Crime Drop or Police Recording Flop? On the Relationship between the Decrease of Offline Crime and the Increase of Online and Hybrid Crimes

• In Event: International Studies in Criminology: Challenges and New Directions for Research

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationship between the drop in traditional crimes in Western highly industrialized societies and the evolution of cybercrime. It reviews the criminological debate on the crime drop, which shows that there is not agreement about its causes. The discussion seldom took into account the trends in cyber-related offences. The paper also arrives to the conclusion that European police statistics rarely include cybercrimes and, when they do, the available data do not allow establishing trends nor conducting comparisons across countries. The difficulties related to the recording of such crimes are discussed and a proposal for a tripartite classification of crimes that distinguishes between offline, online, and hybrid crimes is advanced, together with suggestions on the statistical counting rules that could be applied to measure the frequency of cyber-related offences. Finally, a review of the available victimization surveys shows that cybercrime could currently represent between one-third and half of the crimes committed in a country. Accordingly, the authors consider that the rise of online and hybrid crimes have contributed to the drop of offline crimes.

Authors

• Marcelo F. Aebi, University of Lausanne

• Stefano Caneppele, University of Lausanne