No abstract

No abstract

Criminological research has demonstrated the significant relationship between deviant peer associations, a lack of self-control, and individual delinquency. These relationships also account for involvement in cybercrime, though these results are based largely on adult samples. There is less research considering juvenile offending online, particularly examining involvement in property-based offenses such as computer hacking. This study utilized an international sample of 48,327 juvenile respondents in the Second International Self-Report of Delinquency (ISRD-2) study to examine the role of gender as a moderating factor in the relationship between deviant peer associations, self-control, opportunity, and self-reported computer hacking behavior. The findings demonstrated different correlates associated with hacking for males and females, as well as differences on the basis of urban and rural residency.

Bullying on the pixel playground: Investigating risk factors of cyberbullying at the intersection of children's online-offline social lives. AbstractAlthough cyberbullying as a serious social problem has received significant attention within the mass media as well as among researchers, experiences of cyberbullying among children in the U.S. are still occurring (Dean, 2012;Salazar, 2010). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between social factors (i.e., sociability, social networking site use, Internet use via cell phones), risky online behaviors (i.e., lying about age, sexting, and harassing others), children's emotional attachment to interactions within SNS, and parental involvement in children's online social lives on the likelihood of being victims of cyberbullying as well as offline bullying. We found that increased sociability and parental involvement decreased the likelihood of being both cyberbullied and being bullied offline; daily SNS use, Internet use via cell phones, emotional attachment to interactions within SNS, and engaging in risky online behaviors increased the likelihood of being both cyberbullied and bullied offline. The findings suggest (1) cyberbullying is not categorically distinct from offline bullying; (2) future research is necessary to explore the qualitative impact of various risky online behaviors on both online and offline bullying; and (3) research is necessary to further understand the qualitative dimensions of parental involvement and emotional investment in online social life in decreasing online and offline bullying.

This study examined the demographic and background characteristic differences between those arrested for child pornography (CP) possession (only), or CP production/distribution, or an attempted or completed sexual exploitation of a minor (SEM) that involved the Internet in some capacity within the context of self-control theory using data from the second wave of the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study (N-JOV2). Results indicate few demographic similarities, which thereby suggest these are largely heterogeneous groupings of individuals. Results also indicate CP producers/distributers engaged in a greater number of behaviors indicative of low self-control compared with CP possessors. Specifically, offenders arrested for CP production/distribution were more likely to have (a) had problems with drugs/alcohol at the time of the crime and (b) been previously violent. In contrast, the only indicator of low self-control that reached statistical significance for CP possessors was the previous use of violence. Moreover, in contrast to CP producers/distributers, full-time employment and marital status may be important factors to consider in the likelihood of arrest for CP possessors, which is congruent with the tenets of self-control theory.