Perceptions of computer crime and cyber preparedness in the state of Florida and future policy

It is clear that the incidences of computer crimes are on the rise in the United States. Every year more and more companies and governmental agencies and individuals are becoming the victim of some form of Internet or computer facilitated crime. The residents and law enforcement community in the state of Florida are not immune to this phenomenon. The communities that should be most concerned with cyber crimes are naturally law enforcement officers, the legal community and the general public potentially impacted by computer crime. Furthermore the extent to which they perceive whether computer crime is a major social problem or not, may well have potential impacts on the formulation and implementation of public policy to include resource allocation and legislative priorities.; To determine the current level of perception of cybercrime, or cyber awareness, among these groups a review of the literature on computer crime was conducted focusing on the general perceptions of computer crime that the public, law enforcement officers and attorneys have.; The research problem developed within this dissertation focused on the opinions of these groups and whether they have consensus around the key issues. This is important due to the impact these opinions may have on the formulation of policy, procedures and the allocation of resources.; To address flaws in the literature, this dissertation conducted empirical research on the perceptions of computer crime in the state of Florida focusing on the three population groups mentioned earlier. To do this, the researcher utilized a self-administered survey research instrument submitted to randomly sampled law enforcement administrators/officers (N = 304), the general public (N = 304) and members of the legal community in the state of Florida (N = 304), this resulted in a population of 912 possible respondents.; Survey questions addressed the respondent's perceptions of computer crime and cyber preparedness. Variables such as computer familiarity, computer crime victimization, Internet usage, and effectiveness of law enforcement and the legal community in bringing these offenders to justice were examined. Other variables were included to be comprehensive and to act as control variables. A statistical analysis of the data was conducted. Using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) the researcher tested the developed hypotheses centering on the differences in perceptions of computer crime among the three population frames. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...