NCN OPUS Grant for Dr Piotr Lewulis

Ladies and Gentlemen,

we are pleased to announce that since May this year, a member of our Center, Dr Piotr Lewulis, has been carrying out a research grant funded by the National Science Centre (NCN) under the OPUS call, entitled “Success and Failure in Cybercrime Investigations: Criminological and Procedural Determinants”.

The project concerns the effectiveness of prosecuting cybercrime. Crimes are committed online every day – from hacking and malware attacks, through fraud, to hate speech and other abuses on social media. Most of them are never detected, and many are not even reported to law enforcement. Even when victims do report an offence, proceedings often fail because the perpetrator cannot be identified. This creates a distinctive “gap” in the enforcement of the law against cybercrime.

The aim of the project is to answer the question of why some investigations succeed while others do not. The study is based on an analysis of case files from actual criminal cases held by courts and prosecutors’ offices, which will make it possible to identify the factors that facilitate or hinder the effectiveness of investigations. The research team will examine the proceedings from two perspectives: the actions taken by law enforcement and the strategies adopted by offenders. In this way, it will establish whether there are statistically significant differences in investigative tactics or in offenders’ actions between cases that ended with an indictment and those discontinued because the perpetrator was not identified. The findings may prove useful in designing training, legislative changes and preventive measures.

Congratulations to Dr Lewulis, and we wish him further success!