Digital technology is embedded into daily life and cannot be meaningfully separated from ‘real’ world experiences, including those of crime victims (Powell et al. 2018). ONS (2020) estimates that volumes of fraud and computer misuse (e.g. hacking) approximate all other crime combined. These crimes lead to financial losses and impacts on health and wellbeing (Button & Cross 2017). Additionally, tech now plays a role in gender-based violence (Harris & Vitis, 2020) and hate crime (Perry & Olsson 2009, Williams et al. 2020). As such, crimes are increasingly ‘hybrid’, taking place both online and offline. However, the victim response to online harms has been shown to be inconsistent, particularly with respect to identifying vulnerable victims (Skidmore et al. 2020) and addressing repeat victimisation (Correia-Hopkins, 2020). In parallel, victim support services vary widely across geographical areas and the extent to which they are equipped to respond to the role of digital tech is ill understood.
What are our aims?
Researchers at Swansea University in partnership with South Wales Police (SWP) and the Swansea Council for Voluntary Service (SCVS) would like to take stock of the services available to victims locally and understand how we might actively improve them through a ‘Cyber Clinic’ based at the University. Our short-term aims are to (1) explore the extent to which victim services are adequate in a digital world, and (2) develop a ‘Cyber Clinic’ prototype, offering a blend of face-to-face and digital support, to both increase and research individuals’ resilience to and post-victimisation.
Who are we?
This project is led by researchers at Swansea University’s HRC School of Law and the Computational Foundry, in partnership with South Wales Police (SWP) and the Swansea Council for Voluntary Service (SCVS). We are funded by a small ‘Basecamp’ grant from the Morgan Advanced Studies Institute.
What research activities are we planning?
Service Mapping: Desk research will be undertaken to map what support services are available to victims of cyber and hybrid crimes in South Wales.
Practitioner’s Focus Groups: Support practitioners will participate in focus groups to reflect on the impact of digital technology on victimisation and the support that is currently available to crime victims. This data will help refine the service mapping data.
Victim Interviews and Case Study Animations: We will interview individuals of have experienced ‘cyber’ and ‘hybrid’ victimisation, to understand the impact of these crimes and victims’ needs. Data gathered from practitioner focus group and interviews with victims will be used to create (anonymous) animations, illustrating experiences of victimisation to cyber and hybrid crimes.
Co-design Workshops We will run workshops based on established values and practices of co-design. Adapting the interactive ‘Disney method’, we will connect practitioners’ experiences, skills and resources to provide new, practical knowledge about what our prototype Cyber Clinic should look like.
What are the research outputs of this project?
We will co-design a Cyber Clinic focused on restoring the harms suffered by victims of ‘cyber’ and ‘hybrid’ crimes. Our prototype may include the development and delivery of training sessions, as well as a mix of digital and face-to-face support and research activity.
We will develop an interactive map of the support services available to victims in South Wales which will both enable the project team to conduct a gap analysis and generate a resource for project partners and the wider public.
We will also produce a series of short animations aimed at the public, to raise awareness of victimisation and increasing resilience to victimisation.
This project is intended to develop into a larger study and therefore further funding will be sought from funding bodies.
References
Harris, B., & Vitis, L. (2020). Digital intrusions: technology, spatiality and violence against women. Journal of Gender-Based Violence, 4(3), 325–341. https://doi.org/10.1332/239868020x15986402363663
Correia-Hopkins, S. G. (2020, November). Patterns of online repeat victimisation and implications for crime prevention. 2020 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (ECrime). https://doi.org/10.1109/ecrime51433.2020.9493258