Cyber harassment : a criminological study evaluating cyber harassment awareness and its victimisation amongst tertiary education students

Abstract

The academic criminology has been slow to recognise the proliferation of criminal activities facilitated by these web-developed technologies, such as the Internet and its multi-facets. The Internet is observed to have become a significant need in people's activities of daily living. Also, with the radical changes that the Internet has brought and is continuing to change social networking, such as Facebook, YouTube and MySpace, problems are seen to emerge with these technologies because they are being used for criminal purposes (Yar, 2006). Nowadays, not only computers have become the targets of crime but crimes, such as cyber harassment, can be committed online (Von Wilsem, 2011). From the 650 responses, the study evaluated and showed that although cyber harassment victimisation did occur among the tertiary students attending the University of Malta, cyber harassment awareness and support are still limited. The harms concerning cyber harassment, such as actively harming the individual/s and targeted communities, has been a recent debate and pressure is exercised to legally prohibit such as hate speech (McGonagle, 2001; Schwartz, 2003). The Routine Activity Theory (RAT) is applied to cyber harassment and its' victimisation. It is argued that cyberspace can create new opportunities for potential offenders, where crime could be committed in an easier way (Moitra, 2005). Cybercrime is challenging the current legal system and law enforcement capabilities to keep society safe because it is different from the real world crimes. As Internet is borderless, states are becoming increasingly dependent on cooperation with each other in fighting cybercrime.