Does a Border Influence Borderless Crime? An Exploratory Study on Macro-social Predictors of State-level Online Property Crime Perpetration

• In Event: Examining Cybercrime Offending and Policy Responses

Abstract

The current study aims to explore macro-social conditions that predict online property crime (OPC) perpetration. Applying a partial least square regression approach, this study examines 1) what existing macro-social indicators of traditional crime significantly predict OPC; 2) what potential macro-level online opportunity indicators significantly predict OPC; and 3) whether these two types of predictor are significantly related to each other. The current study found that some of the existing (e.g., poverty, welfare spending, urbanization, residential mobility etc.) and online opportunity (e.g., percent of household with internet access, number of computers with internet accessibility in public library) indicators were significantly associated with OPC. In addition, these two types of predictors were also found to have a close relationship with one another. Implications of these findings will be discussed.

Author

• Hyojong Song, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley