Information Technology and Criminal Investigations: Does IT Matter?

1 online resource (245 pages) : PDF

2009

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

As an important police activity, criminal investigation heavily relies on recovery, analysis and interpretation of information. Since information technologies facilitate creation, storage, retrieval, process and dissemination of information, police departments have extensively employed them in investigative activities. However, information technologies' impact on the outcome of criminal investigations is still unclear. This study examines whether use of information technologies makes an impact on the outcome of criminal investigations. The analysis results revealed that there is not a consistent relationship between police departments' use of information technologies and their clearance rates. In addition to this finding, this study made an important methodological contribution to the literature by showing that unbalanced data may be an important source of concern for observational studies of police departments, and it should be carefully investigated before conducting any inferential analysis.

doctoral dissertations

Political science

Ph.D.

Criminal Investigation
Criminal Justice
Information System
Information Technology

Public Policy

Lord, Vivian

Brame, Robert
Holt, Thomas
Combs, Cynthia

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2009.

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For additional information, see http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/.

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Hekim_uncc_0694D_10046