Criminology – The 21st Century Criminologist

Criminology – The 21st Century Criminologist 
BY: Ronald F. Worst – Criminologist (Security Expert & Fraud Examiner)
 
We are often reminded of the sudden impact of financial crimes, safety and security, and the U.S. Justice System has on our internal psyche. The majority of us are concerned about becoming victims of frauds and scams, assaults and batteries, or having our homes burglarized. We’re also intrigued and fascinated by the news media, social media, and newspapers covering these crimes involving celebrity figures and highly publicized cases of all types. In addition, we are also disgusted and outraged by law enforcement misconduct and negligence upon U.S. citizens.

Decades ago, criminology was about the examination and analytical assessment of crime patterns, typologies, and theories which were a base of all criminologists to teach, learn, and explore. Now, with an increased demand for private practice criminologists to expand even further on crime patterns and analytical assessments, the NEW 21st Century Criminologists are establishing a solid impact in the legal profession to contribute in litigation support and expert witness testimony to educate lawyers and the jury on the reasonable and realistic assessments on our safety, the security of our assets, and protecting our money.

Compared to most of us, I too have a fascination with financial crimes, our safety and security, and the judicial system. As an educator in my areas of expertise, I’ve been able to establish my interests into a career. My goal with this article is to generate even more interest with entrepreneurs, professionals of all types, and college students who are intrigued and willing to expand their knowledge that has been my career of choice so that private practice criminologists can continue to strengthen to assist in reducing our society’s crime rate. Distinguishing that our Justice System has two divisions: Civil Justice System & Criminal Justice System and that both systems are not the same with language which applies in its own unique way. For Example: Homicide/Murder would apply in the criminal justice system, and wrongful death would apply in the civil justice system.
The 21st Century Criminologist wears numerous hats of multi-disciplinary areas of expertise in which I would like to discuss in this article one area of study: Behavioral Psychology as it applies to Passive Aggressive Communication skills.

Behavioral Psychology: Passive aggressive communication skills are a unique technique when obtaining useful information from defendants, witnesses, and third party citizens by an in-direct approach when engaging in interviews and conversations. There are several aggressive interviewing techniques that try to force people to talk or force some level of a confession, but I do not support most of those techniques due to an increase probability of obtaining false or misleading information. In my opinion, people have some level of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as it relates to Love, Likeness, Hate, Aggression, Anger, Shy, etc. With that concept, when engaging in your interviews, certain words and phrases can be useful in gathering factual information to assist in your theories or supporting facts during your investigations. This technique demands full attention by the interviewer by listening and hearing the words that come out of people’s mouths than it is by interpreting body language. My technique allows listening and hearing skills to be the majority proactive approach and body language, when applied, as the secondary discretionary contributor during interviews. For Example: people who assess and communicate with specific descriptive words about a person or thing may support the probability of that information as being factual. But on the other hand, people who communicate in ways by applying pronouns, conjunctions, and vague scenarios when responding to your questions may support the probability of those answers as deceptive.

Another unique assessment is your ability to examine and distinguish the differences in one’s characteristic traits (inner self) and reputation traits (society’s views). During interviews, people’s character is far more important to protect than one’s reputation. People’s character needs only one mistake to permanently label that person for life. A person’s reputation can be built up and shot down numerous times throughout that person’s lifetime. In private practice, we interview these people, but we do not interrogate them thus establishing a passive aggressive communication skill. For Example: Bernie Madoff established a respectable reputation (society’s view) as a successful and wealthy business man, but behind closed doors, his true characteristic traits of power and control, deception, and greed ultimately exposed his “inner self” personality which ultimately landed him in club Fed.
Private practice criminology has continued to evolve for more than two hundred years. Today, the new 21st Century Criminologist has established a multitude of combined interdisciplinary fields of expertise that contribute in reducing our society’s crime rate.

About the Author:
Ronald F. Worst – Criminologist (Security Expert & Fraud Examiner) has over 17 years of private practice specializing in safety, security, and financial fraud protection.
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Marketing and Public Relations Advice for Lawyer

WHAT IS SELF-POLICING?

WHAT IS SELF-POLICING? 

By Ronald F. Worst – Criminologist (Security Expert & Fraud Examiner) 
 

Generally speaking, the dictionary defines it as a form of self-regulation in which you monitor your own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards instead of utilizing a government entity to monitor and enforce those standards. As you read this definition, what stands out as the single most important approach in reducing our society’s crime rate? My answer would be the proactive deterrent approach. Why? Because the skills of safety and security professionals requires three disciplines: 1) people’s safety 2) security of assets, and 3) protecting people’s money, thus your safety and security skills in addition to your financial fraud prevention knowledge are the key disciplines in the fight to reduce our society’s crime rate.

Now that you have basic knowledge of the phrase "Self-Policing" let’s add another discipline to the mix to continue to create a stronger proactive deterrent approach to criminal events: Behavioral Psychology! In general, there are two basic common bonds that the traditional criminal thinks about the most: 1) criminals do not want to be seen and/or identified and 2) criminals do not want to attract people’s attention to them while they are committing their criminal behavior. Infusing behavioral psychology techniques into your self-policing standard on your premises creates a majority approach in deterring crimes thus you’re contributing in reducing our society’s crime rate.

There are two types of deterrence’s that needs to be identified to allow behavioral psychology techniques to work within your self-policing proactive approach: 1) Visible deterrences, and 2) Physical deterrences. The key is to identify and apply these two types of deterrences in ways that the potential criminal second guesses his or her criminal behavior. For example: Posted signs that utilize creative words that force the potential criminal to think…… "Attention! This area is Continuously under Video Surveillance" or "Trespass at your own Risk!" In these two examples the words, Attention and Risk, are the creative words that attract people’s attention when they read those signs. The goal is to establish a proactive approach utilizing behavioral psychology to your advantage to deter criminal behavior. Another example relating to financial fraud deterrence is to verbally announce or draft memos stating a financial fraud audit will be conducted on a certain date and time. Now you have the option of either not taking action on the audit or conducting the audit. Another way is by conducting audits without any form of an announcement. The key is to create a psychological game of cat and mouse by forcing the potential criminal to second guess their actions on committing a financial crime upon your premises.

In conclusion, learning how to think "outside the box" by creating specific types of proactive deterrent approaches to people’s safety, the security of assets, and protecting peoples money, is the key in reducing society’s crime rates. Brainstorming and creating proactive visible and physical deterrences to potential criminal behavior can provide a reasonable and realistic approach in reducing our society’s crime rates.

Authored by:

Ronald F. Worst – Criminologist (Security Expert & Fraud Examiner)

Mr. Worst provides over 17 years of private practice experience as a criminologist specializing in financial fraud and security consulting services. In addition, he is a noted speaker, educator, author, and expert witness.

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