Exploring Cognitive Decision-making Processes, Computer-focused Cyber Deviance Involvement and Victimization The Role of Thoughtfully Reflective Decision-making

Objectives: Investigate the relationship between thoughtfully reflective decision-making (TRDM) and computer-focused cyber deviance involvement and computer-focused cybercrime victimization. Method: Survey data collected from samples of 1,039 employees and 418 students at a large private university were analyzed using ordinary least squares and negative binomial regression to test the effects of TRDM on computer-focused cyber deviance involvement and victimization. Results: TRDM reduces computer-focused cyber deviance involvement and computer-focused cybercrime victimization across measures and samples. The sensitivity analyses also indicated that TRDM is a more robust predictor of cyber deviance involvement than victimization. The results from moderation analyses showed that, whereas protective effects of TRDM are invariant across genders, they are less salient among older employees for the scenario-based measure of cybercrime victimization. Conclusions: Individual-level cognitive decision-making processes are important in predicting computer-focused cyber deviance involvement and victimization. These results can inform the development of targeted institutional and criminal justice policies aimed at reducing computer-focused cybercrime. </jats:sec

What International Research Has Told Us About Criminological Theory

This chapter explores why people commit crimes. It reveals that there are many competing theories that provide a variety of answers to this question. The chapter reviews and compares the results of research from Western and non‐Western countries, focusing on several theories that seem to have received the most testing in foreign contexts. For the sake of simplicity, these theories are placed in four broad groups: strain (general strain theory (GST)), social learning (social learning theory (SLT)), control, and “other” theories. Several other popular accounts of criminal behavior, such as deterrence, rational choice, and situational action theories, have been more or less extensively tested. In particular, extant cross‐national research has aided in finding out whether sociocultural environments may serve as contingencies for causal processes outlined in theories

MORALITY, SELF‐CONTROL, AND CRIME

This paper offers evidence to specify further Self‐Control Theory by investigating its predictive strength relative to morality and its interconnections with morality in accounting for criminal probability. Using random sample household survey data from Lviv, Ukraine, we confirm that self‐control is an important predictor of criminal probabilities in an unusual cultural context. However, morality is also shown to be a strong independent predictor with strength that seems to exceed substantially that of self‐control. In addition, taking morality into account significantly reduces the coefficients for self‐control, sometimes eliminating them entirely, and morality shows little interaction with self‐control in its predictions of the measures of criminal probability. The results suggest that the recently formulated Situational Action Theory, which features (weak) morality as the prime cause of criminal behavior and questions the relative importance of self‐control, should be taken seriously. Overall, the results confirm the importance of self‐control as a factor in misbehavior; yet, they also provide a mandate for greater attention to morality as a potent variable in understanding misconduct

New Applications of Self-Control Theory to Computer-Focused Cyber Deviance and Victimization: A Comparison of Cognitive and Behavioral Measures of Self-Control and Test of Peer Cyber Deviance and Gender as Moderators

This study tests the effects of behavioral and cognitive measures of self-control on computer-focused cyber deviance and cyber victimization with survey data from 1,036 adult employees. We examine moderating effects of cyber deviant peers and gender in the relationship between self-control, and cyber deviance and victimization. Cognitive and behavioral measures of self-control are negativity associated with cyber deviance, whereas only behavioral self-control predicted reduced cyber victimization. Moderation analyses show that cyber deviant peer associations condition the relationship between self-control, and both cyber deviance and victimization. Gender moderation models reveal no consistent significant effects. The results have implications for the understanding of cognitive predictors of computer-focused cybercrime and victimization, as well as institutional cybercrime prevention policies. Our findings can inform the future integration of self-control and social learning theories in cyberspace

SEVERE SANCTIONS, EASY CHOICE? INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF SCHOOL SANCTIONS IN PREVENTING ADOLESCENT VIOLENT OFFENDING

Although schools in the United States adopted harsher disciplinary policies in the early 1990s, to date, there is little evidence showing whether severe school sanctions against student misconduct prevent crime. Drawing on both deterrence and rational choice theories, we test the proposition that harsh school‐based policies against violence reduce students’ involvement in violent behavior. However, in contrast to prior research that explores the direct link between sanctions and student behavior, we emphasize the role of school sanctions in adolescent cognitive decision‐making processes, hypothesizing that school sanctions against violence condition the effect of thoughtfully reflective decision making (TRDM) on adolescent involvement in violent behavior. We use data from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to test our research hypotheses. The results from a series of multilevel models show that more severe school sanctions against violence (i.e., home suspension and expulsion) disarm the process of cognitive reflection and attenuate the effect of low TRDM on violent offending

Social Learning, Reinforcement and Crime: Evidence from Three European Cities

This study reports a cross-cultural test of Social Learning Theory using direct measures of social learning constructs and focusing on the causal structure implied by the theory. Overall, the results strongly confirm the main thrust of the theory. Prior criminal reinforcement and current crime-favorable definitions are highly related in all three contexts and both strongly predict self-projections of criminal behavior. In addition, effects of prior reinforcement on projected misconduct appear to be both direct and indirect (through crime-favorable definitions). Yet, the findings also indicate that the processes underlying direct effects of reinforcement on criminal probabilities may need to be explicated further. Moreover, some types of definitions may be more influential than other types. Finally, parts of the reinforcement process may be affected by socio-cultural contexts

Anomic Strain and External Constraints: A Reassessment of Merton's Anomie/Strain Theory Using Data From Ukraine

This study provides a new assessment of Merton's anomie/strain theory and fills in several gaps in the literature. First, using the data from the sample of adolescents in an especially suitable and interesting setting, post-Soviet Ukraine, it investigates the applicability of the theory to this context and reveals that predictive powers of anomic strain may be influenced by larger sociocultural environments. Second, it evaluates the possibility of theoretical elaboration of Merton's theory through identifying contingencies such as external constraints on behavior and finds limited support for moderating effects of perceptions of risks of sanctioning and social bonds on anomic strain-delinquency relationships. Finally, it confirms that additional clarifications of the concept of anomic strain may be promising