Cybercrime, computer crime, Internet crime, and technosecurity have been of increasing concern to citizens, corporations, and governments since their emergence in the 1980s. Addressing both the conventional and radical theories underlying this emerging criminological trend, including feminist theory, social learning theory, and postmodernism, this text paves the way for those who seek to tackle the most pertinent areas in technocrime. Technocrime and Criminological Theory challenges readers to confront the conflicts, gaps, and questions faced by both scholars and practitioners in the field. This book serves as an ideal primer for scholars beginning to study technocrime or as a companion for graduate level courses in technocrime or deviance studies.
Computers and the Internet play an increasingly pivotal role in daily life, making it vitally important to understand the dynamics of cybercrime and those victimized by it. The anthology Cybercrime and Criminological Theory: Fundamental Readings on Hacking, Piracy, Theft, and Harassment explores the predictors for participation in various forms of cybercrime and deviance, from common problems like media piracy, to more distinct offenses such as computer hacking. Most criminological theories were developed to account for street crimes, so it is unclear how these theories may apply to virtual offending. This text provides critical insight into the utility of multiple theories to account for cybercrimes. Cybercrime and Criminological Theory gives direct insight into the rates and prevalence of cybercrime offenses using data sets from populations across the United States. It gives readers a fundamental understanding of, and appreciation for various forms of cybercrime, and outlines prospective predictors of both offending and victimization. The selected readings identify research questions that must be addressed in order to improve the legal, technical, and policy responses to cybercrimes. Cybercrime and Criminological Theory begins with an introduction to cybercrime and virtual criminality. From there, the book offers five sections featuring seminal and cutting edge works on topics in: - Routine Activities Theory - Deterrence Theory - Social Learning and Self Control - General Strain Theory - Deviant Subcultures The book uses articles and cutting-edge research in the field to create a text that is relevant for students at all levels of study, as well as scholars in criminology, sociology, and information security. Undergraduate students will gain insight into the value of various theories to account for victimization and offending, and learn basic research methods applied by criminologists to assess crime and victimization. Graduate students benefit from the detail provided on research methods, measurement, and research questions that must be addressed to fully understand cybercrimes. Thomas J. Holt earned his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri, Saint Louis. He is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His areas of research include computer hacking, malware, and the role played by technology and computer-mediated communications in facilitating crime and deviance. Dr. Holt is the co-author of Digital Crime and Digital Terror, and the co-editor of Corporate Hacking and Technology-Driven Crime. He is also the editor of the book Cybercrime: Causes, Correlates, and Context. His work has also been published in numerous academic journals, including Crime and Delinquency, Deviant Behavior, and the Journal of Criminal Justice. Dr. Holt received two grants from the U.S. National Institute of Justice to examine the market for malicious software, and the social dynamics of carders and on-line data thieves. Additionally, he is the project lead for the Spartan Devils Chapter of the Honeynet Project, and directs the MSU Open Source Research Laboratory, which explores cyber threats around the globe through on-line research.
Inside the life of a hacker and cybercrime culture. Public discourse, from pop culture to political rhetoric, portrays hackers as deceptive, digital villains. But what do we actually know about them? In Hacked, Kevin F. Steinmetz explores what it means to be a hacker and the nuances of hacker culture. Through extensive interviews with hackers, observations of hacker communities, and analyses of hacker cultural products, Steinmetz demystifies the figure of the hacker and situates the practice of hacking within the larger political and economic structures of capitalism, crime, and control.This captivating book challenges many of the common narratives of hackers, suggesting that not all forms of hacking are criminal and, contrary to popular opinion, the broader hacker community actually plays a vital role in our information economy. Hacked thus explores how governments, corporations, and other institutions attempt to manage hacker culture through the creation of ideologies and laws that protect powerful economic interests. Not content to simply critique the situation, Steinmetz ends his work by providing actionable policy recommendations that aim to redirect the focus from the individual to corporations, governments, and broader social issues. A compelling study, Hacked helps us understand not just the figure of the hacker, but also digital crime and social control in our high-tech society.
