The risk and needs of cyber-dependent offenders sentenced in the United States

Understanding cybercrime in ‘real world’ policing and law enforcement

“…Additionally, research findings imply that the typical hacker is, ‘…racially white, masculine-gendered and… decidedly middle class’ (Steinmetz, 2016: p. 36). This extends to cybercriminals in general, as Harbinson and Selzer (2019) found that convicted cyber-dependent crime offenders tended to be white and male but an average age of 38.2, a far cry from the teenaged hacker stereotype. It has, however, been suggested that the severity of cybercrimes (and thus the likelihood of conviction and inclusion in such research) increases with offender age (Hutchings, 2014).…”

Employment Opportunities for Applicants with Cybercrime Records: A Field Experiment

“…A criminal record for hacking may send a positive or neutral, rather than a negative, signal to employers within the IT sector, as it demonstrates skills that are also beneficial to companies. Moreover, since a cybercrime offender differs from a traditional street crime offender in some respects (Dietrich et al, 2016;Harbinson & Selzer, 2019;Maimon & Louderback, 2019;Leukfeldt, 2017;Schiks et al, 2022), it may be possible that committing a cybercrime is not perceived as adversely as a traditional crime by future employers. Cybercrime offenders could be perceived as curious, creative, and good at problem-solving (Maimon & Louderback, 2019) while traditional street crime offenders are often associated with less job competence, inferior personality (Ramakers et al, 2012) or less trustworthiness (Holzer et al, 2006;Solinas-Saunders et al, 2015).…”

“…They therefore like to hack out of curiosity, are creative and often possess problem-solving abilities (Maimon & Louderback, 2019). On average, cybercrime offenders also have a higher level of education (Dietrich et al, 2016;Harbinson & Selzer, 2019;Leukfeldt, 2017) and higher intellectual capabilities (Schiks et al, 2022) than traditional offenders. Human capital theory (Becker, 1964) predicts that higher education entails higher productivity, which also translates into higher job performance.…”

“…For instance, cybercrime is more often committed out of interest or curiosity (Maimon & Louderback, 2019;Steinmetz, 2015). Cyber-dependent crime offenders are relatively more likely to be individuals with a higher socio-economic status (Van der Wagen et al, 2019) and are also more often highly educated than traditional street crime offenders (Dietrich et al, 2016;Harbinson & Selzer, 2019;Leukfeldt, 2017). These characteristics might make them more appealing to employers than lower educated traditional street crime offenders.…”