The Genetic Factor in Cybercrime: a Twin Study on the Heritability of Online Delinquency

• In Event: Cyberdeviance & Online Delinquency

Abstract

In recent years, an increasing number of criminological studies has focused on the human factor in cybercrime and examined whether online criminal behavior can be explained by the same factors and theories as traditional crime. However, these studies focused almost exclusively on environmental factors as explanation for online delinquency and ignored possible genetic explanations. Twin and adoption studies have shown that virtually all human traits, including criminal and antisocial behavior, are partially heritable. Less is known about the extent to which also online behaviors are influenced by genetic factors. This study therefore examines data on the online delinquent behavior of approximately 2800 German Twin pairs (age 11-23) from the TwinLife study. Preliminary analyses show that, respectively, 14 and 28 percent of the variance in cyber bullying and illegal downloading can be explained by genetic factors. This study will further show how bivariate twin models can be used to examine whether the overlap between online and offline delinquent behavior is attributable to genetic or environmental influences. Moreover, it will be illustrated how discordant twin models can be used to test whether risk factors also have a causal influence on online delinquent behavior.

Author

• Steve van de Weijer, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR)