It wasn’t too long ago that school bullies were known to flex their muscles face-to-face and at school. But times have changed. The Internet has become an attractive bullying ground for many teenagers and children. This trend is commonly known as cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is a serious problem that simply cannot be ignored. According to the National Education Association, nearly 160,000 children miss school  each day because they are scared of bullying.

Cyberbullying can create equal, if not worse, problems than missing school. For example, the Washington Examiner recently reported the story of Jeff Johnston, a boy who committed suicide after extended online harassment:

Jeff Johnston defined himself by what he meant to other people. At 15 years of age, after two years of online bullying, he hanged himself using his own book bag strap.

How can we prevent situations like this from repeating themselves? The Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe) has the following suggestions:

1. Trace e-mails or IMs: Forward the cyberbully’s e-mail to abuse@ (the domain name follows the @ sign in the cyberbully’s email address), and request that the cyberbully’s account be terminated. If the harassment is by text message, contact your phone company to trace the sender. If the threats are severe enough, contact your local police for help.
2. Have offensive Web sites removed: If threats or offensive comments about your child are being posted on a Web site, you can contact the hosting company to request the site be taken down. You can find the host of the Web site by going to Whois.net  and typing in the Web site address.
3. Contact your child’s school: Schools can do little to stop cyberbullying since it usually takes place off school grounds. However, some schools may be able to provide counseling or mediation between your child and the bully if they attend the same school.
4. Teach children that their Internet activity is not anonymous: Cyberbullying is fueled to large degree by the myth that what happens on the Internet is completely anonymous. However, it’s critical that we work together to dispel the falsity that the Internet is a place of anonymity. Kids need to understand the broad concept that not only can parents view their Internet behavior, but so can millions of people around the globe—including Internet service providers, law enforcement agencies, and people with software designed for that purpose. Creating safe passwords and user names helps reduce risks, but ultimately all of our Internet use can be traced with software or hardware tools.

For more information and tips on how to handle cyberbullying, click here: http://www.ikeepsafe.org/PRC/FamilyFun/03_myth.php

Samuel Hislop is a regular contributor to the official internet safety blog of the iKeepSafe Coalition.You can learn more about child internet safety and ethics by visiting iKeepSafe.org.

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Identity theft has become a major U.S. crime. Thousands of people are victimized every year by thieves who cost them thousands dollars and ruin their credit scores. The FTC has said that identity theft has exceeded all other forms of fraud. Over nine million people were affected in 2008 and thousands more don’t even know they were hit.

Information

1. Businesses Responsibility: Identity theft is not your boss’s problem, however an employee struggling to get their life in order after being victimized will surely be distracted: wasting company time, using company phones, going to court, coming in late and leaving early to get their identity straightened out. It is estimated that the average victim spends more than 175 hours and up to $20,000 before restoring their identity. Employee training can help prevent this from happening.

2. Fundamentals: Just from a name, address, phone, birth date, Social Security Number (SSN), mother’s maiden name, bank account number, credit card number, driver’s license, plate number or utility bill, a thief can make a few phone calls, do an online search, and become you.

3. Little Defenses: Pick pocketing, shoulder surfing, and dumpster diving are covert ways of obtaining information. Registry clerks, medical filers, property management filers, bankers, utility company employees, or any venue where you are required to give out your SSN for services are the weakest links in your ability to conceal your I.D. Dishonest employees have been known to sell lists of SSNs for money.

4. Going Postal: Postal address forms can be filled out and your mail redirected to a criminal’s P.O. Box. Incoming and outgoing mail have everything a criminal needs. Credit card offers and loan applications have proprietary information that just requires a signature. Stolen mail might never be missed, giving the thief a head start.

5. Phone Fraud: Predators call congratulating you on winning prizes and trips, others say you hit their car in a parking lot or they found something of yours and ask you to confirm your SSN before returning it.

6. Head Start: On average, it takes a person 12 to 16 months to realize they have been victimized. Some thieves will pay off debt for up to a year to get larger increases on loans and credit cards, then cash in when the big loans and limits come in.

