Cybergrooming - An Inventory and Two Conclusions

Abstract

This paper answers a central question concerning the not-so-young but still under-researched digital world from the perspective of criminology, namely whether cybercrime follows different patterns than traditional crime and whether the traditional perpetrator differs from the cyber perpetrator (Bliesener & Schemmel, 2023, p. 1). To this end, the phenomenon of cybergrooming is analyzed and examined from various perspectives. It turns out that novel and digital phenomena are difficult to grasp criminologically, as they follow different logics and can give rise to new types of perpetrators and victims. Digital crimes – as the task of digital criminology – must be classified, evaluated and analyzed differently in order to arrive at the right crime prevention conclusions, for example. While the article’s first conclusion shows that law enforcement in the digital space must be increased, the second conclusion also makes it clear that the human factor, i. e. the people who use the internet, must be strengthened – in this case through digital resilience.