Double, triple or quadruple hits? Exploring the impact of cybercrime on victims in the Netherlands
| Author | Marijke Malsch,E.R. Leukfeldt,Raoul Notté |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/02697580211010692 |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Double, triple or quadruple
hits? Exploring the impact
of cybercrime on victims
in the Netherlands
Raoul Nott´
e
The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, The
Netherlands
E.R. Leukfeldt
The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Marijke Malsch
Open Universiteit Nederland and Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, The Netherlands
Abstract
This article explores the impact of online crime victimisation. A literature review and 41 inter-
views – 19 with victims and 22 with experts – were carried out to gain insight into this. The
interviews show that most impacts of online offences correspond to the impacts of traditional
offline offences. There are also differences with offline crime victimisation. Several forms of impact
seem to be specific to victims of online crime: the substantial scale and visibility of victimhood,
victimisation that does not stop in time, the interwovenness of online and offline, and victim
blaming. Victims suffer from double, triple or even quadruple hits; it is the accumulation of different
types of impact, enforced by the limitlessness in time and space, which makes online crime victi-
misation so extremely invasive. Furthermore, the characteristics of online crime victimisation
greatly complicate the fight against and prevention of online crime. Finally, the high prevalence of
cybercrime victimisation combined with the severe impact of these crimes seems contradictory
with public opinion – and associated moral judgments – on victims. Further research into the
dominant public discourse on victimisation and how this affects the functioning of the police and
victim support would be valuable.
Corresponding author:
Raoul Nott´
e, Centre of Expertise Cyber Security, SL.6.31, IT and Design Faculty, The Hague University of Applied Sciences,
Johanna Westerdijkplein 75, 2521 EN Den Haag, The Netherlands.
Email: rjnotte@hhs.nl
International Review of Victimology
2021, Vol. 27(3) 272–294
ªThe Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02697580211010692
journals.sagepub.com/home/irv
Keywords
Victims, online crime, cybercrime, hacking, fraud, sexting, stalking
Introduction
As a consequence of the pervasive digitisation of the Western world over recent decades, online
crimes have become an increasing problem in our society today. For example, while bicycle theft
was traditionally the most common offence in the Netherlands, it has been surpassed by hacking
(reported by, respectively, 5%versus 4%of the Dutch population aged 15 and older, 12 months
prior to the self-report survey) (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek [CBS], 2017). The latest
statistics show that 13%of Dutch citizens aged 15 and older have been victim of online crime
(CBS, 2020). Statistics from all over the world seem to show a similar picture. The Crime Survey
for England and Wales reports some 763,000 fraud and computer misuse incidents, which is an
increase of 5%in comparison to the year before. Action Fraud (the official agency to which
cybercrime is reported in England and Wales) recorded an increase in computer misuse offences
over the past year, 2019-20 by 35%to a total of 29,138 offences (Office for National Statistics
[ONS], 2020).
Cybercrimes can be divided into two broad categories (see McGuire and Dowling, 2013;
Leukfeldt and Yar, 2016; Leukfeldt, 2015, 2017). The first is cyber-dependent crimes. These are
‘new’ offences in which information technology (IT) is used to commit the crime and which are
always aimed at IT. Examples include hacking, malware or shutting down websites and networks.
The second category is cyber-enabled crimes. These are ‘traditional’ forms of crime that are now
also carried out using IT. Examples include online fraud and online stalking. In this article, we use
the term cybercrime as an umbrella concept to cover both cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled
crime.
The impact of online crime victimisation is a relatively understudied subject in the field of
victimology. This article offers a contribution to the existing body of knowledge by exploring
different forms of impact via in-depth interviews with victims and experts in the field. Indeed,
despite the increasing prevalence of cybercrime, little research has been done into the impact of
such crimes on victims. Recent studies do show that victims experience (sometimes severe)
financial, psychological and emotional impacts (e.g. Cross et al., 2016; Jansen and Leukfeldt,
2018; Worsley et al., 2017; Reyns and Randa, 2015). A study from the United Kingdom (UK) on
the impact of computer misuse crime, for example, demonstrated that victims experience many of
the impacts that victims of offline crimes experience, whereby the experienced impact varied from
severe to impact that is no more than a little disruption (Button et al., 2020).
Often the impact is aggravated by lack of understanding of the victims’ experience within their
social environment, problems with investigation and prosecution, and lack of support from police
and other organisations (Worsley et al., 2017; Cross et al., 2016). Prevailing victim (support)
policy is based on victims of traditional offline crime and little attention is paid to the experiences
of cybercrime victims (see, for example, Leukfeldt et al., 2018). It is therefore important to better
understand the impact on these cybercrime victims and the differences and similarities between
them and victims of traditional offline offences.
This article presents the results of an exploratory study of cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled
cybercrime victimisation in the Netherlands. The article is based on a report commissioned by the
Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security (see Leukfeldt et al., 2018, 2019). The present art icle
Nott´
eetal. 273
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