N O W    A V A I L A B L E
In Technocrime, Stéphane Leman-Langlois has done a masterful job of providing a critical examination of how recent technological innovations have changed both the mechanisms of crime commission — new opportunities, new techniques, new offenders, and new victims — and the mechanisms of crime prevention and control — by police, courts, corrections, and the private sector. After reading the collection of articles in this volume, the reader will find themselves reflecting on a recurring theme in Technocrime: technology is neither the cause of — nor the solution to — the crime problem; but by studying technocrime, we can gain a better understanding of the social — and increasingly technological — construction of crime causation, crime prevention, and crime control. Technocrime is essential reading for anyone interested in the consequences of technology on social interaction and social control.

James M. Byrne, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of Massachusetts
 
 

This book is concerned with the concept of "technocrime." The term encompasses crimes committed on or with computers — the standard definition of cybercrime — but it goes well beyond this to convey the idea that technology enables an entirely new way of committing, combating and thinking about criminality, criminals, police, courts, victims and citizens. Technology offers, for example, not only new ways of combating crime, but also new ways to look for, unveil, and label crimes, and new ways to know, watch, prosecute and punish criminals.

Technocrime differs from books concerned more narrowly with cybercrime in taking a broader approach and understanding of the scope of technology's impact on crime and crime control. It uncovers mechanisms by which behaviours become crimes or cease to be called crimes. It identifies a number of corporate, government and individual actors who are instrumental in this construction. And it looks at the beneficiaries of increased surveillance, control and protection as well as the targets of it. Chapters in the book cover specific technologies (e.g. the use of CCTV in various settings; computers, hackers and security experts; photo radar) but have a wider objective to provide a comparative perspective and some broader theoretical foundations for thinking about crime and technology than have existed hitherto.

This is a pioneering book which advances our understanding of the relationship between crime and technology, drawing upon the disciplines of criminology, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, surveillance studies and cultural studies.


Published in English by Willan Publishing. [Amazon.ca]

 
 

Le TECHNOCRIME est l'ensemble des conduites humaines qui sont 1) incriminées et 2) modifiées par l'apport d'une technologie. La société de l'information repose sur une structure technologique de plus en plus poussée, qui touche la plupart des activités des individus. Elle transforme des pratiques qui la précédaient, et en constitue d'autres qui sont sans précédent, dont des crimes.

-Le TECHNOCRIME a un penchant, ou plusieurs penchants : la multitude de pratiques qui visent à le contrôler. Les technologies privées, publiques, policières, administratives, communautaires et individuelles qui servent à surveiller, à interdire, à convaincre, ou à dénoncer des activités jugées indésirables par des individus (seuls ou en tant que membres d'organisations variées). Les raisons motivant ce contrôle sont également variables, de la sécurité à la moralité, en passant par les intérêts commerciaux.

-TECHNOCRIME est un ouvrage qui regroupera des travaux sur l'impact des outils technologiques sur notre perception de la réalité, sur la transformation des pratiques sécuritaires, sur le rôle social donné aux nouvelles technologies dans le discours politique et sur l'utilisation de technologies pour attaquer des individus, des groupes, des États et des entreprises. L'ouvrage sera publié en langue anglaise chez Willan Publishing [Amazon.ca]

 

 

C H A P T E R S

  1. Foreword (Gary Marx)
  2. Introduction: What is Technocrime? (Stéphane Leman-Langlois
  3. Crime and Lawfulness the Age of All-Seeing Techno-Humanity (David Brin)
  4. The impact of Videosurveillance on the Social Construction of Security (Stéphane Leman-Langlois)
  5. Cyberwars and Cybercrimes (Benoît Gagnon)
  6. Policing through nodes, clusters and bandwidth (Johnny Nhan and Laura Huey)
  7. Second Life and governing deviance in virtual worlds (Jennifer Whitson and Aaron Doyle)
  8. Privacy as currency: crime, information and control in cyberspace (Stéphane Leman-Langlois)
  9. Information technology and criminal intelligence: a comparative perspective (Frédéric Lemieux)
  10. Scientific policing and criminal investigations (Jean-Paul Brodeur)
  11. Sorting systems: identification by database (David Lyon)
  12. A view of surveillance (Peter Manning)
  13. Afterword: Technopolice (Stéphane Leman-Langlois)

 

Past publications on technology by S. Leman-Langlois:
Publiés par S. Leman-Langlois sur la technologie :

  1. (2003, 2006) "The Myopic Panopticon: the Social Consequences of Policing Through the Lens," Policing and Society, 13 (1), 43-58; also published in V. Kappeler, The Police and Society, Touchstone Readings, Third Edition, 532-551.
  2. (2005) avec Jean-Paul Brodeur, " La surveillance totale," Cahiers de l'IHESI, no. 55, 61-90.
  3. (2005) "Theft in the Information Age: Music, Technology, Crime and Claims-Making," Knowledge, Technology and Policy, 17 (3-4), 140-163.
  4. (2006) with Jean-Paul Brodeur, "Surveillance-Fiction: High And Low Policing Revisited," Richard V. Ericson and Kevin Haggerty, The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, Toronto: Toronto University Press, 171-198.
  5. (2006) "Le cybercrime comme moyen de contrôle du cyberespace," Criminologie, 39 (1).
  6. (2005) with Jean-Paul Brodeur, "Les technologies de l'identification, une note de recherche," Revue internationale de criminologie et de police technique et scientifique, no. 1, 2005, 69-82.
  7. (2007) with Lucie Dupuis "Les technologies de protection des espaces," M. Cusson, B. Dupont and F. Lemieux, Traité de la sécurité intérieure.