Although individuals or companies can pursue civil remedies to address violations of their intellectual property rights, criminal sanctions are often warranted to ensure sufficient punishment and deterrence of wrongful activity. Congress has continually expanded and strengthened criminal laws for violations of intellectual property rights to protect innovation, to keep pace with evolving technology and, significantly, to ensure that egregious or persistent intellectual property violations do not merely become a standard cost of doing business for defendants.
Thieves, liars, killers, and conspirators—it's a criminal world out there, and someone has got to write about it. An eclectic collection of the year's best reportage, The Best American Crime Reporting 2007 brings together the murderers and muscle men, the masterminds, and the mysteries and missteps that make for brilliant stories, told by the aces of the true crime genre. This latest addition to the highly acclaimed series features guest editor Linda Fairstein, the bestselling crime novelist and former chief prosecutor of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's pioneering Special Victims' Unit.
Information Technology and the Criminal Justice System suggests that information technology in criminal justice will continue to challenge us to think about how we turn information into knowledge, who can use that knowledge, and for what purposes. In this text, editor April Pattavina synthesizes the growing body of research in information technology and criminal justice. Contributors examine what has been learned from past experiences, what the current state of IT is in various components of the criminal justice system, and what challenges lie ahead.
To derive statistics about crime â€" to estimate its levels and trends, assess its costs to and impacts on society, and inform law enforcement approaches to prevent it - a conceptual framework for defining and thinking about crime is virtually a prerequisite. Developing and maintaining such a framework is no easy task, because the mechanics of crime are ever evolving and shifting: tied to shifts and development in technology, society, and legislation. Interest in understanding crime surged in the 1920s, which proved to be a pivotal decade for the collection of nationwide crime statistics. Now established as a permanent agency, the Census Bureau commissioned the drafting of a manual for preparing crime statisticsâ€"intended for use by the police, corrections departments, and courts alike. The new manual sought to solve a perennial problem by suggesting a standard taxonomy of crime. Shortly after the Census Bureau issued its manual, the International Association of Chiefs of Police in convention adopted a resolution to create a Committee on Uniform Crime Records â€"to begin the process of describing what a national system of data on crimes known to the police might look like. Report 1 performed a comprehensive reassessment of what is meant by crime in U.S. crime statistics and recommends a new classification of crime to organize measurement efforts. This second report examines methodological and implementation issues and presents a conceptual blueprint for modernizing crime statistics.
