In any society, criminals are always involved. Whenever some other person has a good amount of money and has an excellent lifestyle along with their excellent paycheck, some other person who puts no applied effort into life finds this and robs them of it. The epitome of the old school criminals is the good old “hold you at gunpoint” breed. These criminals might lurk in some gloomy alley for all of your cash and jewels, and then leave you poor and hurt. This is the most memorable view of the old-style crook.

This breed of criminals would star in the good old mafia films, the ones so outdated they would be in scratchy gray-scale. Aside from their Hollywood glitz surface though, these guys did some bad stuff. Not just the mafia gangs, but street criminals are responsible for most of the destruction and fright many citizens experience now. These people were the ones who left bystanders feeling nervous for their lives, and were bait for sensationalist news reports adding to the hysteria.

These guys were the worst of the worst in their time. They were the scum of the Earth, the ones that, when families saw their mug shots on television, would shield their kid’s eyes, as if their gaze had some strange powers. These were the reasons that America walks on eggshells with its prison system. It is a strange thing that such a free society breeds: you have these excellent freedoms, yet it is just hoped for that you will not abuse them. Unfortunately, while most of us follow our guidelines, guys like these don’t and it affects the rest of us harshly.

The criminals of old, the ones that would hold you up with their guns and then take all of your goods, although a force to be reckoned with no doubt, are child’s play to our crooks of today. The criminals of today have an overpowering advantage; technology is on their side. You might think that technology is really on the law’s side, making it easier and faster to get these criminals but in fact it just makes more easily concealed. The crooks have adopted the high tech equipment for themselves and become quite adept with it.

Think of the average crime scene. An sly criminal who wanted some money would see a rich-looking person, and judge their odds of winning. Weapons brandished and in a sequestered location they would confront their target, wave the gun around, and proceed to take their money. Once they get all of the money out of the wallet, they would tell the victim to not call the police. They would then sprint all of the way to their hideout and lay low for a little while, until the police were off of them.

In those times of old, only very rudimentary methods of catching the criminals existed, nothing like using satellite location and GPS tracking. These factors did not hurt the law too much though: with a well-staffed and highly trained police force, the thief was often caught quickly. There was not any tools of the trade they could make use of to try and scramble the evidence or hide themselves quickly. Once they were apprehended, there was no DNA clues to tie them at the crime scene, instead there was only a basic line-up and the victim, where the victim identified their abuser.

Technology is our hero then, right? Unfortunately, this is often not the case. While our rapid success in producing DNA tracking, fingerprints and other technological advances, these tools can also help in the suspect’s runaway from justice. A running car is the most high-tech equipment a criminal today needs to disappear; it doesn’t matter is they know exactly who did the act. If they can’t go out and get them, all of their information on them is quite useless.

An intangible crime; the perfect crime. These are hard hitters for law enforcement, as there is no scene of the crime and due to the technological shield the criminal can put up around their location. Another scary thing is that, these identity thieves and hackers, as aforementioned, are seldom caught and brought to justice. So with no viable means to effectively stop them, we can only hope to protect ourselves from their strike. Always be very wary online, and protect yourself with a multitude of Internet security systems. And avoid secluded areas!

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