Cyber Victimology A New Sub-Discipline of the Twenty-First Century Victimology

Jul 10, 2026

The chapter introduces cyber victimology as an emerging sub-discipline within twenty-first century victimology, linking the growth of cyber space to evolving patterns of victimization. It explains how anonymity, easy offender access, and novel online criminal formats enable offenders to harass victims more strategically than in offline settings. The discussion outlines cybercrime typologies, including cyber-trespass, deceptions and thefts, cyber-pornography, and cyber-violence, and further analyzes cybercrime’s impacts through machine-mediated and content-mediated angles.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

Cyber Victimology: A New Sub-Discipline of the Twenty-First Century Victimology

Introduction

Cybercrime typologies and analysis

Crime mediated by computer networks

Chapter 1 Cyber Victimology: A New Sub-Discipline of the Twenty-First Century Victimology K. Jaishankar Me, Marc and His Indelible Mark: A Cherished Journey I am very happy to be invited by the Editors of this Festschrift for Prof. Dr. Marc Groenhuijsen. Marc has travelled (and is still travelling) with me, in a journey, which I will always cherish. Notably, he was with me when I was a PhD Student until I became a Full Professor and he still continues to be with me as a friend, philosopher and guide. I first met Marc in the year 2000 (when I was a PhD Student), when he visited the Department of Criminology, University of Madras, Chennai, India. Though our meetings on those days were short, it was always fruitful in terms of knowledge dissemination. Though we had more online interactions, we also interacted in a few physical meetings at some significant victimology events (SASCV Jaipur, 2011; WSV Hague, 2012; SCS Stockholm, 2012; SASCV Kanyakumari, 2013; WSV Perth, 2015) . In 2016, I became a Full Professor of Criminology and Head of the Department at Raksha Shakti University, Gujarat, India and met him at Jindal Some parts of this chapter are derived from earlier publications of the author: Jaishankar, K. (2012) . Victimization in the Cyber Space: Patterns and Trends. In S. Manacorda (Ed.) . Cybercriminality: Finding a balance between freedom and security (pp. 91–106). Milan, Italy: International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme (ISPAC) . ISBN 978-88-96410-02-8 Jaishankar, K. (2013) . Cyber Victimization: New Typology and Novel Trends of Interpersonal attacks on the Internet. In Korean Institute of Criminology (Ed.) . Information Society and Cybercrime: Challenges for Criminology and Criminal Justice (pp. 31–47) . Seoul, Korea: Korean Institute of Criminology. Research Report Series 13-B-01.ISBN 978-89-7366-002-5. Reproduced with permission. K. Jaishankar (*) School of Criminology and Crime Science (Block E), Raksha Shakti University (Police and Internal Security University), Lavad, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 3 J. Joseph, S. Jergenson (eds.), An International Perspective on Contemporary Developments in Victimology, [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41622-5_1](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41622-5_1) 4 K. Jaishankar Global University, New Delhi for the 18th International Congress on Criminology (December, 2016) and he rejoiced my success of becoming Full Professor. My interactions with Marc mentioned above are only some highlights. Our interactions are unfathomable, and our academic relationship continues… Marc is one of the pillars of my success in academia and with profound pride and gratitude, I would mention that,“Marc has made an indelible mark on my life”. Introduction The internet has transformed many of our lives and now more people have started inhabiting in cyber space. However, as any technology has the possibility to be misused, internet is no different. Many of the dangers, threats, and annoyances that plague society in general can also be found on the Internet. Internet has provided an easy platform to offenders to perform various criminal activities in novel forms. Added with this is the nature of patterns of anonymity protection shields offered by various websites, which has helped the perpetrators to harass the victims in much more shrewd fashion than in the offline crime scenarios. Whereas some crimes such as illegally accessing victim’s private data, computer and computer networks and modifying the content, defamation, etc. are done to harm the good reputation of the victim, some other sorts of offenses like data theft, identity theft and even cyber terrorism are also done for personal gain, besides harming the reputation of the victim (Jaishankar 2012, 2013) . Wall (2005, revised in 2010) has pointed out that the term cyber crime does not necessarily de

FAQs

What problem does the chapter address in relation to victimology and cyber space?

The chapter addresses how the internet’s expansion and misuse create new kinds of dangers, threats, and annoyances that increasingly produce victimization patterns in cyber space.

How does the chapter characterize cybercrime through categorization?

It summarizes a four-category framework: cyber-trespass, cyber-deceptions and thefts, cyber-pornography, and cyber-violence, each linked to different harms and activities.

Why does the chapter argue cybercrime can enable more sophisticated harassment than offline crime?

It attributes this to the anonymity protection shields provided by websites and the ease of access that offenders gain through cyber space, allowing shrewder attacks on victims.

Jul 10, 2026

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