limiting the usage of License Plate
Readers on such basis of privacy of the public (Hermann, 2015). As an example, in the year
2015, the Governor of Louisiana vetoed legislation, which may have permitted law enforcement
for using LPRs to detain the drivers of the uninsured cars. In research of significant of LPRs in a
criminal investigation, it has exposed that almost 23% of organizations have been reported that
they have used LRRs, 28% agencies have used in traffic and vehicle enforcement (Fash, 2018).
However, there are a few systematic attempts for unveiling the experiments of implementation of
LPRs. In a research of the researchers of the University of George Mason have suggested that
such usages of this technology in the hot spots area had not possessed a risen outcome for
reduction of auto thefts. The challenges in this technology can arise when a duplicate license or
false plate number of cars are registered in states in the territory of the US (Merola et al., 2015).

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In some research, it has appeared that lack of technological knowledge, technical difficulties, or
insufficient information regarding the best application of such LPRs can be the obstructions of
efficient use. Therefore, it can be stated that the improvement of technology in license Plate
Readers has a significant impact on the criminal investigation, but it is concerned that it may able
to interrupt the privacy of the public.
Smartphone tracking
For detecting the exact location of the suspects or the abandoned criminal, the law
enforcement officials can use the technology of smartphone tracking. Nowadays, few persons do
not use the smartphone (Jaeckel, 2016). All smartphones have consisted a device named, Global
Positioning System (GPS), by which the investigation officers can able to detect or track the
location of the suspect, as well as the location of any victim. There are several ways for
determining the exact position of any person; these techniques are WALN, GPS or GSM for
locating (Berman, Glisson, & Glisson, 2015). The American Civil Liberties Union has released a
fresh report regarding the use of smartphone tracking in the criminal investigation. It has
revealed that the investigating officials of crimes or the agencies who are involved in the
investigation of crime habitually use the smartphone tracking data in the procedure of crime
investigation, which has been providing by the wireless carriers (Hermann, 2015). They can use
this smartphone tracking system even without the warrant of such criminals or suspects.
According to that report of the Union, the Supreme Court of the US has not decided regarding
the usages of cell phone tracking or GPS tracking in the criminal investigation, yet the police
officials are positively having it every phase. The elementary test of the activity of such
technology, which has been violating the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, will be
unreasonable. In the case of United States vs. Jones 2012, the US Supreme Court has held that

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installation of GPS tracking device in the car of any suspect, which use to help for monitoring
the movement of that vehicle has constituted a search under the Constitution of the US in its
Fourth Amendment. The GPS in the car, as well as smartphone tracking of the suspects or
victim, has changed the criminal investigation dramatically. The officers of a criminal
investigation can have direct access to the location of the suspects or victims through such GPS
tracking of their smartphones. The investigating officers can know every movement of the victim
or criminal by using such tracking of the smartphone (Cole, 2016). The investigation of such
criminal activities should be done before conducting the trial. In this trial, if the suspect of such
criminal investigation is not proved as accused then he will be declared as innocent, but if he is
proved as guilty then the further proceeding will be conducted. Therefore, this smartphone
tracking technology has made a dramatical conversion and accessible in the work of criminal
investigation.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded in this discussion of the impact of technologies in the
criminal investigation that this technology has brought a change in the system of a criminal
investigation. The technology has been evolving in such a quick rate that several techniques and
information of crime must be examined in such current technology and practice for the
investigation of any criminal fact. Through mapping various data of crime, as well as
recognizing such three-dimensional shapes, the resources of law enforcement can be able to
more effectively deployed for the analysis of crime and also the prevention of crime. The people
have displayed their various activities and information on such social network, such as
Facebook, Instagram, which has been reviewed by the law enforcement officers or police

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officials to impeach the user of those sites. The criminals may use their posts for doing any
criminal activity. Data mining is one of the innovations of technology, which has helped the law
enforcement officers during such criminal investigation, especially at the time of forensic
activity. The technology of Data mining has been designed for addressing the needs relating to
handle a big quantity of data from diverse sources. The department of criminal investigation has
been allowed to analyze data for investigating any matter relating to crime. The LPRs are the
excessive speed cameras, where thousands of license plate of cars can be read in a minute, and
also recorded the time, location, data in each scan. Smartphone tracking is also one of the great
inventions of technologies, which has helped the officials of a criminal investigation.