Criminological Theories Of Hacking

Since the creation of the internet in the late 1960’s, it has expanded even more than it creators could have thought. What was once just used by the government and researcher to share information across the world has now become the driving force of society worldwide, we depended upon it daily. With this expansion we have also seen it become a growing concern for law enforcement agencies around the world; the reason being that criminals have moved their operations from the traditional forms of crime into crime that is based in the cyber world (cybercrime). One of these cybercrimes is hacking, since it has become a massive threat not just to the public and private sectors, but also to national security. With hacking becoming such a threat to …show more content…
The reason being that research focusing on the behavior of hackers and what leads them so commit cybercrime is lacking. Sharma (2007) is one of the few who have looked into many of these traditional criminological theories to understand how hackers think and what is leading them to commit cybercrime. He found that many of the social learning theories along with Skinner’s theory on conditioned behavior were are some of the best explanations for hacking. The reason being that hacking is a learned behavior; it is learned through the online communities that have created a subculture that promotes deviant behavior. On top of the promotion and reinforcement from the subcultures, Sharma (2007) stated that the continuation of hacking could be impart to the reinforcing factors such as the overall fame that the media attention brings to it and the lack of harsh punishment. The other theory that can help explain hacking is the Neutralization Theory, since hackers use its techniques like denial of responsibility, denial of injury, and denial of victim to remove the guilt that could be associated with committing the offence (Sharma, …show more content…
Then on top of this already long list of issues hackers are tech savvy and law enforcement officers usually aren’t and if they are, they do not have the skills needed to combat the hackers.
When it comes to the lack of resources facing law enforcement it can be summed up into one issue they don’t have the money to back a cyber unit. The fact is that to train and hire new officers to have the skills needed, it takes money and to get this money the public has to see that cybercrime really is a growing problem and to see that it has to be reported. However, since the public doesn’t know they have been hacked and most corporations don’t report it, due to the mistrust of the police and fear that the publicity will hurt their image and; law enforcement agencies can’t get the funding revenue (Goodman,