Tips

1. What to do: Develop a first-name relationship with the postal staff in your town. If they see something that doesn’t make sense, they may be the first to notify you. Get a locking mailbox. Never put outgoing mail in your mailbox. Go to the post office or use a secure mailbox. Get a shredder and shred everything with a name, account number or an address. Make an effort to pay all bills online and request online billing statements.

2. Pay Attention: Bills for items you never purchased, calls from credit card companies increasing your credit lines, calls from bill collectors looking for payments, mail for people other than yourself in the form of credit card statements or loans. An unusual amount of direct mail from a particular brand or product line can be a tell-tale sign of identity theft. This can represent a large purchase on behalf of the thief that has put you on a direct mail list.

3. Be Discreet: It is not necessary to give out your SSN as much as you think. Only give it out if it is absolutely necessary. Deal only with established vendors with solid backgrounds. Never give out your mother’s maiden name unless absolutely necessary.

4. Credit Check: The catch-22 in checking your credit report is that excessive inquiries into your credit lowers your score, making you less likely to get loans for cars or homes. However, quarterly, semi-annually or annually checking your credit will make you aware of activity regarding your SSN.

5. If Victimized: Contact the fraud departments of all three major credit bureaus so they can flag your SSN. Cancel all credit cards affected by theft. Notify local authorities.

George Feder is a former master jewel thief and former America’s Most Wanted Correspondent. Visit GeorgeFeder.com or follow him on Twitter (@GeorgeFeder) to go inside the criminal mind and get tips on how you can stay safe.

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Although, nationally, crime has dropped in the current recession, countering predictions that crime would rise in a recession, some individual crimes have increased. One of those crimes is burglary and theft from office buildings.

Although many people follow the logic that when the economy goes sour, people without jobs turn to a life of crime, many don’t take into account the fact that if people don’t have jobs, they are home more. Considering that the majority of residential burglaries take place during the day, when the residents are at work, more people at home during the day cuts down on the number of these types of crimes.

However, with an increase of people at home, where does a thief turn for easy pickings? Office buildings.

Offices

Offices, especially if they are part of large, multi-office complexes, are filled with people in nice clothing and delivery men coming and going at all times of the day. If you work in a large, busy office, you’re probably used to seeing strangers walk through your office as if they know where they are going. And you probably don’t think twice about it.

It’s Easy for Criminals to Blend In

Criminals take advantage of this nonchalance to pilfer cubicles filled with laptops, computer screens, purses, and cash. In an unprotected building, it’s fairly easy for a stranger in a suit to walk in, act like they know where they’re going, find an empty cubicle and walk out with a laptop (or two).

Suggestions for Preventing Office Theft

Here are some things you can do to prevent yourself and your coworkers from being victims of a daylight, office theft:

1. Makes sure your office places workers in clear view of entrances and exits. Make sure there is someone responsible for asking unknown visitors through those entrances if they need help or who they are looking for.
2. Talk with your building manager about unmonitored entrances. Although many buildings have a security guard at the front entrance, they may not have cameras or guards posted at parking garage doors or service entrances.
3. Barring any other type of security, make sure you are aware of who is in the office and what they are doing. If you see someone you don’t recognize, ask them who they are, and how you can help them. If they are there for a legitimate purpose, they’ll just think you are trying to be helpful. If they can’t state a purpose or don’t give you their name, don’t be afraid to ask them to leave, or call the police if you are suspicious.
4. BUT, under no circumstances should you attempt to attack someone who seems suspicious or is trying to steal from you or your office. You may lose a laptop, but that’s better than losing your life in a confrontation with a person who could be carrying a gun or knife. Once the threat has gone, call security or the police.

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In two other recent posts, I’ve discussed issues in creative sentencing—particularly public and online humiliation. Now here’s a fun one that may be the most fitting punishment I’ve seen yet.

A landlord in Richmond, Va., was recently found guilty of over 180 property-maintenance violations on over 150 properties that his company, Bayou Properties, owns in the Richmond Area. In addition to a $177,000 fine, and 30 days in jail, the landlord has been sentenced to live in one of his rental properties for 40 days under house arrest.

