In high-frequency trading (HFT) fraud, a trader uses a latency arbitrage algorithm to front-run orders—not by lying, but by exploiting the microsecond differences in how exchanges process data. Is this theft? It feels like theft, but it looks like code. Similarly, an AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) may depict no real child, yet it trains on and perpetuates harm.
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 .
We need an algorithmic criminology that studies how code, data structures, and computational incentives create crime opportunities. Crime becomes a failure of system design , not merely a failure of morality.
Criminologists have a choice: continue analyzing the old script as if it were the only one, or learn the new grammar of harm. This paper has argued for the latter. The new script does not replace the old—physical crimes still occur—but it increasingly dominates high-impact, high-volume, and transnational offending. If we fail to understand the script, we cede the stage to those who write it best: the offenders. Criminality New Script
Criminality’s New Script: From Alleyway to Algorithm
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.
A stalker uses a compromised smart lock (IoT device) to unlock a victim’s front door remotely. The intrusion is physical, but the means are purely digital. Conversely, a riot incited by a disinformation campaign on Telegram has digital origins but physical outcomes (looting, arson). In high-frequency trading (HFT) fraud, a trader uses
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.
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Routine activity theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979) must be re-specified. The “suitable target” is no longer just a person or property; it is a vulnerable API, a weak password hash, or an unpatched firmware . The “capable guardian” is not just a police officer or a neighbor; it is a firewall, an intrusion detection system, or a platform’s content moderation algorithm . The “motivated offender” may be a bot, a state-sponsored hacker, or a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) of pseudonymous actors. it engineers trust through synthetic identity.
This paper develops the concept of as a heuristic framework. We argue that three fundamental shifts define this script: spatial hybridity, networked agency, and algorithmic logics. Without internalizing this script, criminology risks irrelevance. 2. Shift One: From Physical to Hybrid Space The old script assumed a dichotomy: crime happens either “online” (cybercrime) or “offline” (conventional crime). The new script collapses this distinction. Criminality now operates in hybrid space —a seamless continuum where digital actions produce physical consequences and physical actions are orchestrated digitally.
Yet, in 2025, the most damaging crimes rarely follow this script. A ransomware syndicate does not “break into” a hospital; it injects code into a vulnerability. A deepfake romance scam does not involve physical coercion; it engineers trust through synthetic identity. A non-fungible token (NFT) rug pull does not involve a weapon; it exploits smart contract logic . These acts are not aberrations or mere extensions of old crime; they constitute a new script —one that demands new theoretical tools.