Fear of crime has been recognized as one of the driving forces underlying the punitive turn in the criminal justice system. Despite this, evidence suggests that rehabilitative efforts are still supported by the general public. The current study uses a national random sample to examine the impact of fear on public preference for allocating resources to rehabilitative versus punitive criminal justice system policies. Contrary to prior studies, respondents are forced to make a choice between punitive and rehabilitative options, and both the emotional and cognitive aspects of crime salience—fear of crime and victimization risk—are evaluated to determine their independent and combined impact on crime policy preference. The findings suggest that the majority of the public prefers putting resources toward rehabilitative crime polices, but fear of crime and risk of victimization both reduce this tendency. The implications of our results for current criminal justice system policies are discussed.

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We map the available scientific literature on how and why victims of sexual violence use digital platforms in the aftermath of victimization. Twenty-four empirical studies on sexual victimization and online disclosure were identified by systematically searching Web of Science and PsycINFO, checking reference lists, and consulting authors about relevant publications. The literature on online disclosure of sexual victimization does not yield a coherent picture. International literature pays limited attention to the various components of online disclosure like the characteristics of victims who disclosure online and the characteristics of the disclosure messages. Most studies focused on motivations for and reactions to online disclosure. Victims of sexual violence disclose sexual victimization online to seek support for clarification and validation, unburdening, documenting, seeking justice, informing others, or commercial goals (individual-oriented disclosure) and to provide support, educate, and as a form of activism (other-oriented disclosure). Responses to online disclosure are predominantly positive. Negative responses are rare. This review provides a comprehensive overview of multidisciplinary empirical information and displays knowledge gaps in victimological research. Future research should use robust quantitative and/or qualitative designs with substantial sample sizes, comparing victims who do disclose their sexual victimization online to victims who do not and comparing disclosure on different online platforms to increase generalizability. Potential for online support is identified, in which online disclosure can serve as a relatively safe alternative to off-line disclosure. This offers points of intervention for assistance and victim support in facilitating the use of the internet for support for victims of sexual violence.

The Internet, computers, cell phones, and other forms of technology have revolutionized every aspect of human life over the last several decades, including how we communicate, bank, shop, obtain the news, and entertain ourselves (Holt and Bossler 2016). These technological advancements have also created myriad opportunities for offenders to commit various forms of crime. Online crimes are often referred to as cybercrime and occur because 'the perpetrator uses special knowledge of cyberspace' (Furnell 2002, 21). Cybercrime can therefore be viewed as a large umbrella term that encompasses computer-assisted crime in which computers and technology are used in a supporting role, such as the use of a computer to send harassing messages. At the same time, the term cybercrime also includes computer-focused crimes that are a direct result of computer technology and would not exist without it, such as unauthorized computer system trespassing (Furnell 2002; McGuire and Dowling 2013). Cybercrimes can be classified into different categories, including cyber-trespass (e.g., unauthorized system access), cyber-deception/theft (e.g., identity theft, online fraud, digital piracy), cyberporn/obscenity (e.g., child sexual exploitation materials), and cyber-violence (e.g., cyberstalking; cyber terrorism) (Holt, Bossler, and Seigfried-Spellar 2018; Wall 2001). It is nearly impossible to estimate the amount of cybercrime that occurs in most nations across the world because of a lack of standardized legal definitions for these offenses and few valid, reliable official statistics (Holt and Bossler 2016). Evidence demonstrates, however, that cybercrime rates are increasing as the rates for many forms of traditional street crimes continue to decrease (Tcherni et al. 2016). The amount of research on cybercrime has grown exponentially over the last few decades. Much of the preliminary work in this area focused on exploring how the nature of cybercrime and cyberspace differed from traditional crime and terrestrial space (e.g., Grabosky 2001; Wall 1998). A significant challenge for cybercrime scholars, both historically and currently, is the lack of official statistics on most forms of cybercrime. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report's Summary Reporting System (SRS), the most commonly used source for crime data, provides no information on cybercrime or whether any form of technology was involved in the commission of a crime. The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which the U.S. is fully moving to in 2021, also does not provide a specific cybercrime category, but does allow agencies to indicate whether a computer was involved in the commission of a crime. Since necessity is the mother of invention, scholars studying cybercrime were required to collect primary data in innovative ways, such as by analyzing forum discussions, bulletin boards, and blogs, deploying honeypots, and developing field experiments (see Holt and Bossler 2016 for review). In addition, many scholars surveyed differen...