Uncrossing the Digital Divide: Continuities between On and Offline Criminal Organisation

• In Event: IASOC Presents: Organized Crime in Cyberspace

Abstract

Whilst most now accept that certain cybercrimes have become ‘more organised’, there is still little detailed understanding of what this means in practice. The assumption that cyberspace is somehow ‘different’ from traditional space has led many to believe that organised cybercrime must also be different from traditional organised crime, whether this is in terms of its targets, its organisational type, or the kinds of perpetrators it involves. In this paper I build upon research which developed one of the first detailed typologies of organised cybercrime groups (McGuire, 2012) to explore how far this is true. I argue that there are in fact key continuities between online and offline forms of criminal organisation and their modus operandi. More radically, when we properly interrogate what ‘organised’ might mean in the context of contemporary offending, I suggest that distinctions between on or offline criminal organisation are now artificial and threaten to hinder rather than to help responses to it. I outline some of the more obvious continuities, consider how law enforcement organisations can make use of these and conclude by setting out some likely developments in the form and activities of organised criminality as society becomes more fully ‘digital’.

Author

• Mike McGuire, University of Surrey, United Kingdom