Further rejection of the cybercrime hypothesis

Abstract

Abstract We recently rejected the hypothesis that increases in cybercrime may have caused the international crime drop. Critics subsequently argued that offenders switched from physical crime to cybercrime in recent years, and that lifestyle changes due to ‘leisure IT’ may have caused the international crime drop. Here we explain how the critics misrepresented our argument and do not appear to introduce anything new.

Keywords

• Crime decline
• Crime drop
• Cybercrime hypothesis
• Lifestyle hypothesis
• Security hypothesis