Reporting cybercrime victimization: determinants, motives, and previous experiences

Abstract

PurposeCybercrime rates have increased rapidly during the last couple of decades, resulting in cybercrimes becoming common crimes. However, most victims do not report cybercrimes to the police. Therefore, this study examines reporting cybercrime victimization and provides insights into the role of the police in this process.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 595 individuals was used. All respondents were shown three vignettes about hypothetical cybercrime victimization and were asked to imagine that this situation happened to them. Four crime and reporting characteristics were manipulated across vignettes. Respondents' intentions to report to the police and to other organizations were used as the dependent variables in regression analyses. Four random factors in the vignettes (i.e. type of crime, seriousness of crime, victim–perpetrator relationship, and reporting modality), as well as several characteristics of the respondents were included in the regression models as independent variables.FindingsThe type of cybercrime is the most important predictor for reporting behaviors. Other determinants are: more serious offenses were more often reported and offenses are less often reported in situations where the victim personally knows the perpetrator. Furthermore, there is large discrepancy between intended and actual cybercrime reporting. These findings provide valuable insights into the factors that influence reporting behavior in the real world. Only a fifth of respondents indicated that they would not report cybercrime victimization to the police. This implies that attempts at improving reporting rates should not solely be focused on improving people's attitudes, but also on removing obstacles to turn these attitudes into actions.Originality/valueIn the current study, the authors contribute to the existing literature by asking a large sample from the general population in the Netherlands about both their intended reporting behavior (i.e. a vignette study) and their actual reporting behavior (i.e. self-reports) of victimization of a wide variety of different types of cybercrime. Determinants of both reporting to the police as well as to other organizations are examined. Moreover, respondents are asked about motivations behind their decision to (not) report a cybercrime to the police. Last, people were asked about their past experiences with reporting cybercrime victimization to the police.

Shifting the Blame? Investigation of User Compliance with Digital Payment Regulations

“…Interestingly, only 13.1% of offenses were reported to the police, which is in line with the 12.5% report rate found in the current study. Although Van de Weijer et al (2020) also found that victims were more likely to report their victimization to other organizations than the police (33.2%), this effect was much larger in our study (87.5%). The low cybercrime occurrence in our study has methodological implications.…”

“…From a victim point of view, this decision to reach out to other organizations than the police is understandable. The majority of cybercrime victims have negative experiences with reporting their victimization to the police (Van de Weijer et al, 2020) and banks play a role both in the detection of anomalies to prevent cybercrime from happening and in incident handling once the crime has occurred. It is therefore not strange that banks have taken several measures to increase user compliance, including the implementation of several Information Security Awareness (ISA) programs (Bauer, Bernroider, & Chudzikowski, 2017) and recommendations for the security of Internet payments by the European Central Bank (ECB), 2013).…”

“…The occurrence of cybercrime in this sample is low compared to cybercrime victimization in other studies. For example, Van de Weijer et al (2020) conducted a study on police reporting of cybercrime victimization, relying on a larger and more representative sample. In their study, 303 out of 595 participants (50.9%) indicated victimization of cybercrime.…”

From feeling like rape to a minor inconvenience: Victims’ accounts of the impact of computer misuse crime in the United Kingdom

“…Some experience no loss so don't bother to report. Some think it's unlikely the police will do anything to name some (see Button and Cross, 2017;Leukfeldt et al, 2020;van de Weijer et al, 2019;van de Weijer et al, 2020).…”

Fuentes de datos para la investigación de la delincuencia en España

“…El reflejo de los ciberdelitos en las estadísticas oficiales podría estar afectado, en mayor medida que los delitos tradicionales, por factores relacionados con la infra-denuncia. Algunos estudios han mostrado que las cibervíctimas denuncian con menos frecuencia que las víctimas de delitos convencionales (Van de Weijer et al, 2020). El bajo índice de denuncia de los ciberdelitos puede verse afectado por diversos factores relacionados con el desconocimiento por parte de la víctima de su propia cibervictimización, la reticencia a denunciar por parte de la víctima debido a la poca gravedad de los hechos sufridos o a la desconfianza en la detección del autor.…”