The Bureau of Statistics: Identify Theft Research Assignment

Identity theft
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According to the Bureau of Statistics, on approximation, nine people suffer the crime of identity theft every minute that accounted for 17.6 million people in 2014. It occurs when a thief illegally obtains their private information such as social security number and utilizes them to represent themselves as that person for deceitful purposes.
Victims suffer short-term consequences such as financial problems caused by the withdrawal of one’s savings and the opening of a line of credit by the criminal, leaving the victim broke. According to Gilman, victims also suffer credit issues, whereby the protracted credit card debt destroys one’s credit score, making it challenging to get a loan, mortgages and other financial benefits. Moreover, a person spends a considerable amount of time cleaning up the mess, which extends for weeks and even months, draining one emotionally, physically and financially (Gilman, 2009, pp. 27). The long-term effects include emotional suffering that emanates from trauma, feeling stranded, violated and angry due to a lack of control of the theft and the subsequent torture of straightening things out. Victims often develop paranoia of protecting their computers to make sure theft does not occur again; this situation requires psychological help from a counselor. Moreover, a victim is likely to face the consequences emanating from the theft, months after resolving the matter. For instance, if additional crimes perpetrated by the thief are unearthed, such as a failure to pay parking tickets in another state, a victim may end up under arrest. Consequently, the victim has to re-experience the painful moment while having to go through the process of clearing their name again (Identity Theft Resource Center, 2017, pp. 9-10).
According to Kanable, a victim becomes accountable for identity theft due to various reasons. First, if one fails to secure their personal information, by destroying letters, bank statements or bills containing crucial information, identity thieves can take advantage of it. If an identity thief goes through one&rsq...