To first understand computer crime one must understand first what crime is. Firstly, crime is a behaviour that violates criminal law and is punishable with fines, jail or other sanctions”(Kendall 1999; 161). Yet since computer technology is so new it has really no laws to govern it. Many of the crimes committed on computers often times go unpunished. Many of the crimes that are also committed on computers via the Internet are very new also. New subcultures have formed around the Internet for the possibilities it brings. Computer crime despite the many problems it has brought has also brought some needed social controls to the Intern

Briefly havng explained computer crime, going into further depth into explaining computer crime from the different sociological view theories.. Many of those that commit computer crimes are hackers or people who hack into computer systems for both fun and for gaining access to information. They have formed their own subcultures and hold many different beliefs about the information that is stored in personal computers. Besides forming subcultures, many hackers have learned their behaviour from other hackers.

Since the Internet is a global tool, many of the crimes that are committed extend beyond national borders. For this reason the advent of computer crime have made the global community smaller. What one hacker does on his computer in another country affects you and I. This can be seen with the recent virus “Love bug”, this virus disabled computer systems world wide (Washington Times, 5/18/2000). Yet, because of the quickly advancing computer technology a cultural lag has been created. A cultural lag is a gap between the technical development of a society and its moral and legal institutions. The “Love bug” virus; a set of commands that change computer programming and sometimes destroy files, one example of a virus is a “worm, which is a self replicating program”(Pitchford pages 10-13). The “love bug” virus in the last month crippled global companies by erasing files of any compute

Some topics in this essay:
Computer Crime, Washington Times, Chicago Tribune, computer crime, Security Institute, FBI Chicago, crimes committed, “love bug” virus, bug” virus, “love bug”, Richard Power, crimes committed computers, conflict theory, seen deviant, computer technology, pages 10-13, tribune 1998, cultural lag,