His 40-day, house-arrest sentence will be carried out in a building described as “unsecured and [has] a shed littered with needles, other drug paraphernalia and feces, according to a city inspector.”

Bravo, judge. Bravo.

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/n/judge-orders-va-man-convicted-of-neglecting-rental-properties-to-live-in-one-of-his-homes-225215/

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Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health recently conducted a study of 10,000 young men across the country and found that those diagnosed with childhood Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) appeared to be at an increased risk of developing criminal tendencies.

Specifically, the researchers found that those with ADHD “were twice as likely to commit thefts and 50 percent more likely to sell drugs.”

However, although researchers found that those with ADHD were more likely to commit crime, they could not determine any direct causes for this tendency and were at a loss to explain why those with ADHD would be at higher risk. For example, although those with ADHD might be more impulsive by nature, explaining—perhaps—the tendency toward theft, drug dealing requires understanding of complex variables and systems, supply/demand, cost/benefit analysis—requiring patience and delayed gratification. Some guess that because children with ADHD are less likely to graduate from high school, they turn to a life of crime. But that is only conjecture.

As well, researchers did not control for variables including use of medication, counseling, parenting style, etc., in their data collection. So there is no way to know whether treatment for ADHD had any effect on a future criminal behavior.

Are you the parent of a child with ADHD? What do you think about this research and how it might affect your child? Leave a comment.

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Punishing by public humiliation

In response to the post I published the other day titled “Creative Sentencing: Public Humiliation.” A reader suggested that going beyond standing on the courthouse steps with a sign, some offenders might warrant internet humiliation or online shaming. Sure, standing in front of the courthouse for a few hours might be humiliating, but when it’s over, most people who drove or walked by aren’t going to remember the offender’s face and certainly won’t remember their name. An online record of stealing from a 9-year-old girl could reside on the internet for years, with an accompanying name and picture.

The Effects of Online Shaming

Mashable reports that 45% of employers now do social media screenings on potential employees, and 35% have said that they have found internet content on a potential employee that dissuaded them from hiring him or her. Let’s say you were found guilty of stealing a gift card from a 9-year-old girl (on her birthday), like the example above. If your name, face, and crime were posted on a government website, potential employers could find that information with a quick Google search and have information about you that could affect your future employment. Sound great, right? Why send people to jail and spend taxpayer money on them when we could simply shame them online. They don’t have to go to jail, we all save tax money, and the offender still gets their comeuppance, right?

The Morality of Online Shaming

Well, maybe not. Let’s continue this example above. After your face has been plastered on the internet and a horde of people have commented on what a horrible person you are for stealing from a 9-year-old girl, suppose you decide to clean up your act. You quit smoking, go to college, get a degree, get married, have a couple of kids, and for all intents and purposes are an upstanding, law abiding citizen 10 years later. Maybe you even got your record expunged.

Then you go to apply for a job. Would it be fair for a potential employer to do a simple search and find out that you did something stupid 10 years ago? Due to the ubiquitous nature of the internet, nothing can ever really be erased from it. Granted, you never served jail time, but does that punishment fit the crime? At what point should a former criminal stop being punished for past behavior?

When Shaming Gets Out of Hand

Online shaming also leads to other problems. As outlined in his book, The Future of Reputation, Daniel J. Solove points out that online shaming can be especially pernicious because it is hard to keep under control. And when online shaming gets out of control, says Solove, it can lead to permanent alienation:

Certain forms of temporary shaming, in which a person is humiliated for a short period of time and then reintegrated into the community, are much less problematic than everlasting shaming. Shame has a way of alienating people, inhibiting their ability to rehabilitate and reintegrate themselves into the community.

Online shaming can also cause the punishment to outweigh the crime, completely disregard due process, and lead to bullying and vigilantism at its extreme. Says, Solove:

Much Internet shaming . . . occurs without any formal procedures, investigation, or direct feedback to the accused offender. As a result, Internet shaming can readily get out of hand. Because the Internet allows thousands to communicate quickly, it makes it easier to form the digital equivalent to a mob.

We, as a society, feel the need to punish those who break social norms (like stealing from a 9-year-old girl), and shaming can be an extremely effective deterrent or rehabilitative force to keep society aware of the dangers of breaking those norms. On the other hand, the mass effect of the internet may prove to be too large a venue for the justice of shaming.

The Benefits and the Digital Mob

As technology progresses, and the ability for websites to protect their content increases, there might come a point when information can be controlled to an extent that someone’s name, face, and crime can be temporarily published through a government website, then taken down (and permanently erased) after the specified time, perhaps online shaming for minor crimes might be a low-cost alternative to jail. However, presently, the digital mob has the control, and the uncontrollable nature of the internet might outweigh the deterrent and rehabilitative benefits public shaming can have.

What are your thoughts? Should these types of minor criminals be shamed online, or does this type of shaming do more damage than good? Leave a comment.

For more on the effects of online shaming, read The Future of Reputation free online by clicking here: http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-Reputation/text.htm

Special thanks to CyberSafety808 for pointing me in the right direction.

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If the purpose of our criminal justice system is to reform individuals so that they won’t commit crimes again, sometimes I wonder if jail is the best answer. For violent criminals, jail might serve to separate them from society so that they don’t harm anyone else. But for some lesser crimes, fines and other creative punishments might be the way to go.

Take for instance, the case of a mother and daughter in Pennsylvania. Recently, the pair, ages 56 and 35 respectively, swiped two gift cards from a 9-year-old girl at a Wal-Mart, totaling about $80. It was the girl’s birthday, and she had come to Wal-Mart to use the cards, but had placed them on a shelf temporarily while a store clerk helped her. The mother-daughter duo was caught, arrested, and taken to court. During the hearing, the judge offered probation instead of jail time, if the women stood in front of the courthouse holding signs that read: “I stole from a 9-year-old girl on her birthday! Don’t steal or this could happen to you!” (See pictures below.)

Does anyone think this was not an apt punishment? The women will still serve probation, but avoided jail time by publically humiliating themselves. Clearly, the 4 ½ hours they spent in front of the courthouse took less time, but I wonder if the humiliation they suffered was more psychologically damaging than a few days in a local county jail.

What are your thoughts? Is this type of sentencing a viable, low-cost alternative to putting minor offenders in jail with taxpayer money? Or were they let off the hook too easily?

Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1225561/Women-stole-giftcard-birthday-girl-9-hold-signs-shame-town-centre.html

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Detective Michele Deery, who trolls for Internet predators from her office, in Media, Pennsylvania. Photograph by Gasper Tringale.

I don’t normally make a post and simply tell you to go read someone else’s story, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Vanity Fair recently published a fascinating story chronicling the efforts of a detective to bring in an online predator. The article covers both sides of the story and highlights the gap between what someone has done and what someone might do given the right circumstances.

Although the author is clearly trying to make the accused predator, whom she calls “J,” look like the victim. It’s hard to tell what his real intentions were when he offered to have sex with a woman and her two fictional pre-pubescent daughters. After he was arrested by police he says he only wanted to have sex with the mother, which is convenient to say after the fact. I’ll leave it up to you whether you think he is guilty or not.

Really, what I find fascinating about the whole case is that it illustrates how much these types of cases rely on what police and prosecutors believe the predator’s intentions to be. As you’ll see in the article, J didn’t actually do anything, or commit any act. Essentially he was arrested for what prosecutors thought he would do, not what he actually did. It makes me think about what the world would be like if that mentality were applied to other crimes, not just suspected sex offenders.

To read the article in its entirety, click here: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/sexual-predators-200912

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We’ve been out of commission for a little while while we switched our hosting service and gave ourselves a facelift. But now we’re back, and we’ll start posting stories again soon. Meanwhile, feel free to browse our archives. We’re still working on a few more tweaks to the new site, so look for more changes in the coming weeks.

