Young cyberspace cowboys and traditional juvenile street hustlers
New kid in town or just an expansion of criminal territory to cyberspace?
Recent statistics regarding offline youth crime generally show downward trends. However, especially among youth, online delinquent behaviour continues to rise, for example the use of online threats and sexting. This is an important concern, given its potential to cause severe harm to those involved.
This is not only the case for victims, but also for society and perpetrators. If young perpetrators continue an online delinquent path, they may end up committing serious crimes that undermine civil law.
To mitigate these consequences, this project aims to examine, through longitudinal research, whether theoretical models relating strain, individual and parenting factors to online youth delinquent behaviour show similarities with the models for offline youth delinquent behaviour.
Although some studies have already been conducted on youth online delinquent behaviour, most only examined a specific type of online delinquent behaviour and mainly from a victim (instead of perpetrator) perspective. Moreover, a comparison with explanatory factors for (later) offline behavior is often missing.
If the results of this project indicate significant differences between these models occur, new theories will be needed. Furthermore, these new insights can help policymakers and forensic practice, since programs and other interventions should be adapted to better meet the specific needs of this ‘new’ young online perpetrator group.
