Interrogating the Respectable Deviant: Buying Unregulated Medicines Online

• In Event: The Online Construction of Crime and Deviance

Abstract

Cybercrime is a topic that has become synonymous with organized crime and high stakes criminal activity. Consequently, there is a neglect of everyday online behaviours that challenge regulation and authority, such as buying unregulated medicine. This paper explores how forbidden activities online might not be seen as deviant to those who engage in the activity. We argue that this occurs via the concept of respectable deviance, utilizing core critical criminological perspectives to construct a three-stage process. First, we look at how the buying of unregulated medicines might be constructed as deviance. We apply debates from critical criminology that weigh up the reality and seriousness of crime, such as left realism. Second, people are compelled to provide justifications for engaging in such behaviour (even if they themselves do not consider it deviant). We draw on techniques of neutralization to understand this process. Third, presentation of self is carefully managed in order to maintain respectability, using the unique nature of the Web itself. This new application of core criminological theories demonstrates the challenges for criminological understanding, namely how the Web has created a new space for potentially deviant behaviours, yet the behaviors themselves are not necessarily unique.

Authors

• Craig Webber, The University of Southampton

• Lisa Sugiura, University of Portsmouth