Social Development and Cybercrime in China: Evidence from Published Judgments and Media Reports

• In Event: New Developments in Identity Theft and Cybercrime

Abstract

Scholars have observed that new types of crime, especially online offences, are increasing along with the prevalence of advanced technology. Cybercrime then draws substantial attention from multiple disciplines and various empirical studies on cybercrime have been conducted in the West. The present research aims (1) to examine the basic characteristics of cybercrimes in China; (2) to apply macro-level criminological theories to interpret the current situations of cybercrime and corresponding legal responses in China. We employ two data sets in this study. First, using the most recent available big data from China (China Judgments Online database), we obtain 437 cybercrime cases from 2013 to 2017. Second, considering the limitations of the official data, we further collect 56 cybercrime cases reported by two major Chinese media organizations from 2013 to 2017. Consistent with Shelley’s modernization theory, our analysis has depicted the rising prevalence of property-related cybercrime in China. Due to the high level of regional socioeconomic inequality, we also identify the complexity of the cybercrime and the punishment towards similar nature of cybercrime vary significantly across provinces. Policies tackling cybercrime are then discussed to consider such temporal-spatial differences and the low level of rule of law in China and other developing countries.

Authors

• Hua Zhong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Tianji Cai, University of Macau

• Li Du, University of Macau