Successfully tackling cybercrime at the local level

This is an opinion piece which seeks to contribute to the wider debate on cybercrime prevention, based on the policing experience of the author over the past 22 years, during which he has been fortunate enough to work across a number of disciplines including intelligence, investigations, economic crime and criminal justice. More recently his work has included designing, implementing and running the first joint police force collaboration cybercrime unit in the UK. Achieving successful cybercrime reduction and prevention may require police forces to more closely complement national safer behaviour campaigns with pragmatic local community action. At the heart of this endeavour should be a recognition that people often need other people to help them understand how to change, why the change is needed and the consequences if they don’t. Multimedia cybercrime communication campaigns may be insufficient on their own to reach many of the most vulnerable. The impact and scale of cybercrime precludes any single organisation from tackling it alone. To meet this challenge, local policing is developing a model to identify and support community groups, local authorities, voluntary sector and public sector in reaching people who rely more on personal contact than broadcast messages. In its simplest form, the idea is to ‘plug together’ existing networks by better aligning those with the knowledge and material with those who do not.