Michael McGuire – författare

Hypercrime develops a new theoretical approach toward current reformulations in criminal behaviours, in particular the phenomenon of cybercrime. Emphasizing a spatialized conception of deviance, one that clarifies the continuities between crime in the traditional, physical context and developing spaces of interaction such as a ''cyberspace'', this book analyzes criminal behaviours in terms of the destructions, degradations or incursions to a hierarchy of regions that define our social world.

Each chapter outlines violations to the boundaries of each of these spaces - from those defined by our bodies or our property, to the more subtle borders of the local and global spaces we inhabit. By treating cybercrime as but one instance of various possible criminal virtualities, the book develops a general theoretical framework, as equally applicable to the, as yet unrealized, technologies of criminal behaviour of the next century, as it is to those which relate to contemporary computer networks. Cybercrime is thereby conceptualized as one of a variety of geometries of harm, merely the latest of many that have extended opportunities for illicit gain in the physical world.

Hypercrime offers a radical critique of the narrow conceptions of cybercrime offered by current justice systems and challenges the governing presumptions about the nature of the threat posed by it.

Runner-up for the British Society of Criminology Book Prize (2008).

Hypercrime develops a new theoretical approach toward current reformulations in criminal behaviours, in particular the phenomenon of cybercrime. Emphasizing a spatialized conception of deviance, one that clarifies the continuities between crime in the traditional, physical context and developing spaces of interaction such as a ''cyberspace'', this book analyzes criminal behaviours in terms of the destructions, degradations or incursions to a hierarchy of regions that define our social world.

Each chapter outlines violations to the boundaries of each of these spaces - from those defined by our bodies or our property, to the more subtle borders of the local and global spaces we inhabit. By treating cybercrime as but one instance of various possible criminal virtualities, the book develops a general theoretical framework, as equally applicable to the, as yet unrealized, technologies of criminal behaviour of the next century, as it is to those which relate to contemporary computer networks. Cybercrime is thereby conceptualized as one of a variety of geometries of harm, merely the latest of many that have extended opportunities for illicit gain in the physical world.

Hypercrime offers a radical critique of the narrow conceptions of cybercrime offered by current justice systems and challenges the governing presumptions about the nature of the threat posed by it.

Runner-up for the British Society of Criminology Book Prize (2008).

As technology comes to characterize our world in ever more comprehensive ways there are increasing questions about how the ''rights'' and ''wrongs'' of technological use can be adequately categorized. To date, the scope of such questions have been limited – focused upon specific technologies such as the internet, or bio-technology with little sense of any social or historical continuities in the way technology in general has been regulated.

In this book, for the first time, the ''question of technology'' and its relation to criminal justice is approached as a whole. Technology, Crime and Justice analyzes a range of technologies, (including information, communications, nuclear, biological, transport and weapons technologies, amongst many others) in order to pose three interrelated questions about their affects upon criminal justice and criminal opportunity:

Technology, Crime and Justice considers the implications of contemporary technology for the practice of criminal justice and relates them to key historical precedents in the way technology has been interpreted and controlled. It outlines a new ‘social’ way of thinking about technology – in terms of its affects upon our bodies and what they can do, most obviously the ways in which social life and our ability to causally interact with the world is ‘extended’ in various ways. It poses the question – could anything like a ‘Technomia’ of technology be identified – a recognizable set of principles and sanctions which govern the way that it is produced and used, principles also consistent with our sense of justice?

This book provides a key resource for students and scholars of both criminology and technology studies.

As technology comes to characterize our world in ever more comprehensive ways there are increasing questions about how the ''rights'' and ''wrongs'' of technological use can be adequately categorized. To date, the scope of such questions have been limited – focused upon specific technologies such as the internet, or bio-technology with little sense of any social or historical continuities in the way technology in general has been regulated.

In this book, for the first time, the ''question of technology'' and its relation to criminal justice is approached as a whole. Technology, Crime and Justice analyzes a range of technologies, (including information, communications, nuclear, biological, transport and weapons technologies, amongst many others) in order to pose three interrelated questions about their affects upon criminal justice and criminal opportunity:

Technology, Crime and Justice considers the implications of contemporary technology for the practice of criminal justice and relates them to key historical precedents in the way technology has been interpreted and controlled. It outlines a new ‘social’ way of thinking about technology – in terms of its affects upon our bodies and what they can do, most obviously the ways in which social life and our ability to causally interact with the world is ‘extended’ in various ways. It poses the question – could anything like a ‘Technomia’ of technology be identified – a recognizable set of principles and sanctions which govern the way that it is produced and used, principles also consistent with our sense of justice?

This book provides a key resource for students and scholars of both criminology and technology studies.