Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 2005) becomes criminologically useful. Non-human actors (algorithms, smart contracts, blockchain validators) are actants that shape criminal outcomes. A poorly coded smart contract is not just a tool; it is a co-producer of the crime.
Responsibility is distributed and emergent . Legal notions of mens rea (guilty mind) struggle when no single mind exists. 4. Shift Three: From Moral Transgression to Algorithmic Exploitation The old script framed crime as a violation of a moral or legal norm. The new script frames crime as the exploitation of a system’s computational logic . Offenders do not “break rules” so much as optimize loopholes . Criminality New Script
Digital criminology, cybercrime, algorithmic offending, routine activity theory, crime script analysis, post-digital society. 1. Introduction: The Obsolete Script The traditional script of criminality is well-rehearsed. A motivated offender, driven by poverty, peer pressure, or psychopathy, encounters a suitable target (a house, a purse, a person) in the absence of a capable guardian (police, neighbors, locks). The act is physical, local, and temporally bounded: a burglary takes minutes; an assault leaves tangible evidence. This script—rooted in the Chicago School, strain theory, and routine activity theory—has dominated policy and public imagination for decades. Responsibility is distributed and emergent
Criminality’s New Script: From Alleyway to Algorithm A motivated offender