Federal, state and local law enforcement officers from all over the country are learning to deal with high technology as used by criminals. As with most policing, law enforcement is currently reactive to high-technology crime. However, we are increasing our responsiveness to meet the needs of our victims. At the local level, our victims range from misdemeanor e-mail threat cases to complicated interstate Internet scams. As technology progresses, law enforcement must ensure it is capable of responding to technology-related crimes.
Most agencies currently have little ability to respond to technology crimes.
Throw in the need to properly collect evidence from computers, and you have a seemingly insurmountable task for small agencies. Even large agencies are finding it difficult to respond due to the costs related to training and time invested in personnel. With all these problems up front, there is a core group of people nationwide that is committed to solving at least some of these problems. Much is being done and more needs to be accomplished. Too many journalists, when writing about IT and its possibilities, inject so much jargon into their articles that they obfuscate the point they are trying to make.