Citizen-led digital policing and democratic norms: The case of self-styled paedophile hunters

Abstract

Citizen involvement in the provision of security is often presented as a win–win way to relieve pressure on police resources while building stronger, more responsible and democratically engaged communities. Governments in countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have adopted a ‘strategy of responsibilisation’ designed to encourage, enable and support citizens to take on tasks otherwise left for police. Yet, this strategy conspicuously ignores the growing number of citizen-led digital policing initiatives which operate independently without the encouragement or guidance of police. This article considers the implications of this trend for democratic norms in policing. It uses the phenomenon of self-styled paedophile hunters – which are now active in countries around the world – as a case study. The article makes comparisons between such initiatives and other, relatively well-theorised informal security providers, such as vigilante groups and civilian policing. It argues that, like vigilantes, citizen-led digital police often challenge democratic principles of transparency, accountability and the rule of law. Yet, like other civilian policing initiatives, they increase empowerment and participation, and rely for their success on the presence of strong and legitimate institutions of justice, to which they ultimately defer. These characteristics present a discreet set of opportunities and challenges for contemporary policing, which this article argues can only be addressed by strategic police engagement.

Citizen Led Policing in the Digital Realm: Paedophile Hunters and Article 8 in the case of Sutherland v Her Majesty's Advocate

“…It is the interaction between their digital activities and the legitimate state actions that makes these groups effective. 51 These methods have met with some success, with Police Scotland recognising that the activities of these groups accounted for 55 per cent of all recorded grooming cases in the 2018-19 fiscal year. 52 Yet these groups pose a unique risk to individuals' fundamental rights.…”

“I Need You All to Understand How Pervasive This Issue Is”: User Efforts to Regulate Child Sexual Offending on Social Media

“…"Pedophile hunting" refers to the proactive luring and entrapment of suspected child abusers using social media (Hadjimatheou, 2019). In the cases described above, social media users are not seeking out sex offenders; they are not "vigilantes" in any meaningful sense.…”

Cyber Security Responsibilization: An Evaluation of the Intervention Approaches Adopted by the Five Eyes Countries and China

“…Other scholarship has employed similar approaches, utilizing the homeland security policy regime (May, Jochim, and Sapotichne 2011) and risk regimes (Quigley and Roy 2012) consistently with the goal of progressing policy regimes that concentrate policy making on a collective goal across diverse subsystems. Nye (2014, 19) concludes that “internet governance is the application by governments, the private sector and civil society of principles, norms, rules, procedures and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.” Other recent research has proposed that the citizenry has, in effect, become responsibilized—that cyber risk is individualized, thus contributing to the expansive spread and efficacy of cyber attacks (Hadjimatheou 2019; Renaud et al 2018).…”