New Wine in Old Bottles: Alternative Narratives of Cybercrime and Criminal Justice?
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022018320952555 |
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
New Wine in Old Bottles:
Alternative Narratives of
Cybercrime and Criminal
Justice?
Chrisje Brants
Northumbria University Law School, UK
Derek Johnson
Northumbria University, UK
Tim J Wilson
Northumbria University Law School, UK
This special issue contains four articles by colleagues researching police investigations on The TOR-
network and has benefited from discussions with Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian colleagues in the same
research project.
1
TOR is probably the most popular internet browser and location of hidden services
available in anonymous communication networks (ACN), moreoften referred to in the media as the ‘dark
web’. We have not,however, framed our researchfindings within an overarchingnarrative that the ‘digital’
or ‘post-digital’ age is so transformative or disruptive that everything related to cybercrime may have to
change or be invented anew—after all, cybercrime is still crime and cyber policing is still policing and as
such is subject to the legalrestraints (and resulting dilemmas) with regard to howto balance the individual
right to be free from state interference with the need for (online) security and social safety. At the same
time, there are several issues that make crime on the dark web a particularly intractable problem and
compound its policing: the sheer volume of offences, the transnational nature of cybercrime and con-
comitant problems of jurisdiction, the degree of anonymity afforded to users of TOR, the potential for
infringement of fundamental rights inherent in policing the internet and the dark web in particular.
Indeed, it has been found that the volume of dark web-sites supporting what, in any legal jurisdiction
is likely to amount to criminal activity, was very similar to what would only be regarded as illegal
activity under the laws of an authoritarian state, such as the protection of freedom of fundamental rights
through TOR’s facility to hide a whistle-blower’s identity, ensure the anonymity of journalistic sources,
Corresponding author:
Chrisje Brants, Professor of Law, Centre for Evidence and Criminal Justice Studies, Northumbria University Law School, New-
castle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK.
E-mail: chrisje.brants@northumbria.ac.uk
1. Our colleagues are based at the Netherlands Open University, NHL University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands Police
Academy, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Norwegian Police University College and Stockholm University.
The Journal of Criminal Law
2020, Vol. 84(5) 403–406
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022018320952555
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