In a field experiment, we use a novel method to test whether instilling a greater sense of vividness of the future self motivates people to act in a more future-oriented way and reduces their delinquent involvement. We manipulate vividness of the future self by having participants, a sample of high-school youth (N = 133), "befriend" an avatar representing their future self on a social network website. For 7 days, they reply to short messages from their future self designed to trigger thinking about that distant self. Using repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), we find that participants who had been linked to their future self report less delinquent involvement, whereas controls did not. Furthermore, the results of a nonparametric bootstrapping procedure show that this effect is mediated by changes in vividness of the future self, such that increases in vividness lead to lower self-reported delinquency. We conclude that vividness of the future self holds promise not only as a cognitive explanation for the failure to make informed cost-benefit trade-offs but also for interventions aiming to reduce delinquency.
Purpose This paper argues that cyber-dependent offending differs in important ways from other types of offending, which poses challenges to established life-course criminological explanations. Moreover, this study examines to what extent life circumstances in both private and professional life are differentially related to cyber-offending and traditional offending. Methods This study analyzes longitudinal registration data of all adults who have been at least once suspected of a cybercrime (N = 870) and/or a traditional crime (N = 1,144,740) in the Netherlands during the period of 2000-2012. Using fixed effects panel models, withinperson effects of household composition, employment, and enrollment in education on the likelihood of cyber-offending are compared with those for traditional offending.Results Similar results are found with respect to individual's private lives. An individual is less likely to commit cybercrime as well as traditional crime in years in which that individual shares a household with a partner, whether with or without children, than in other years. For the professional life, several important differences are found. Employment and enrollment in education are not statistically significantly related to cyberoffending, whereas they reduce the likelihood of traditional offending. In fact, for these professional life circumstances, opposite effects are found in this population. Conclusions This first study to empirically compare cyber-offending and traditional offending over the life-course finds important similarities and differences. The results hint at the importance of possible cybercriminal opportunities provided by otherwise preventive professional life circumstances.
In the computer science field coordinated vulnerability disclosure is a well-known practice for finding flaws in ITsystems and patching them. In this practice, a white-hat hacker who finds a vulnerability in an IT-system reports that vulnerability to the system's owner. The owner will then resolve the problem, after which the vulnerability will be disclosed publicly. This practice generally does not focus on potential offenders or black-hat hackers who would likely exploit the vulnerability instead of reporting it. In this paper, we take an interdisciplinary approach and review the current coordinated vulnerability disclosure practice from both a computer science and criminological perspective. We discuss current issues in this practice that could influence the decision to use coordinated vulnerability disclosure versus exploiting a vulnerability. Based on different motives, a rational choice or cost-benefit analyses of the possible reactions after finding a vulnerability will be discussed. Subsequently, implications for practice and future research suggestions are included.
Cybercrime research suggests that, analogous to traditional crime, victims are more likely to be offenders. This overlap could be caused by shared risk factors, but it is unclear if these are comparable to traditional risk factors. Utilizing a high risk sample of computer-dependent cyber-offenders and traditional offenders (N = 535) we compare victimization, offending, and victimization-offending between cybercrime and traditional crime. Cybercrime results show a considerable victim-offender overlap and correlates like low self-control and routine activities partly explain differences in victimization, offending, and victimization-offending. Some cybercrime correlates are related to the digital context, but show similar patterns for cybercrime and traditional crime.
ARTICLE HISTORY
The distinct setting in which cyber-dependent crime takes place may reduce the similarity in the deviance of social network members. We test this assumption by analysing the deviance of the most important social contacts of cyber-dependent offenders and traditional offenders in the Netherlands (N = 344 offenders; N = 1131 social contacts). As expected, similarity in deviance is weaker for cyber-dependent crime. Because this is a strong predictor of traditional offending, this has important implications for criminological research and practice. Additionally, for both crime types the offending behaviour of a person is more strongly linked to the deviance of social ties if those ties are of the same gender and age, and if the offender has daily contact with them. Implications and future criminological research suggestions are discussed.
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General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?
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