Foundational Work in Criminology and Victimology
Three contributions define my scholarly work: a discipline, a theory and a sub-discipline. Each grew from my conviction that cyberspace is a distinct social space that criminology must study on its own terms.
Cyber criminology (2007)
I coined the term cyber criminology in 2007 and founded it as an academic discipline. In the same year I launched the International Journal of Cyber Criminology, which I edited until 2022, to give the new field a dedicated scholarly home.
I argued that cyber crime could not be fully explained by importing theories built for the physical world, and that criminology needed its own body of theory, method and evidence for online offending. My account of how the discipline developed is set out in Cyber Criminology as an Academic Discipline: History, Contribution and Impact (2018).
Key works
- Jaishankar, K. (Ed.) (2011). Cyber Criminology: Exploring Internet Crimes and Criminal Behavior. CRC Press.
- Jaishankar, K. (2009). The future of cyber criminology: Challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Cyber Criminology.
- Jaishankar, K. (in press, 2027). Cyber Criminology and Victimology: Theory, Case Studies, and New Frontiers. Springer.
From a journal to the curriculum
When I coined the term in 2007, cyber criminology existed as an idea and a single journal. Today universities award degrees, majors, minors and certificates in its name. In the United States alone, at least nine universities now offer programmes named after the discipline, at bachelor's, master's and graduate certificate levels, many of them introduced in recent years.
These programmes teach what I argued the field must be: a criminology of cyberspace that combines criminological theory with technical knowledge of computers and networks, rather than a branch of computer science or a chapter of conventional criminology. Several are taught jointly by departments of criminal justice and computer science, which is the interdisciplinary model I proposed when I founded the field.
A discipline is not established when it is named; it is established when it is taught. Cyber criminology is now taught.
Cyber criminology programmes in the United States
- Florida State University: Cyber Criminology major (BS), in criminology and computer science tracks
- Kent State University: Bachelor's degree in Cybercriminology (fully online)
- Saint Anselm College: Cyber Criminology major (BA) and minor
- Southern Arkansas University: BS in Cyber Criminology (since 2019)
- Indiana State University: BS in Cybercriminology and Security Studies
- University of Alabama: Cyber Criminology minor
- Old Dominion University: Cybercriminology minor
- Lasell University: MS in Criminal Justice: Cybercrime and Cyber Criminology (online)
- Michigan State University: Graduate Certificate in Cyber Criminology and Cyber Security
Programmes that carry the name cyber criminology (or cybercriminology). Similar programmes in cybercrime are offered in the United Kingdom, Australia, the Philippines and elsewhere.
Space Transition Theory of Cyber Crimes (2008)
When I began studying cyber crime, the available explanations borrowed from social learning theory, strain theory, routine activities theory, the general theory of crime and others. I found these inadequate as an overall explanation, because crimes in cyberspace differ from crimes of physical space. I therefore set out to build a theory specifically for criminal behaviour in cyberspace.
Space Transition Theory explains the behaviour of persons who bring out their conforming and non-conforming behaviour in the physical space and in cyberspace. Space transition is the movement of persons from one space to another, from physical space to cyberspace and back again. The theory argues that people behave differently when they move from one space to another.
The postulates
- Persons with repressed criminal behaviour (in the physical space) have a propensity to commit crime in cyberspace, which otherwise they would not commit in physical space, due to their status and position.
- Identity flexibility, dissociative anonymity and the lack of a deterrence factor in cyberspace provide offenders the choice to commit cyber crime.
- Criminal behaviour of offenders in cyberspace is likely to be imported to physical space, and criminal behaviour in physical space may be exported to cyberspace as well.
- Intermittent ventures of offenders into cyberspace and the dynamic spatio-temporal nature of cyberspace provide the chance to escape.
- (a) Strangers are likely to unite together in cyberspace to commit crime in the physical space. (b) Associates of physical space are likely to unite to commit crime in cyberspace.
- Persons from closed societies are more likely to commit crimes in cyberspace than persons from open societies.
- The conflict of norms and values of physical space with the norms and values of cyberspace may lead to cyber crimes.
I have also written the entry on the theory for The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cyberpsychology (2026). A simplified presentation is available on LinkedIn, and I spoke about the theory at TEDxNITTrichy in 2018.
Cyber victimology (2015)
My interest in the victims of cyber crime began long before I gave the field its name. In 2006 and 2007 I was a co-applicant, with Dr. Shaheen Shariff of McGill University, on an international project on cyber bullying funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, where my work focused on the victims of cyber bullying. During my Commonwealth Academic Fellowship at the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of Leeds (2009 to 2010), I researched the victimization of people online. In 2009 I founded the Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling (CCVC), which I led as Executive Director until 2025.
Research and practice showed me that victims of online harm were not receiving the systematic attention that victimology gives to victims of conventional crime. In July 2015, in my keynote address “Cybercrime Victimization: New Wine into Old Wineskins” at the 15th International Symposium of the World Society of Victimology in Perth, Australia, I proposed cyber victimology as a distinct sub-discipline of victimology. The old wineskins of conventional victimology, I argued, cannot hold the new wine of cyber victimization.
I developed the concept fully in my chapter Cyber Victimology: A New Sub-Discipline of the Twenty-First Century Victimology (Springer, 2020), published in a volume honouring the victimologist Marc Groenhuijsen. I have since written the article on cyber victimization for Oxford Bibliographies in Criminology (2026).
Milestones
- 2006 to 2007: Co-applicant, SSHRC project Cyber-bullying: A Project to Address the Policy Vacuum and Develop International Guidelines for Schools, led by Dr. Shaheen Shariff, McGill University, Canada; my work focused on the victims of cyber bullying
- 2009 to 2010: Research on cyber victimization, Commonwealth Academic Fellowship, University of Leeds
- 2009: Founded the Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling (Executive Director until 2025)
- 2012 to 2014: Principal Investigator, Interpersonal Cyber Crime Victimization: A Survey in Eight Indian Cities, UGC Major Research Project funded by the University Grants Commission, India
- 2015: Proposed cyber victimology as a sub-discipline, keynote at the 15th International Symposium of the World Society of Victimology, Perth
- 2020: Jaishankar, K. Cyber victimology: A new sub-discipline of the twenty-first century victimology. In the Festschrift for Marc Groenhuijsen. Springer.
- 2026: Cyber victimization, Oxford Bibliographies in Criminology
Keynote address, 15th International Symposium of the World Society of Victimology, Perth, Australia, July 2015.
New directions
Political victimology
I am developing political victimology as the study of politics, crime, justice and victimization, in my chapter for the third edition of the Handbook on Victims and Victimology (Routledge, in press).
Theological criminology
I introduced theological criminology in my closing keynote at the First International Conference on Criminology and Criminal Justice in Sri Lanka (2024).
AI, deepfakes and crime
My recent keynotes in Serbia, Poland and India examine artificial intelligence, deepfakes and new forms of victimization.