Thomas J. Holt, Shelly Clevenger and Jordana Navarro
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which line officers in police agencies can identify digital evidence at crime scenes, also known as the binary artifacts…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which line officers in police agencies can identify digital evidence at crime scenes, also known as the binary artifacts stored on computers, mobile devices, tablets and the internet, through an analysis of survey responses of line staff in a Midwestern state police agency.
Design/methodology/approach
An electronic survey was completed by 258 respondents using a scenario-based vignette asking them to identify where such evidence may be located during a fictitious call for service.
Findings
Most all respondents identified appropriate devices and locations where digital evidence may be stored on suspects and victims in a scenario call for service. There were significant differences in responses on the basis of recent field experience with digital evidence.
Research limitations/implications
The findings demonstrate the importance of experiential learning and training for line staff in police agencies to prepare them for basic digital evidence handling in the field. This sample is, however, based on a single state police agency and may not be reflective of other similarly sized agencies. Future research is needed to replicate this study and expand the generalizability of these findings.
Originality/value
First responders should be able to identify and secure all appropriate forms of evidence at crime scenes, regardless of crime type, while awaiting specialized investigators. This study is one of the first to consider when and how police are able to recognize digital evidence at crime scenes.
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George Burruss, Christian Jordan Howell, Adam Bossler and Thomas J. Holt
Cybercrime is the greatest threat facing law enforcement agencies in England and Wales. Although these crimes are transnational by nature, the burden of response has been placed…
Abstract
Purpose
Cybercrime is the greatest threat facing law enforcement agencies in England and Wales. Although these crimes are transnational by nature, the burden of response has been placed on line officers. Not all officers, however, believe they are capable of responding to calls involving cybercrime. The current study, using latent class analysis (LCA) on a large sample of English and Welsh officers, finds two types of officers: those prepared (39 percent) and those unprepared (61 percent). Using logistic regression to predict who falls into either classification, the authors find that training and age are the best predictors of latent membership. Implications for policy and future research are discussed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors used LCA to determine the number and character of unobserved categories of officers in how they deal with cybercrime.
Findings
The LCA indicated there are two distinct categories of police in the English and Welsh constabulary: those prepared (39 percent) and those unprepared (61 percent). Training and age were the two key determinants of this classification.
Research limitations/implications
LCA is an exploratory analysis technique that requires additional validation to confirm the findings of any one study.
Practical implications
The salience of training in helping officers feel prepared to deal with cybercrime cases as well as victims was demonstrated. A full 60 percent of the officers in this study fell in the “unprepared” category, which continues to highlight the limitations of local police to handle cybercrime cases; nevertheless, almost 40 percent of officer could be considered ready when responding to cybercrimes.
Social implications
As the harm cybercrime brings to our financial and social well-being, law enforcement agencies will be required to improve their response capabilities. Most current cybercrime responses address technical issues related to online fraud and abuse, but officers often perceive the problem as outside their legal and geographic jurisdiction. Knowing how officers perceive cybercrime as well as their own capabilities will allow us to begin changing enforcement policies, training capacity and individual response efficacy.
Originality/value
This study involved a sample of English and Welsh constables and sergeants to classify their cybercrime readiness. The analysis and particular data are unique to the study of cybercrime.
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Yohannan Abraham, Thomas Holt and Yunus Kathawala
The Japanese practice of Kanban (Just‐in‐time — JIT), has won a lot of converts in recent times in the US and elsewhere. Literature is rife with success stories, though mostly…
Abstract
The Japanese practice of Kanban (Just‐in‐time — JIT), has won a lot of converts in recent times in the US and elsewhere. Literature is rife with success stories, though mostly from the users' side. The strategic implications of this emerging management philosophy on the large number of suppliers on whom depends the very survival of hundreds of JIT buyers are examined.
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Yohannan T. Abraham, Thomas Holt and Yunus Kathawala
The Japanese practice of Kanban (Just‐in‐time – JIT),has won a lot of converts in recent times in the US and elsewhere.Literature is rife with success stories, though, mostly from…
Abstract
The Japanese practice of Kanban (Just‐in‐time – JIT), has won a lot of converts in recent times in the US and elsewhere. Literature is rife with success stories, though, mostly from the users′ side. The strategic implications of this emerging management philosophy on the large number of suppliers on whom depends the very survival of hundreds of JIT buyers are examined.
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Gender distinctions were central to the ideological and discursive construction of ‘freedom’ in colonial plantation societies, but so too were ethnicity and national identity…
Abstract
Gender distinctions were central to the ideological and discursive construction of ‘freedom’ in colonial plantation societies, but so too were ethnicity and national identity. This article examines the contested nature of masculinity in the making of free citizens in post-emancipation Jamaica through an analysis of government and missionary sources, popular petitions, public speeches, and newspapers from 1834 to 1865. Close readings of the tensions within these public texts and their official reception demonstrate how freed men worked within and against the dominant discourses of Christian liberalism and masculine individualism as the bases for national citizenship. The key argument is that in laying claim to a Christian and British identity, African-Jamaican men constituted their freedom not so much through a seclusion of women in a private domestic role, but more importantly through an exclusion of indentured East Indians who were negatively defined as ‘foreign’ heathens.
