Computer Crime Victimization and Criminological Perspectives

Although cybercrime has rapidly evolved and become a significant criminological issue, research reveals that academia has developed a few significant empirical assessments regarding computer-crime victimization and the potential contribution to this victimization by online users’ characteristics combined with their lack of computer security components. Therefore, the main purpose of this chapter is to discuss two traditional victimization theories, routine activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979) and lifestyle-exposure (Hindelang, Gottfredson, & Garofalo, 1978) theory, and their potential application to computer-crime victimization by examining the theoretical core concepts within these theories. Arguably, these two theories are actually one theory, with Hindelang et al.’s (1978) theory being expanded upon by Cohen and Felson in 1979. These two theories have been, individually, widely applied to various crimes, as discussed below, and they have attempted to tie primary causations of victimization to demographic factors, geographic difference, and traits of lifestyle