Includes bibliographical references (pages 180-193) and index.

Computer technologies in general and the Internet in particular have had a massive impact on the type and scope of offences being committed, and on the organisation of the policing and detection of criminal and deviant behaviour. Yet the complexities of these new developments and their wider social impact are little understood. This book has the aim of shedding light on the nature of the relationship between crime, deviance and the Internet. Cyberspace opens up infinitely new possibilities to the deviant imagination. With access to the Internet and sufficient know-how you can, if you are so inclined, buy a bride, cruise gay bars, go on a global shopping spree with someone else's credit card, break into a bank's security system, plan a demonstration in another country and hack into the Pentagon ae' all on the same day. In more than any other medium, time and place are transcended, undermining the traditional relationship between physical context and social situation. This book crosses the boundaries of sociological, criminological and cultural discourse in order to explore the implications of these massive transformations in information and communication technologies for the growth of criminal and deviant identities and behaviour on the Internet. This is a book not about computers, nor about legal controversies over the regulation of cyberspace, but about people and the new patterns of human identity, behaviour and association that are emerging as a result of the communications revolution.

SACFinal081324