Phenomenon Digitization

From a criminological point of view, it has to be said that we have created a digital space that knows no physical borders, that is globally oriented and that has therefore also become a crime scene for people of all ages worldwide. This means that it is actually normal for us that a nine-year-old child, for example, can communicate with a 35-year-old Brazilian if he has the language skills, for example. And even this is no longer necessary, because there are many cases where translation software is now used to perform sexual harassment or sexual acts on the Internet, for example. And I believe that this is an aspect that we have to recognise, that the Internet has become global and a global space of interaction and communication without physical borders, in which all people move, which also gives rise to crime, and we still have no solution for this. The Internet was actually designed and constructed by adults for adults. Risks or the problems that arise for children, what kind of challenge they have in a network of adults, that does not really matter. However, we must know that children and young people from the age of ten years are sometimes already 100 percent on the Internet, even through the development of smartphones. This has given rise to a large number of criminologically relevant problems. We have more and more young people and underage suspects for whom we have no mechanisms yet. Why should we? They are growing up in a space of digital narcissism, where you present yourself to get Likes, to get follower numbers. Adults are prepared for this or, at best, are prepared for it. Children and teenagers are unfortunately still not. And tackling this is a challenge that we need to talk about.

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