The Driving Force Behind Cybercrime: Cyber Resilience and Cybercriminology

• Date: 01 August 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/10439862211001631
• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Subject Matter: Introduction

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862211001631

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2021, Vol. 37(3) 308 –310

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862211001631

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Introduction

The Driving Force Behind

Cybercrime: Cyber Resilience

and Cybercriminology

Cybercrime defies conventional geographical and temporal boundaries and is a threat

to national and personal security. As global dependence on technology and digital data

deepens, so too will the hazards of cybercrime. With new technological and industrial

changes accompanying the fourth industrial revolution, cybercrime studies must con-

sistently adapt to stay up-to-date on the ever-increasing types of cybercrime developed

by cybercriminals.

This special issue intends to focus on a wide-range of cybercrime topics that are

relevant to the theme, including, but are not limited to: recent cases of severe security

breaches, identity theft, digital fraud, cyber-terrorism, and online interpersonal crimes.

Cybercriminology is the interdisciplinary study of the causes behind cybercrime which

combines knowledge from criminology, psychology, sociology, political science,

computer science, computer engineering, cybersecurity, and any scientific discipline

that delivers an in-depth understanding of the nature of cybercrime in the criminal

justice field. In light of the cybercriminology perspective, the presented articles not

only introduce the current issues of cybercrime, but they also incorporate multimodal

research techniques that leverage qualitative, quantitative, and technological tech-

niques to better understand and explain cybercrime. This special issue also discusses

the important drivers and disrupters of the changes in cybercrime in the near future and

addresses the importance of technology-related issues within this area, in particular,

the global challenges relative to the development of effective criminal justice policies

and/or preventive measures against cybercrimes.

Despite its relatively short history, many cybercrime researchers/cybercriminolo-

gists have tested the application of general crime-related theories, for example, social

control, self-control, routine activity and lifestyle, and delinquency theories, to cyber-

crime, whereas the other involves integrated theory testing or creating new theories

pertaining to cybercrime. Interestingly, not many researchers applied macro-theoreti-

cal frameworks in efforts to explain cybercrime phenomenon in the past. Dearden

et al. (2021) examine Messner and Rosenfeld’s institutional anomie theory and uncover

how institutional anomie correlates with increased cybercrime activity using a national

sample of 215 self-admitted cybercriminals as a macro-theoretical approach.

Building upon the integrated framework that combines conflict theory and space

transition theory, Lee et al. (2021) theorized that changeable identity of offenders,

space convertibility, and criminal opportunity at low risk of detection within cyber-

space can be applied in efforts to understand cyber-terrorism. The authors describe the

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research-article2021