The use of specialized cybercrime policing units: an organizational analysis

Abstract

Given the increased focus and importance of cybercrime, some police agencies have turned to the use of specialized cybercrime policing units. Research has yet to examine the how frequently these units are used in policing, nor has research examined the types of agencies most likely to use these units. The current research, drawing on contingency theory, institutional theory, and Maguire's theory of police organizational structure, uses four waves of Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Survey data to provide a descriptive analysis of specialized cybercrime units with a focus on identifying organizational correlates, environmental pressures, and the role of time. Trend data show that cybercrime units have proliferated over time and are on the path to becoming a normative aspect of policing, with about one-half of all state-level agencies and around one-quarter of all county and municipal agencies making use of cybercrime units as of 2013. Regression results indicate that larger agencies, agencies facing more task routineness and larger task scope challenges, agencies which make use of broader material technologies, and agencies which have adopted specialization strategies are more likely to use cybercrime units than other agencies. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed, as are promising future research directions.

Understanding Body-Worn Camera Diffusion in U.S. Policing

“…Another theory is larger agencies tend to be more familiar with adopting new strategies (Morabito, 2010;Roberts et al, 2012) and technologies (Darroch & Mazerolle, 2013;Willits & Nowacki, 2016), which could translate to less fear of uncertainties. Indeed, agencies that had adopted innovations in the past were more likely to be using BWCs in a recent study (Nowacki & Willits, 2018).…”

Structural Responses to Gendered Social Problems: Police Agency Adaptations to Human Trafficking

“…King (1999) and Jurek et al (2017) found no association between organizational age and functional differentiation, but other research has reported that older police agencies appear to be less functionally differentiated (Hassel, Zhao, & Maguire, 2003) and are less likely to create a gang unit (Katz et al, 2002). Studies exploring the relationship between organizational size and functional differentiation usually find a positive relationship (Giblin, 2006;Jurek et al, 2017;Katz et al, 2002;King, 1999King, , 2009Maguire, 2003;Willits & Nowacki, 2016) or no relationship (Hassel et al, 2003). The relationship between levels of overall functional differentiation and the adoption of a specific new unit is less clear.…”

“…It is a literature well informed by organizational theory. Prior tests have invoked SCT (Willits & Nowacki, 2016), institutional theory (Giblin, 2006; Katz, 2001), and even a comparative test of structural contingency, resource dependence, and social threat theories (Katz, Maguire, & Roncek, 2002).…”

“…The police organizational literature provides a mix of findings. Agencies addressing a more diverse range of missions (often called task scope) or facing nonroutine tasks are more functionally differentiated (Maguire, 2003; Paoline & Sloan, 2003) and are more likely to create a cybercrime unit (Willits & Nowacki, 2016). The exact nature of the task or problem is probably better associated with the creation of a specific police unit.…”

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“…The first is the degree to which an area or crime-type that the police is working on is attention-grabbing and that others have an active interest in the work. This is related to Yar’s (2013, p. 491) “hierarchies of standing” which suggests that “different forms of crime” are ordered in terms of seriousness or importance. It is our contention that cyber-crime currently has a comparatively low profile in this regard.…”