SaTC: CORE: Small: Collaborative: Understanding Law-Enforcement Cyber Investigations

网络犯罪的执法调查和起诉面临着许多挑战，包括受害者少报、管辖权冲突和限制、资源、培训和专业知识不足以及组织约束。这项研究是对网络犯罪调查人员、他们的部门以及他们在打击网络犯罪时面临的挑战的研究。本研究包括对执法人员及其单位如何开展网络犯罪调查的社会科学研究。这些发现将有助于犯罪学、社会学和其他学科的学术文献，并为从事网络犯罪调查的执法机构提供改进资源、政策和程序的建议。本研究还将有助于社会科学和网络安全专业学生的教育，他们将参与数据收集和数据分析。这项研究对于理解执法部门在逮捕网络罪犯和破坏犯罪网络方面所起的重要作用，以及在提供安全和值得信赖的网络空间方面的有用功能至关重要。为了了解网络犯罪调查人员面临的挑战，研究人员正在使用人种学技术来研究网络犯罪单位和在其中工作的专业人员。该研究考察了(1)创新的网络犯罪单位和那些在其领域处于领先地位的单位；(2)处于转型中的网络犯罪单位或最近才发展出网络犯罪调查能力的网络犯罪单位。这些单位和人员最有可能具有处理此类调查中涉及的危险和陷阱的经验。在这些单元中，研究人员将采用深入的定性访谈，探讨这些调查人员面临的挑战，他们与其他公共和私人网络犯罪/信息安全组织的关系，职业认同感，网络犯罪调查人员与其他警察人员和组织之间的关系，以及对网络犯罪和罪犯的看法。研究人员还与其他刑事司法单位和机构合作，更多地了解案件处理政策和程序。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Numerous challenges confront law enforcement investigations and prosecutions of cybercrime offenses, including under-reporting by victims, jurisdictional conflicts and limitations, insufficient resources, training, and expertise, as well as organizational constraints. This research is a study of cybercrime investigators, their departments, and the challenges they face in fighting cybercrime. The research consists of social scientific research on how law enforcement investigators and their units conduct cybercrime investigations. The findings will contribute to the academic literature in criminology, sociology, and other disciplines and inform recommendations for improvements in the resources, policies, and procedures of law enforcement agencies engaged in cybercrime investigations. This research also will contribute to the education of students of social science and cybersecurity, who will be involved in the data collection and analyses of data. The research will be critical to understanding the vital role law enforcement plays in apprehending cybercrime offenders and disrupting criminal networks, useful functions in the provision of a secure and trustworthy cyberspace. To understand the challenges confronting cybercrime investigators, the researchers are using ethnographic techniques to study cybercrime units and specialized personnel who work in them. The study examines (1) innovative cybercrime units and those that are leaders in their field and (2) cybercrime units in transition or those only recently having developed cybercrime investigative capabilities. These are the units and personnel most likely to have experience managing the perils and pitfalls involved in such investigations. Within these units, the researchers will employ in-depth qualitative interviews that will probe challenges such investigators face, their relationships to other public and private cybercrime/information security organizations, sense of occupational identity, relationship between cybercrime investigators to other police personnel and organizations, and perceptions of cybercrime and offenders. The researchers also work with other criminal justice units and agencies to learn more about case processing policies and procedures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.