ABSTRACT
Describe the paucity of official statistics
Discuss juvenile, college, and general population sampling issues
Assess the use of online data sources in empirical research
Explore strategies to study under-examined forms of cybercrime offending and victimization
As noted in Chapter 1, research on cybercrime has increased dramatically over the last decade. The majority of criminological research in the 1990s was largely expository in nature, arguing about the nature of cybercrime, the applicability of theory, or offender behavior as a whole (e.g. Goodman, 1997; Grabosky, 2001; Skinner & Fream, 1997; Wall, 1998). The transition to empirical research was not, however, immediately easy or achieved through large-scale survey data collection. Many researchers depended on either qualitative data with interviewees (e.g. Jordan & Taylor, 1998; Taylor, 1999), content analyses of media or court documents (Hollinger & Lanza-Kaduce, 1988; Smith, Grabosky, & Urbas, 2003), or online data from forums and various websites (e.g. Durkin & Bryant, 1999; Meyer, 1989; Quayle & Taylor, 2002). The initial quantitative studies utilized university student populations from single institutions (e.g. Hollinger, 1992; Skinner & Fream, 1997). This trend continues today, though sample populations are continually changing to include minors and adults, providing greater prospective insights (see Holt & Bossler, 2014).