Exploring the Needs of Victims of Cyber-dependent and Cyber-enabled Crimes

ABSTRACT

The central question of this article is: To what extent and how do the needs of victims of cybercrime deviate from the needs of victims of traditional offline offenses? In total, 19 victims and 22 experts were interviewed. Our study shows that victims of online offenses have the same needs as victims of traditional offenses: ranging from emotional or financial needs to information needs. However, victims’ needs are often not met. Victims state that in most cases, they are not acknowledged as a victim, that no statement is recorded by the police, or no investigation is started.

KEYWORDS:

• Victims
• online crime
• cybercrime
• policing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The review of literature was performed to gain insight into the consequences and needs of victims of both traditional offline offenses and online offenses. Literature was searched via Google search engines, Criminal Justice Abstracts, PsycINFO and Web of Science. The snowball method was also used (looking at the reference list in relevant articles) and contacts with experts and colleagues were used to discover relevant publications.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific Research and Documentation Center of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security.