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‘CAN ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMINOLOGY THEORIES CONCERNING THE PHYSICAL

ENVIRONMENT BE LINKED AND RELATED TO CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IN A

CYBERSPACE ENVIRONMENT?’

BY REBECCA STICKLER

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INTRODUCTION

‐ A central problem with ‘cybercrime’ is actually defining it, as ‘the lack of definition clarity impacts every facet of prevention and remediation’ (Gordon and Ford, 2006),

‐ As it stands, criminology theories are put into place to better our understanding,

‐ In order to mitigate against potential cyber threats, we need to revolutionise our ways of thinking.

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THEORETICAL APPROACHES

‐ Few crime theories that have the potential to work in a cyber environment actually exist, and we are now questioning whether pre-existing theories can be applied in a ‘cyberspace’ environment?

‐ Current crime theories are put into place to better our understanding as to why people commit crimes and how they should be handled and prevented in the future,

‐ Traditional approaches to modelling crime are limited by the simple fact that they are unable to model individual actions and behaviours (Malleson et al., 2010).

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CONTINUED…

‐ ‘Cybercrime is not a victimless crime’ (Choo, 2011), and in many ways almost anyone can be a victim.

‐ You would think that with an ever-changing relationship with technology that ideas and theories about our online activities would change alongside this relationship, however ‘crime prevention theories have no evolved to account for how technology use affects criminal behaviours or victimisation’ (Lewis & Lewis, 2011).

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LITERATURE REVIEW

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THE HISTORY OF CRIME PREVENTION

‐ 'Crime control' as opposed to 'crime prevention'

‐ The 1950-70's was an age of fast-moving technology, and it was believed that this would significantly aid the Police,

‐ In the 1970-80's, there was the acceptance that the vast amount of crime went unreported, resulting in the British Crime Survey,

‐ Crime Prevention is no longer a marginalised issue...

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SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

‐ In the 1980's Home Office researchers developed the concept of viewing crime as opportunity, which began a culture change...

‐ 'The 1980's, we can safely assert, has put crime prevention firmly on the map' (Bottoms, 1990:5),

‐ Multi-agency workings led to a widening responsibility, increasing capacity and focusing on local issues and geography,

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ROUTINE ACTIVITY THEORY (RAT)

‐ Originally proposed by Cohen and Felson (1979), Routine Activity Theory offers an account of how opportunities for crime arise through the day-to-day activities carried out by individuals,

‐ It has already been seen in work done by Choo (2011) that RAT can be applied to mitigate against the risk of cyber threats by reducing opportunities for crime to occur online.

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CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN (CPTED)

‐ ‘CPTED is a new approach that has an old background’ (Crowe, 1991),

‐ It is a crime prevention theory that focuses on tactical design and the effective use of the built environment, which when applied, reduces both crime and the fear of crime.

‐ ‘It is therefore considered that by re-designing such environments, criminality is somewhat reduced’ (Johnson, Gibson, and McCabe, 2014); could we re-design the online environment in same way?

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RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY (RCT)

‐ In criminology, Rational Choice Theory ‘adopts a utilitarian belief that man is a reasoning actor who weighs mean and ends, costs and benefits, and makes a rational choice’ (Clarke, 1997),

‐ This method was designed to assist in thinking about situational crime prevention,

‐ To some extent, these decisions are influenced by the environment in which a crime may take place (presence of CPTED etc.) but would this still be the case in a cyber environment?

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CRIME PREVENTION THEORY AND GEOGRAPHICAL IDEAS

‐ Territoriality can be defined as ‘an organisation of space in order to make sense of it’ (Mayhew, 2009), and ideas about Crime Prevention can be linked to this in the sense that these techniques are put in place to ‘control actions, interactions, or access by assessing and attempting to enforce control over a specific geographic area’ (Sack, 1983),

‐ In theory, ideas about place can be linked to Routine Activity Theory, as how can you commit a crime in a location in which you have no experience?

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GEOGRAPHICAL IDEAS AND ‘CYBERSPACE’

‐ In the same way that spaces such as the workplace are seen as a part of our everyday geographies, can ‘cyberspace’ be viewed in the same way?