Adam M. Bossler and Thomas J. Holt
Little empirical research exists regarding how local law enforcement has responded to cybercrime. This paper aims to understand: the law enforcement agencies that line officers…
Abstract
Purpose
Little empirical research exists regarding how local law enforcement has responded to cybercrime. This paper aims to understand: the law enforcement agencies that line officers believe should be primarily responsible for investigating cybercrime cases; their perceptions about their agency's current ability to respond to these offenses; and their beliefs regarding the best ways to improve the social response to cybercrime.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors surveyed patrol officers in the Charlotte‐Mecklenburg and Savannah‐Chatham Metropolitan police departments.
Findings
The authors found that officers do not believe that local law enforcement should be primarily responsible for handling cybercrime cases and they have little information on how upper management is addressing cybercrime. Officers indicated that the best strategies to deal with cybercrime were greater care taken by citizens online and improvements to the legal system.
Research limitations/implications
Local law enforcement agencies feel they are unable to fully address cybercrime. Although the findings were generally consistent across demographic and experiential characteristics and cities, two cities in the southeastern United States were surveyed.
Practical implications
According to these officers, they want citizens to be more careful online and for clarification of cybercrime laws and increased prosecutions. They do not favor local cybercrime units and additional computer training for line officers as much as scholars and police administrators advocate.
Originality/value
This paper studied the perceptions of patrol officers, who are the first responders to most crime scenes, on local law enforcement responses to cybercrime and the strategies they view to be most effective in combating cybercrime.
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Nicholas Chileshe and Theodore C. Haupt
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceived age differences in job satisfaction of construction workers in South Africa, and how these differences affect job overall…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceived age differences in job satisfaction of construction workers in South Africa, and how these differences affect job overall satisfaction of young and old workers on construction sites in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical study involved construction workers at operational levels comprising younger (age<40 years) and older (age>40 years) in the Western Cape province. A total of 300 questionnaires were sent to potential respondents chosen from construction workers within the Western Cape province. A total of 65 useable questionnaires were returned giving a response rate of 22 per cent.
Findings
Results of this paper indicate that job satisfaction differential does not exist between younger and older construction workers in South Africa. Overall the findings suggest that although both younger and older workers rank the relationship with workmates as being poor, age does not have an influence on the effects of the aspects of work, however, the differences are significant for one of the job satisfaction effects with younger workers reporting higher scores on “indifference”, whereas the younger workers rank poor recognition of abilities as the most effect in comparison to the older workers who reported suffering from a “lack of alertness” as the most ranked effect.
Research limitations/implications
The relatively small sample means that the findings presented are not generalisable to the wider population of workers in the South African construction industry.
Practical implications
The paper offers practical suggestions to the construction industry and management in general on how to minimise the negative job effects arising from lack of job satisfaction. Contributes to the theory building efforts in the discipline of organisation behaviour.
Originality/value
The paper examines job satisfaction related issues in a developing economy and under‐researched area. The Herzberg's two factor theory of motivation which has hitherto been based on white‐collar and its applicability to blue‐collar workers such as construction bricklayers, general workers and site based personnel remains to be tested, more so with the African context.
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Natural Fats.—It is important to bear in mind that there is an acute shortage of fats throughout the world. Most of the great sources of tropical fats, palm oil, copra and ground…
Abstract
Natural Fats.—It is important to bear in mind that there is an acute shortage of fats throughout the world. Most of the great sources of tropical fats, palm oil, copra and ground nut oil, are still producing much smaller quantities than before the war, partly because a lack of consumer goods makes the natives disinclined to collect raw material, partly because it takes a long time to rebuild a complicated industry and trade that was wrecked in many areas to a large extent by the upheaval of the war. Other sources of raw fats that were available to us before the war have dried up entirely, so far as we are concerned. India no longer exports edible oils. But, even if these sources of fat were as productive now as they were before the war there would still be a big world shortage, so great has become the demand for fats. As I see the problem, the only real solution, although it necessitates taking a very long‐range view, is rapidly to push ahead with the development of ambitious undertakings in the tropical belt of the world, similar in character to the ground‐nut scheme that our Government has had the courage and initiative to launch. The potential productivity of the vast tropical belt is prodigious, if the enormous tasks of dealing with disease, infestation, sanitation, fertilisation and land conservation can be successfully tackled, as I am confident the pioneer experimental attack in East Africa will demonstrate. Such developments will provide not only the fat so greatly needed for human use but enormous quantities of animal feeding stuffs with which to increase the production of bacon, meat, poultry, milk, butter and cheese. But, as I have remarked, this is a long‐range view. It will be asked whether there is any alternative likely to bring about an increase in. the supply of fats during the next two or three years. There is a possibility that there may be a steady, if slow, improvement. The supply of tropical fats will, I think, tend to get a little better as conditions in the producing areas gradually return to what they were before the war, and there is also the hope, perhaps a rather slender one, that food for livestock will not be as restricted in the next year or two as it has been. Production of whale oil is also on the up‐grade. So much, then, for the supply of ordinary natural fats, but, as we should consider every possible approach to the problem, passing reference should be made to other potential sources of supplies. There are two directions in which much exploration has been undertaken. In both the Germans were the pioneers.