Sociological Analysis of Cybercrimes

Abstract

In recent decades, the world witnessed immense developments and progresses in electronic technologies. Computers and the internet have become necessary tools which are affecting all individual and social dimensions of peoples' lives. With the increased influence of the internet in peoples' lives and in societies across the world, internet and computer crimes have also risen. The peculiar nature and characteristics of cybercrimes as including trans-national and global dimensions, an absence of global agreement around a unified legal definition of cybercrimes, rapid pace of such crimes being committed, lack of certain procedures on mutual cooperation and high prices incurred by the discovery of such crimes have caused judicial and police authorities to face serious challenges. Hence, determination of the nature and the growth rate of such crimes as well as its outcomes seem necessary. The studies done in various human science areas could be promising in this field. The current article, using gathered documents methods, is an introduction to cybercrimes and aims to explore this issue as well as related statistics. It will also review sociological theories provided in this regard and explain these crimes as well. The theories examined will be discussed in form of three general categories of social structure, social process and social reaction.