‐ Current crime theories account for both temporal and spatial aspects, and can be successfully applied in our everyday life and the spheres we occupy,

‐ However we now find ourselves wondering whether ‘everyday life is an identifiable realm separate from other aspects of our life, or is it a container for all experiences and knowledge?’ (Clayton, 2013).

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‘CYBERSPACE’ AND ‘CYBERCRIME’

‐ Recently, it was revealed in a recent campaign that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘was spending £1.9billion on a new National Cyber Security Strategy, in order to deal with cyber attacks’,

‐ ‘If we do not have the ability to respond in ‘cyberspace’ to an attack, we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek and ignoring the devastating consequences, or resorting to a military response. That is why we need to develop a full-functioning and operational cyber-counter attack capability’ (ibid., 2016).

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

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DOES ROUTINE ACTIVITY THEORY SYNTHESISE WITH THE CONCEPT OF CRIME WITHIN 'CYBERSPACE' AS A

MEANS OF EXPLAINING THE OCCURRENCE OF CRIME IN THE 'PLACE' OF 'CYBERSPACE'?

‐ In relation to Routine Activity Theory, it would be expected that one’s offline behaviour could have influences on your online behaviour, as well as the possibility of you victimisation, and vice versa (Van Wilsem, 2011),

‐ If this is the case, could other crime theories be applied in the same way, mainly those aimed at mitigating against the potential risks of crime?

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CAN THE CONCEPTS WITHIN CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN BE APPLIED

AND EFFECTIVELY USED IN CYBERSPACE AS A PLACE-BASED CRIME PREVENTION METHOD?

‐ New ways of thinking have come about in recent years along with the development of the idea that 'cyberspace' could be an everyday geography,

‐ If this is the case, and 'cyberspace' is now classed as an environment that we can occupy, then surely it must be possible to implement theoretical ideas in the same way?

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HOW CAN CRIME THEORIES SUCH AS RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY BE LINKED TO GEOGRAPHICAL

THEORIES ABOUT SPACE AND PLACE?‐ This will be explored in light of being a sub-question to research question 2,

‐ In human geography, a place can be seen as a space that has no meaning, 'space' can be a location with no social connections for a human being; no added value. 'Place' is more than just a location; it is a location created by human experience (Tuan, 1977),

‐ How might one's beliefs about space and belonging influence the 'rational choice' to offend or not?

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METHODOLOGY

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DATA ANALYSIS

‐ 3 case studies of cybercrimes will be analysed, and crime theories will be applied to them to answer my research questions,

‐ I will be using a clear, rigid method to analyse them so that the case studies are comparable, and this method will be explained fully in my write-up,

‐ Looking for academic write-ups or in-depth media reports, and case studies won’t use unless all the necessary details are present (Lewis and Lewis, 2011).

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DATA COLLECTION: SECONDARY DATA

‐ Data will be gathered from sources such as the National Crime Statistics website, grey literature, articles, and academic journals,

‐ This will include published texts on potential case studies and the like so I am able to synthesise them with my knowledge of environmental criminology theories,

‐ Qualitative, and on a variety of levels of seriousness (Geers, 2010; Lewis and Lewis, 2011)

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DIRECTED CONTENT ANALYSIS

‐ This is a widely used qualitative research technique that will allow me to use existing theories to aid my research and the discussion of my findings,

‐ 'The goal of this directed approach to content analysis is to validate or extend conceptually a theoretical framework or theory' (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005),

‐ The main strength of this is that the theory is already rooted in the research by way of the search methods.

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LIMITATIONS OF SECONDARY DATA

‐ One of the main constraints of collecting data in this manner is there is no control over the quality of the data. However this will be mitigated against with the search strategy and criteria I use,

‐ There is also the possibility that data might not be specific enough for my needs as the researcher; key details may be missing, as well as it potentially being incomplete,

‐ However, this can be avoided by closely examining only cases which I have found published in full, and taking just extracts from partially-published cases.

