Comp Crim Second Half

juries and judges to understand the aspects and elements of computer crime. Whatever the reasons may be, when all tolled the number of actual prosecutions of computer crimes remains low, "There was one indictment under the 1984 Computer Abuse Act. To date [1992], there have been few indictments issued under the 1986 federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The number of prosecutions either under federal or state computer crime statutes is low; from 1978 to 1986, fewer than 200 state or federal prosecutions were initiated" (Castillo et al., 1992, 225). Of course, as more computer crime cases are successfully prosecuted and as computer crime levels continue to increase, more prosecutors are willing to issue an indictment against computer criminals.

One of the biggest challenges with computer crime statutes is the rapidly changing nature of technology, and, thus, computer crime itself. Many states tried to adopt general criminal codes already in use at the beginning of the computer era but found that they were typically unsuccessful in terms of the technology involved. As the computer era evolved, states began making specific statutes aimed solely at computer crime. There are seven general categories into which state computer crime statutes can be separated:

Expansive Definition of Property. Some states have attacked computer crime under the existing criminal statutory framework by expanding the notion of property to include emerging and computer technologies.

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officials to help solve the issue. For example, groups like the Florida Association of Computer Crime Investigators and the High Tech Crime Investigators Association, as well as a proliferation of computer crime units and agencies worldwide shows the growing importance law enforcement officials give to computer crime. Nonetheless, the responsibilities of computer crime unit investigators are still hampered by a lack of training, education and equipment, "The weakest link is the lack of education in public law enforcement relating to computer technology crimes. The law enforcement community has dedicated itself to the high priority violent crimes, lumping computer crimes into a low priority status, yet the losses to computer crime could fund an entire community" (Carter, 1996, p. 2). There is a growing responsibility among computer crime units to provide adequate training and equipment to aid law enforcement officials in all aspects of prosecuting computer crime. Further, in the past only 1 in 10 criminals possessed any degree of computer literacy, but that figure is expected to grow to 90 percent by the turn of the century which means those enforcement officials not properly trained or equipped to handle the increasing respo

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