Abstract- Intergenerational continuity of crime in a digital era

A large number of studies have shown that crime concentrates within families and is transmitted between family members. However, all these studies focused on traditional types of crime and little is known about the impact that the behavior of family members can have on cybercrime offending. This study therefore examines the criminal behavior of family members of cybercriminals in the Netherlands. From the population register data of Dutch Statistics, all 979 persons who were prosecuted for hacking between 2001 and 2019,  and whose parents were known, were selected in the sample. In order to select two control groups, these hackers were all matched to one non-criminal person and a traditional offender, based on their gender, age, and country of birth. Preliminary results show that hackers are significantly more likely to have a criminal father, mother, and sibling(s) than the non-criminal controls. However, no significant differences were found with the control group of traditional offenders. These results suggest that cybercriminals reflect traditional criminals in terms of criminal behavior of family members.