NCJ Number
130347
Journal
Crime, Law and Social Change Volume: 15 Issue: 3 Dated: (May 1991) Pages: 255-275
Date Published
1991
Length
21 pages
Annotation
The passage of computer crime laws resulted from the need to incorporate a new form of value within the established framework of property rights and a desire to preserve established relationships between power and knowledge that were threatened by the emergence of computer technology.
Abstract
Forty-eight states passed laws specifically criminalizing unauthorized access to computer-based information between 1975 and 1986. Thirty of these states passed their computer crime laws between 1982 and 1985. This flurry of legislative activity occurred in a climate of concern about the need to stem what was characterized as a "wave of computer crime." Data are presented that indicate that these laws failed to result in any corresponding wave of prosecutions of computer criminals. This suggests that social forces other than an instrumental need for a mechanism to prosecute computer criminals played a role in the passage of computer crime laws. The study of law-making can be enhanced by examining the structural bases for the motives of legislators and advocates of legal change. 62 notes (Author abstract modified)