Digital displacement of youth offending: scoping and understanding the issue

Abstract

Purpose Global evidence suggests that youth offending has reduced; however, this study aims to suggest a more complex picture, with youth crime potentially being displaced to the digital space. Historically, young people and crime have been synonymous with public spaces and being visible. A shift or expansion to online offending requires revision of how the justice and educational systems respond to youth offending. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review explored keywords related to age, digital offence or harm and criminal or harmful nature, using a search, appraisal, synthesis and analysis framework. Findings Three emergent areas of digital youth crime are discussed: digitally assisted crime, digitally dependent crime and digital harm. Practical implications The shift in youth offending requires response adjustment from prevention to detection. Opportunities may exist to disrupt or redirect youth before they offend. Further data specific to digital offending is needed. These findings seek to provide a possible direction for future research. Originality/value The concept of digital displacement of youth offending is progressively emerging. This paper examines types of offending categorised into three areas of interest.

Digital displacement of youth offending: addressing the issue

“…An extensive systematic literature review explored global trends in the digital displacement of youth offending, within which academic and grey literature sources between 2012 and 2022 were reviewed, finding evidence to support the digital displacement of youth offending (McCord et al , 2022). Within this review, pathways from acceptable to deviant or criminal behaviour were also identified as relevant to the general issues of digital youth offending.…”

“…The literature supports three areas of digital offending or harm, including digitally assisted crime, digitally dependent crime and digital harms, which approach but do not cross into illegal behaviour (McCord et al, 2022;Rokven et al, 2018;Weulen Kranenbarg et al, 2021). Digitally assisted crime refers to traditional criminal activities carried out either with the assistance of or migration to the online space.…”