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DATA COLLECTION: FOCUS GROUPS

‐ ‘The group process can help people to explore and clarify their views in ways that would be less easily accessible in a one to one interview’ (Kitzinger, 1995),

‐ I will conduct these sessions with various groups of people: geography and non-geography students; people of different ages; different year groups within the discipline etc.,

‐ They will be groups of 6-10 participants, and I will conduct approximately 5 focus groups of different people.

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IN SUMMARY…

‐ In today's society, social interactions between people occur not just in the physical world, but also online in 'cyberspace'. This is often with the same people, or at least with people with common connections one meets in the physical domain (Wellman et al., 2002),

‐ As a collective group, we as humans have evolved with new technological advancements, and some may be naïve in thinking that this doesn't apply to committing criminal acts, but unfortunately it does.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY‐ Anon (2013). Routine Activity Theory. Available at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Routine_activity_theory.png/300px-Routine_activity_theory.png [Accessed on November 3, 2016].

‐ Anon (2016). The Growth of Crime Prevention: Democracy and Policing. Available at: http://www.psi.org.uk/publications/archivepdfs/Democracy/DEMPOL2.pdf [Accessed on October 31, 2016].

‐ Choo, K.-K.R. (2011). The cyber threat landscape: Challenges and future research directions. Computers & Security, 30(8), pp.719-731.

‐ Clarke, R.V. (1997) Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies. 2nd edn. Boulder: Lynee Rienner Publishers.

‐ Clayton, J. (2013). Geography and Everyday Life B. Warf, ed. Oxford University Press.

‐ Crowe, T.D., The National Crime Institute and National Crime Prevention Institute Staff (1991) Crime prevention through environmental design: Applications of architectural design and space management concepts. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.

‐ Deacon, M. (2016). Don’t panic... but the Chancellor says cybercrime could lead us into war. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/01/dont-panic-but-the-chancellor-says-cyber-crime-could-lead-us-int/ - Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer [Accessed on November 2, 2016].

‐ Geers, K. (2010). The challenge of cyber-attack deterrence. Computer Law & Security Review, 26(3), pp.298-303.

‐ Gordon, S. and Ford, R. (2006) 'On the definition and classification of cybercrime', Springer-Verlag France, 2:13(20). doi: 10.1007/s11416-006-0015-z.

‐ Hsieh, H.-F. and Shannon, S.E. (2005) 'Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis', QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH, 15(9), pp. 1277-1288.

‐ Johnson, D., Gibson, V. and McCabe, M. (2014) “Designing in crime prevention, designing out ambiguity: Practice issues with the CPTED knowledge framework available to professionals in the field and its potentially ambiguous nature”, Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 16(3), pp. 147-768. doi: 10.1057/cpcs.2014.3.

‐ Kitzinger, J. (1995) “Qualitative Research: Introducing Focus Groups,” BMJ, 311, pp. 299-302.

‐ Lewis, S. & Lewis, D.A. (2011). Digitalizing Crime Prevention Theories: How Technology Affects Victim and Offender Behaviour. International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, 4(2), pp.765-769.

‐ Maguire, M., Morgan, R. and Reiner, R. (eds.) (2012) The Oxford handbook of criminology. 5th edn. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA.

‐ Malleson, N., Heppenstall, A. & See, L. (2010). Crime reduction through simulation: An agent-based model of burglary. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 34(3), pp.236-250.

‐ Mayhew, S. (2009) Oxford dictionary of geography. 4th edn. New York: Oxford University Press.

‐ Sack, R.D. (1983) Human Territoriality: A Theory. (73 Vols.) Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

‐ TNS (2015). Crime Survey for England and Wales. Available at: http://www.crimesurvey.co.uk/ [Accessed on October 31, 2016].

‐ Tuan, Y. (1977). Space and place: The perspective of experience 2nd ed., Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

‐ Van Wilsem, J. (2011). Worlds tied together? Online and non-domestic routine activities and their impact on digital and traditional threat victimization. European Journal of Criminology, 8(2), pp.115-127.

‐ Wasburn, P.C. & Meyrowitz, J. (1988). No Sense of Place: The impact of electronic media on social behaviour. Contemporary Sociology, 47(6), p.820.

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ANY QUESTIONS?