Digital Crimes Theories: Social Control Theory Research (Essay Sample)

DIGITAL CRIME THEORIES
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Abstract
Digital crime, otherwise known as cyber-crime is an emerging vice that has been affecting millions of people worldwide. Digital crimes could take the form of hacking into personal email accounts to have access to private and confidential information or even identity theft on social platforms with an aim of committing a crime as someone else. “Digital crimes are the ease of carrying out electronic attacks that adds to the temptation for attackers”CITATION Kan06 \l 1033 (Panagiotis , Nicholas, Martaos, & Kiountouzis, 2006) No one is immune to the dangers of digital crimes. Anyone could get hacked on their personal devices and vital information obtained by the hacker. There are several theories that explain digital crimes. In this paper, I am going to look at two of these theories; Social Control theory and Political Control theory.
DIGITAL CRIME THEORIES
Digital or cyber-crimes are bound to happen to anyone that surfs the digital world especially on the internet. What therefore drives someone to commit a digital crime? There are several theories that have been laid out to help us understand this phenomenon of digital crime. Two theories however, the social control and political control theories are vital in this course.
Social Control Theory
This theory was developed by Travis Hirschi in the year 1969 and was originally known as the “social bond theory”. It tends to ask why people follow the law. According to this theory, people are usually engaged in criminal activities whenever their societal bond weakens “Social control theory refers to a perspective which predicts that when social constraints on antisocial behavior are weakened or absent, delinquent behavior emerges” CITATION Hir69 \l 1033 (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1969) This means that, whenever someone feels a sense of lack of connection with the social world, there is a tendency of them engaging in criminal activity. For instance, someone who breaks ties with the social world and rather opts to be alone is more likely to be tempted to try out a criminal activity, and in this case, a digital crime such as hacking personal files belonging to other people. This theory is composed of four concepts: attachment, commitment, involvement and belief.
Attachment: The strength of the relationship of an individual with others determines their behavior. The stronger the relationship of an individual with other people, the more likely that they will conform to the law and vice versa.
Commitment: The more that an individual gains in being committed to their normal lifestyle such as raising their family and getting a normal job, the more he or she will eventually lose if they engage in criminal activities.
Involvement: An individual who engages themselves in law-abiding activities more often will seldom engage in criminal activities since criminal activities do not form their normal routine of life but just lawful activities.
Belief: This component mainly relates to a person’s upbringing. People raised in a law abiding society will always be law-abiding and will not be engaged in crime since they were taught that crime is not good.
Political Control Theory
This theory holds the view that the society is divided into two or more classes with competing views and ideologies. The classes with more power or rather those that are in authority and have political control usually make the laws of the society which form a basis of control for the other class of people. There may tend to be a difference in ideology between those being ruled and their rulers. Since those being ruled lack the power to make rules of the land as per their preference, they usually tend to engage in deviant activities against the law. These activities are therefore viewed as criminal activities by the ruling class. This theory seeks to give a broader meaning to the concepts of law and justice. There is usually a form of conflict between those in power and those being ruled. For instance, there may be a digital crime attack committed against the government in order to expose it by anti-government groups and eventually overthrow the government. There may also be crimes committed by the government to control anti-government groups. Both of these are criminal activities and the justification of each of them solely depends on which side you are on.
Another theory explaining the causes of digital and non-digital crimes
In addition to these two theories, there is another theory that explains causes of digital and non-digital crimes, which is ...