Abstract

Cybercrime investigations continue to pose a significant challenge for most law enforcement agencies. Specifically, these investigations present knowledge, legal, and forensic challenges that hinder police officers’ ability to successfully complete their tasks and develop a sense of well-being on the job. Studies have shown that in the face of such adversity, individuals exhibit a positive coping capacity known as the resilience process. In this research, we set out to improve our understanding of both the difficulties police officers face when investigating online crimes and their ability to cope by analyzing their perceptions of success. To do this, we conducted interviews with 51 law enforcement personnel in eight countries. Our results corroborate most of the findings in extant literature, namely that the challenges faced by cyber-investigators are multilevel, and that they have developed an ability to diversify the value of their work-related successes.