Out of control online? A combined examination of peer-offending and perceived formal and informal social control in relation to system-trespassing

ABSTRACT

Compared to the offline world, the online environment is more anonymous and therefore less easily controlled. Criminological theories generally show that people are more likely to commit crime when they experience or perceive less formal or informal social control. Consequently, one might assume that people are more likely to commit crime online than offline. As formal social control is lacking, informal social control and peer-offending may be important predictors of online offending. In this paper, we examine to what extent differences in perceived formal and informal online control are related to the likelihood that a person will commit a system-trespassing offense (i.e. malicious hacking). Additionally, we examine peer system-trespassing, and how this may interact with perceptions of formal and informal social control. In the logistic regression analyses we employ eight different measures for perceptions of formal and informal social control, in addition to peer-offending, and control variables. Both direct effects and interaction effects are examined. Our results show that peer-offending is an important predictor of system-trespassing and interaction effects show that perceived formal and informal online social control are related to this type of offending but only for specific groups. Implications will be discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Social control
• system-trespassing
• online crime
• cybercrime
• hacking
• peer-offending

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The survey was administered as part of a larger project on computer security and network usage entitled ‘Deterrence, Prevention and Regulation of Computer Crimes: Human Focused Policy Study.’ The project is directed by Dr. David Maimon and Prof. David Levi-Faur, and is supported by the Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space.

2. The survey targeted all first-year students in introductory courses in the different faculties (Law, Education, Social Work, Humanities, and Social Science). Students in their early 20s were chosen, since the internet forms a very natural part of their everyday routine. In contrast to older populations who have had to adjust to and learn new norms and behaviors that are sometimes very different from the offline world, these students were born into this culture. Moreover, as adults, these students can be held accountable for their online behavior. Their accountability, and their vast use of the internet, expose them to more formal and informal online social control.

3. This response rate is in the common range which varies between 14% to 70% (Porter and Umbuch 2006). The relatively low rate is not surprising given the length of the survey (22 pages) and the fact that response rates to surveys in general have declined dramatically over recent years (Sax et al. 2003).

4. The age and gender profile of these students are similar to those of the population of students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (56.5% of the students are female and the mean age is 25.9), and to the general student population in Israel (54.5% of the students are female and the mean age is 24.7; CBS 2014).

5. Only 2.8% of the participants guessed another person’s password without reporting any of the other system trespassing offences in the survey. However, it was included because it is the first step in system-trespassing and shows an inclination toward this behavior.

6. Running the analyses with non-imputed data resulted in models that were very similar to the ones presented here. Results can be requested from the first authors.

7. In addition to these interaction effects, we also tested interactions between the other social control variables and peer system-trespassing. None of these interaction effects were statistically significant. The results can be requested from the first authors.

8. The other results can be requested from the first authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted with support from the Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space [Grant No. 3-10888].

Notes on contributors

Tamar Berenblum

Tamar Berenblum is the research director of the The Federmann Cyber Security Center – Cyber Law Program, Faculty of Law, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her research mostly focuses on cybercrime, online social control and digital rights. Tamar is also a research fellow of the NSCR (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement) and co-chair of the ESC Cybercrime Working Group.

Marleen Weulen Kranenbarg

Marleen Weulen Kranenbarg is an assistant professor at VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her research mostly focuses on cyber-dependent offenders. In her doctoral dissertation she empirically compared traditional offenders to cyber-offenders on four important domains in criminology: 1. offending over the life-course, 2. personal and situational risk factors for offending and victimization, 3. similarity in deviance in the social network, and 4. motivations related to different offense clusters. She recently started a large-scale longitudinal study into actual vs. perceived cybercriminal behaviour of offline vs. online social ties among youth. Marleen is also a research fellow of the NSCR (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement), board member of the ESC Cybercrime Working Group, and part of the steering committee of the IIRCC (International Interdisciplinary Research Consortium on Cybercrime).

David Maimon

David Maimon is an Associate Professor in the department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the Georgia State University. David’s research interests include cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes and experimental research methods.