Book Review: Hacked. A radical approach to hacker culture and crime

• Date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567717723430
• Author: Anita Lavorgna
• Published date: 01 December 2017
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

it took such forms as ethnic conflicts and mass rape and tended to be committed within a country,

often as a part of civil war.

Moving on to major international responses to genocide, the writer notes that such responses

started by the United Nations in the early 1990s with the formation of two special courts. A further,

more forceful response was witnessed in 2002 through the establishment of the International

Criminal Court. In 2015, a total of 123 countries joined the Court thus signaling a global endeavor

to prohibit this crime. In recent decades, we have seen the rise of the transitional justice movement

with judicial and nonjudicial measures to improve accountability, survivor support, and minimize

human rights abuse. The transitional justice movement includes truth commission officials; gen-

ocide prosecution teams; and nongovernmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch,

academics, and local judges. Further changes occurred in the media through the pro duction of

documentary films exposing genocides. In addition, the emergence of gen ocide tourism has helped

to raise public awareness though creating genocide memorials. Such memorials, which are a by-

product of globalization, are considered to be one of the most powerful re minders of recent

changes in the treatment of genocide.

Criminology by its nature contributes deeply to genocide. The definition of criminology—the

study of crime—is a porous field that incorporates aspects of anthropology, history, law, political

science, psychology, sociology, and other disciplines, depending on the problem at hand. Hence,

criminology will contribute immensely to our understanding of genocide from the cause,

dynamics to victimization. This book makes a substantial contribution by a criminologist to the

study of genocide.

The book consists of nine chapters with 20 figures. Chapter 1 gives an overall view of genocide

and discusses its relationship to criminology by applying a comparative criminological approach to

genocide. Chapter 2 is a lay groundwork for the rest of the book, as it presents a summary of the

sample eight cases chosen by the writer. Chapter 3 explores the macrofactors or the structural causes

of genocide. Chapter 4 provides an explanation of the group-level genocide and the emotions of

genocidal groups. Chapter 5 analyzes the genocidal process on the microlevel or the individual level.

Chapter 6 examines two genocides: Armenian and the Nazi genocide by identifying their common-

alities and comparing them with organized crime groups, then examining what the Philosopher

Giorgio Agamben calls “the state of exception.” Chapter 7 discusses the genocidal rape and its

effects through the examination of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and examining the limitation of

international law in the prosecution of genocidal rape. Chapter 8 differentiates genocide types by the

ways in which they end or stop and then compares the findings with ordinary offenders who desist

from crime. Chapter 9 summarizes the study findings related to the 20th-century genocides and the

crime that evolved over time. It also offers some conclusions from criminological research on the

prevention and deterrence of genocide.

Steinmetz, K. F. (2016).

Hacked. A radical approach to hacker culture and crime.

New York: New York University Press. 288 pp. $24.41 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-4798-6971-8.

Reviewed by: Anita Lavorgna, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

DOI: 10.1177/1057567717723430

Hacking is a very eclectic phenomenon, which encompasses a plethora of diverse activities ranging

from software development and social engineering practices to network and hardware hacking.

Book Reviews 295