Cybercrime and Digital Deviance

Cybercrime and Digital Deviance is a work that combines insights from sociology, criminology, and computer science to explore cybercrimes such as hacking and romance scams, along with forms of cyberdeviance such as pornography addiction, trolling, and flaming. Other issues are explored including cybercrime investigations, organized cybercrime, the use of algorithms in policing, cybervictimization, and the theories used to explain cybercrime.

Graham and Smith make a conceptual distinction between a terrestrial, physical environment and a single digital environment produced through networked computers. Conceptualizing the online space as a distinct environment for social interaction links this text with assumptions made in the fields of urban sociology or rural criminology. Students in sociology and criminology will have a familiar entry point for understanding what may appear to be a technologically complex course of study. The authors organize all forms of cybercrime and cyberdeviance by applying a typology developed by David Wall: cybertrespass, cyberdeception, cyberviolence, and cyberpornography. This typology is simple enough for students just beginning their inquiry into cybercrime. Because it is based on legal categories of trespassing, fraud, violent crimes against persons, and moral transgressions it provides a solid foundation for deeper study.

Taken together, Graham and Smith’s application of a digital environment and Wall’s cybercrime typology makes this an ideal upper level text for students in sociology and criminal justice. It is also an ideal introductory text for students within the emerging disciplines of cybercrime and cybersecurity.

Roderick S. Graham is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Sociology and Criminal Justice Department at Old Dominion University. He teaches courses on cybercrime, research methods, and racial inequality. He is the coordinator of the interdisciplinary Cybercrime bachelor's degree at Old Dominion University. He has published research in Deviant Behavior, First Monday, and Youth and Society.

‘Shawn K. Smith is a Criminologist and Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Criminal Justice at Radford University. His areas of research and pedagogy include social networking theories in crime, public policy in criminal justice, and advanced research procedures. He has published research in Sociological Focus, Journal of Race and Ethnicity, Criminal Justice Studies: A Critical Journal of Crime, Law, and Society, and African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies.