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Policing the Virtual Community: The Internet, Cyberspace and Cyber-Crime

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Policing Futures

Abstract

The 1980s and 1990s has witnessed the development of an exciting new domain which, warts and all, is potentially free of conventional politics, social order and social regulation. Never before has there been so much ready access to such a broad range of human knowledge and experience. However this ‘cyberspace’, which has been created by the Internet,2 is not without its contradictions. The optimism arising from its potential to democratize access to hitherto restricted knowledge and thus level out some of the social boundaries that have developed both within and across societies is tempered by the nature of this revolutionary new resource. In addition to the considerable benefits that the Internet creates, there are also many opportunities for new types of offending and new forms of anti-social behaviour. Moreover, cyberspace undermines economic, social and political boundaries, posing a considerable threat to traditional forms of governance and creating a challenge to traditional understandings of order.

The following discussion focuses primarily upon policing in the United Kingdom, but draws upon the experiences of the United States and other jurisdictions where appropriate.

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Authors
  1. David Wall
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Northumbria, Newcastle, Australia

    Peter Francis (Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology), Pamela Davies (Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology) & Victor Jupp (Principal Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology) (Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology),  (Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology) &  (Principal Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology)

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© 1997 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Wall, D. (1997). Policing the Virtual Community: The Internet, Cyberspace and Cyber-Crime. In: Francis, P., Davies, P., Jupp, V. (eds) Policing Futures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25980-9_9

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