Did cybercrime cause the crime drop?

Abstract

Abstract Recent studies have hypothesised that the international crime drop was the result of the rise in cybercrime. We subject this ‘cybercrime hypothesis’ to critical assessment. We find significant evidence and argument indicating that cybercrime could not have caused the crime drop, and so we reject the cybercrime hypothesis.

Keywords

• Cybercrime
• Offender adaptation
• Internet fraud
• Crime drop
• Crime decline
• Security hypothesis