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Space transition theory and its empirical applications in cybercrime research: a PRISMA-guided systematic review (2007 to 2025)

Suleman Lazarus ; Yushawu Abubakari (2026) — Crime, Law and Social Change

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DOI: 10.1007/s10611-026-10277-2 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   Global
Tags:   Anonymity, Cybercrime, Digital Platforms, Human Computer Interaction, Identity Flexibility, Romance Scams, Space Transition Theory, Systematic Review
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Synopsis

            
This PRISMA-guided systematic review examines Space Transition Theory (STT) and its empirical applications in cybercrime research from 2007 to 2025, identifying 19 peer-reviewed studies that explicitly engage with STT. The authors categorize the evidence base by research design (10 qualitative, 7 quantitative, 2 mixed-methods) and by cybercrime contexts, including cyberbullying, online romance and grooming, cryptocurrency fraud, and other online offenses. The study documents STT’s core claims—such as identity flexibility, dissociative anonymity, and spatial disinhibition—as useful for analyzing how digital platform affordances shape offline-to-online behavioral transitions. It also notes STT’s alignment with Human-Computer Interaction concerns about how interface design can mediate conduct. At the same time, the review highlights several limitations. STT shows uneven explanatory reach, often under-specifying sociocultural meaning-making, structural inequality, and platform-specific architectures. Many studies supplement STT with additional theories (e.g., cultural, structural, or digital-sociology perspectives), and several critiques call for incorporating material and contextual factors—such as digital exclusion, economic precarity, and spiritual or cultural logics—into the framework. The authors conclude that STT remains a useful mid-range scaffold for studying behavioral discontinuities across spaces but should be recalibrated and integrated with interdisciplinary approaches. They advocate a hybrid model that preserves STT’s emphasis on anonymity and mobility while embedding it within structural, cultural, and design-informed analyses to better capture the realities of contemporary cybercrime. Limitations include language bias and the focus on studies that explicitly apply STT, potentially omitting relevant but non‑explicit usages.

          

        
        
        
        
              

    
    

        
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