Crime Gone Viral - (Justice, Inequality, and the Digital World) by Karen G Weiss (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Highlights crime eyewitnesses who use digital technologies to record, share, and watch crime online

In the digital age, crime and efforts to control crime have been transformed by the ability of ordinary citizens to "witness" crime remotely and intervene through smartphones and computer screens. Crime Gone Viral shines a spotlight on the digital eyewitnesses who record, share and watch crime online to elucidate how their responses impact crime outcomes. With the ability to see crime for themselves and digitally intervene from afar, digital eyewitnesses play outsized roles in social control as both capable guardians who help, and as incapable guardians who make matters worse. Digital eyewitnesses also play important roles as storytellers who inform and shape public perceptions about crime and criminal justice.

By placing crime eyewitnesses front and center, Weiss provides a bold and critical framework that challenges existing criminological research that assumes third parties deter crime by virtue of their presence and problematizes traditional ways of thinking about third party social control. Drawing from original survey data and providing examples of real-life criminal cases from both traditional news media and social media to illustrate and analyze digital responses to crime, Weiss identifies three digital eyewitness types: Samaritans, Voyeurs, and Vigilantes. Together, these eyewitness types form the basis of a theoretical framework meant to provide a more nuanced understanding of third-party participation in social control and punishment in the digital age. Ultimately, Crime Gone Viral provides a necessary and comprehensive understanding of crime in the 21st century aimed at developing a theoretical, empirical, and practical understanding of what it means to witness crime in a digital age.

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