How Crime Myths Shape Parental Fears of Online Crime

• In Event: Youth, Parenting, and Perceptions of Crime

Abstract

Concerns about crime and safety are passed down from parents to their children through an intergenerational cycle (De Groof, 2004). What parents view as safe or unsafe for their children is often based on crime myths (Rader, 2023) and an important crime myth is of “stranger danger,” where parents view strangers as dangerous in all scenarios. While fear inducing for parents, children are statistically less likely to be hurt by a stranger than a known person and victimization of children is rare (Podana and Krulichova, 2018). Such mythical views on crime mean that parents (unknowingly) teach children to fear crime myths rather than more likely crime scenarios. Parents are faced with additional challenges when it comes to concerns about online environments and the best ways to teach their children about online crime. Rothrock (2018) argued that parents may be “digital immigrants” in this online environment altering how they feel about crime and how they teach their children about online crime risk (Spithoven, 2017). However, the ways that crime myths become safety lessons in the online environment are less understood. This presentation theoretically considers how crime myths and safety lessons are developed by parents in the online environment.

Authors

• Nicole Rader, Mississippi State University

• Remco Spithoven, Saxion University of Applied Sciences