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Cyberkriminalität im Kontext von Partnerschaft, Sexualität und Peerbeziehungen: Zur Cyberkriminologie des digitalen sozialen Nahraums

Martin Rettenberger ; Fredericke Leuschner (2020) — Forensische Psychiatrie, Psychologie, Kriminologie 14, 242–250

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DOI: 10.1007/s11757-020-00612-1 (opens in a new tab)

Country:   Germany
Tags:   Cybercrime Review, Financial Exploitation, Germany, Online Platforms, Romance Scamming, Romance Scams, Trust Building, Underreporting
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Synopsis

            
This publication is a narrative review that surveys criminological and forensic research from the German-speaking region on cybercrime manifestations that occur in the contexts of partnerships, sexuality, and peer relationships. It foregrounds how the Internet as a social space has both transformed traditional forms of wrongdoing and given rise to new digital behaviors. The authors summarize central criminal-behavioral expressions in this domain—cyberstalking, cybergrooming, cyberbullying (or cybermobbing), and love/romance scamming—and discuss how these phenomena have grown in importance over recent years, underscoring the call for a distinct cybercriminology to study them. In examining how these offenses unfold, the article integrates theoretical perspectives, notably Routine Activity Theory, to explain how online environments may provide favorable conditions for offending and for victimization. It highlights the interplay of technological affordances (e.g., anonymity, vast reach) with social dynamics (intimacy, relationships, peer interactions) and notes that the digital space both enables crime and complicates prevention and law enforcement. The review acknowledges definitional variability and measurement challenges, including inconsistent terminology, diverse methodological approaches, and substantial underreporting or dark-field conditions that hinder precise prevalence estimates. It also reflects on offender and victim characteristics, with recurring references to gender, age, and relational status, while cautioning against overgeneralization given mixed evidence and mixed data sources. The authors conclude that the cybercrime forms linked to partnerships and sexuality demand adaptation of theories and prevention strategies to the digital realm, as well as attention to policy and policing tools appropriate for online contexts. They emphasize ongoing gaps in reliable data and call for more standardized definitions and methods to better track trends, outcomes, and preventive impacts. The piece does not offer practice recommendations beyond these broader implications.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
Key aspects of cybercrime phenomena remain insufficiently known, including definitional agreement and comparable measurement. The article specifically notes that reliable frequency estimates for scamming in Germany are unavailable, while underreporting is likely. These gaps limit robust knowledge of prevalence, development, and offender and victim characteristics.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
Narrative review article summarizing criminological and forensic findings, primarily from German-speaking contexts, on cyberstalking, cybergrooming, cyberbullying, and love/romance scamming. It synthesizes prior studies, police statistics, theoretical perspectives, and prevention recommendations; it does not report original data collection.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
As a broad review, the article relies on existing literature and police statistics rather than new empirical data. It reports inconsistent definitions and measurement approaches, limited representative evidence for some phenomena, uncertain scamming prevalence, and substantial dark figures due to nonreporting. These constraints reduce comparability and the reliability of prevalence estimates.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Develop more consistent definitions and measurement methods to enable reliable, comparable research on prevalence, trajectories, criminological development, and offender and victim characteristics. Strengthen a specific cybercriminology for digital offenses in intimate, sexual, and peer contexts.

          

              

    
    

        
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