ABSTRACT
Introduction As recent exposed zero-day vulnerabilities, a computer vulnerability for which no solution yet exists, and associated patches show, the arms race between criminal activities and the reaction of public and private parties (Goel & Hong, 2015) is not different when it comes to cybercriminals and those who oppose them (Riley & Vance, 2011). Public and private parties develop interventions that are supposed to have impact on the behavior of cybercriminals – for example, preventing criminals from committing (future) crimes. These interventions can lead to a (partial) reduction of crime. They can, however, also lead to the displacement of crime. Inventive criminals are able to adapt their strategies so that they can still benefit from crime, even when interventions make their activities harder. In criminological studies, these adjustments are called ‘displacement effects’ (Repetto, 1976) or ‘adaptations’ (Clarke, 2009; Clarke & Eck, 2005). An example of displacement effects are the so-called water bed effects, where interventions cause a reduction of crime at one location but at the same time an increase of crime at a nearby location because crime is simply moved to another area. This does not mean that all crime will be displaced to the second location. Literature reveals that crime displacement happens only in certain cases and is rarely 100 percent (Hesseling, 1994).
