Cutting through the hyperbole surrounding the dangers of the Internet, Virtually Criminal analyzes online offence data and narratives from cyber citizens to provide an informed understanding of the causes and consequences of cybercrime.

This collection addresses the recent 'inertia' in both critical thinking and the empirical study of cybercrime and policing. The chapters illustrate that cybercrimes are changing in two significant ways that are asymmetrical. On the one hand cybercrime is becoming increasingly professionalised, resulting in 'specialists' that perform complex and sophisticated attacks on computer systems and human users. On the other, the 'hyper-connectivity' brought about by the exponential growth in social media users has opened up opportunities to 'non-specialist' citizens to organise and communicate in...

Using analysis from machine readings of all legislation enacted between 1900 and 2015, this book discusses the social impact of increasingly elastic legislative language on the contemporary workings of the British constitution. Crucially, it shows that vague legislation has a tremendous impact on policy delivery, disproportionately affecting the weakest, in areas including immigration, homelessness and anti-discrimination.