"This book offers a straightforward and vibrant approach to the study of criminal behavior and contemporary criminal justice issues through the use of popular TV shows. Students, researchers, and anyone else interested in crime will find this book an accessible and informative resource for understanding the causes of crime and how society responds to crime"--
Bringing together cutting-edge theory and research that bridges academic disciplines from criminology and criminal justice, to developmental psychology, sociology, and political science, Thinking About Victimization offers an authoritative and refreshingly accessible overview of scholarship on the nature, sources, and consequences of victimization. This book integrates empirical research and victimization theory and is written in a lively style, with sharp storytelling and an appreciation of international research on victimization. Rooted in a healthy respect for criminological history and the important foundational works in victimization studies, it provides a detailed account of how different data sources can influence our understanding of victimization; of how the sources of victimization—individual, situational, and contextual—are complicated and varied; and of how the consequences of victimization—personal, social, and political—are just as complex. Thinking About Victimization also engages with contemporary issues such as sexual victimization and intimate partner violence, victimization in schools, cybervictimization, and prison victimization, as well as terrorism and state-sponsored violence. The second edition reflects new research developments in victimology, including updated discussions on the COVID-19 pandemic, police brutality, increases in crime, and school shootings. Thinking About Victimization is essential reading for advanced courses in victimization offered in criminology, criminal justice, sociology, health, and social work departments. With its unapologetic reliance on theory and research combined with its easy readability, undergraduate and graduate students alike will find much to learn in these pages.
We now live in a pre-crime society, in which information technology strategies and techniques such as predictive policing, actuarial justice and surveillance penology are used to achieve hyper-securitization. However, such securitization comes at a cost – the criminalization of everyday life is guaranteed, justice functions as an algorithmic industry and punishment is administered through dataveillance regimes. This pioneering book explores relevant theories, developing technologies and institutional practices and explains how the pre-crime society operates in the ‘ultramodern’ age of digital reality construction. Reviewing pre-crime's cultural and political effects, the authors propose new directions in crime control policy.
Financial crime is a trillion-dollar industry that is likely to continue to grow exponentially unless new strategies of prevention and control can be developed. This book covers a wide range of topics related to financial crime commission, victimization, prevention, and control. The chapters included in this book closely examine cyber-victimization in their investigation of online fraud schemes that have resulted in new categories of crime victims as the result of identity theft, romance fraud schemes, phishing, ransomware, and other technology-enabled online fraud strategies. This book also offers new strategies for both financial crime prevention and financial crime control designed to reduce both offending and victimization. It will be a great resource for researchers and students of Criminology, Sociology, Law, and Information Technology. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Victims & Offenders.
The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online This handbook features theoretical, empirical, policy and legal analysis of technology facilitated violence and abuse (TFVA) from over 40 multidisciplinary scholars, practitioners, advocates, survivors and technologists from 17 countries
In the transitional networked society, police power is no longer constrained by the borders of the nation state. It has globalised. Global Policing shows how security threats have been constructed by powerful actors to justify the creation of a new global policing architecture and how the subculture of policing shapes the world system. Demonstrating how a theory of global policing is central to understanding global governance, the text explores: - the ′new security agenda′ focused on serious organised crime and terrorism and how this is transforming policing - the creation of global organisations such as Interpol, regional entities such as Europol, and national policing agencies with a transnational reach - the subculture of the ′global cops′, blurring boundaries between police, private security, military and secret intelligence agencies - the reality of transnational policing on the ground, its effectiveness, legitimacy, accountability and future development. Written by two leading international experts who bring cutting-edge theoretical debates to life with case studies and examples, Global Policing will prove captivating reading for students and scholars in criminology, criminal justice, international relations, law and sociology.
This book advances a theoretically informed realist criminology of computer crime. Looking beyond current strategies of online crime control, this book argues for a new sort of policy that addresses the root causes of computer crime and criminality, reduces the harms experienced by the victims of such crimes, and does not unduly contribute to state and corporate power and surveillance. Drawing both on the proponents of realist criminology and on those who have leveled critiques of the approach, Steinmetz illustrates the contours of a realist criminology of computer crime by considering definitions of harm with online crime, the idiosyncrasies of online locality and community, the social relations of computer crime, the tension between piecemeal reform and structural changes, and other matters. Furthermore, Steinmetz surveys the methodological dimensions of computer crime research, offers a critique of positivist “computational criminology,” and posits an agenda for computer crime policy. Against Cybercrime is an essential reading for all those engaged with cybercrime, realist criminology, criminological theory, and social harm online.
