Looking and crime and deviancy in cyberspace through the social harm lens

This chapter presents an account of the merits of adopting a ‘social harm approach’ in investigating both crime (something that by definition occurs when a law is broken) and deviance (i.e. behaviours that break an accepted code of behaviour, even if they might not necessarily infringe a specific law) in cyberspace. Such an approach allows us to be critical of the social construction of a concept—that of ‘cybercrime’—while it is still evolving, with legal frameworks and social perceptions on cyber-harms, threats and risks yet to be settled.