And, as always, you can search your neighborhood crime map at CrimeReports.com

George Feder, former jewel thief turned crime prevention advocate

The burglary described below actually happened as described—I did it! But it could’ve been prevented.

Getting In

I drove past security and parked, walked unnoticed to a side entrance, picked the lock, and was in the stairwell, all within a few minutes. I went to the 15th floor, slowly opened the door to the hallway and heard nothing. The silence encouraged me. Stepping into the hallway, I saw no one.

Feeling the wealth around me in the deep plush carpeting and beautifully colored wallpaper, I knew there was a great “score” on this floor, but where?

Which condo do I “work”? Because end dwellings are larger and more costly than those in the middle, those were my primary targets.

First, I went to my right. With my right ear pressed against the door and a clear view down the hall, I heard people inside (a hollow door amplifies sound).

Quickly walking to the other end of the hall, I stopped to adjust the picks in my sport coat. Doing that, I broke my stride, tripped and smashed into an apartment door. The door opened and a sweet, elderly lady said, “Hi.”

I responded, “Hello. Wait, you’re not Joan.”

“I know that.” she answered. “The question is, who are you?”

I went into my act and introduced myself. Giving a phony name, I used the address of the building next door. “Joan lives there, same apartment, 15-B. Gee, I made a mistake, wrong building. Sorry to disturb you.”

Politely she responded, “Young man, you look thirsty, Would you like a cold drink?” She invited me in to meet her husband. I learned that, like myself, they were from New York City and we had a great conversation. After an hour, I thanked the couple for the iced coffee and Danish pastry and left.

Fifteen minutes later, still in the same building and just two floors above that sweet, elderly couple, I was picking the locks of Condo 17-B.

It was an okay score, about $10,000. It went like clockwork—the jewelry was in the master bedroom waiting for me.

Getting Out

As I left the condo, I heard the elevator doors open. Out stepped a young man who apparently had just finished playing tennis. This could be a problem. My only way out now was the elevator because using the stairs would look odd.

We exchanged greetings and then he challenged me, “What are you doing here? Who are you visiting? Once again, my routine; phony name and address of the building next door. “Gee, I made a mistake, wrong building. Hope you enjoyed your tennis. Have a nice day!”

I had two options after entering the elevator: ride down a few floors, get off and re-enter the stairwell to exit the building or stay on the elevator all the way down and face the doorman on the way out.

My instincts told me the young man did not buy my act and with lock picks and stolen jewelry in my pockets, I had to get away from that building as quickly as possible. Meeting the police that day was not on my agenda, so I stayed in the elevator.

As I walked past the doorman, he called to me. I was tense and ready for any confrontation. “What?” I barked at him, hoping to intimidate him.

“Sir, it’s getting hot out there,” he said. “You’re going to be uncomfortable in that sport coat.”

I thanked him for his concern, exhaled and left smiling.

Don’t Hesitate to Call the Police

People who hesitated, or were reluctant to call police, enabled me to remain prosperous and free for years.

Most people don’t call police because they don’t heed their instincts. They rely on logic to guide their actions. Residents who are not sure a crime is being committed do not want to look foolish when the police arrive. Sadly, others don’t want to get involved.

As a successful thief, I used those hesitations to my advantage. You see, getting in and out of the building as fast as possible and not being challenged is key to a successful burglary, and their hesitation made it possible.

Follow your instincts! Strangers should not be roaming your hallways. Always call police immediately. They will not laugh or reprimand you if the stranger is an honest person with a valid reason for being there.

Contrary to what most people believe, your home does not begin at your front door. Your home extends to your surroundings; the hallway, the lobby, the pool and the parking area. Be on guard for that well-dressed, quick-talking stranger who seems to belong, but isn’t familiar.

There is always a phone close by, use it! The combination of you, your telephone, and law enforcement will help prevent crime in and around your home.

George Feder is a former master jewel thief and former America’s Most Wanted Correspondent. Visit GeorgeFeder.com or follow him on Twitter (@GeorgeFeder) to go inside the criminal mind and get tips on how you can stay safe.

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